FedEx CEO: AI Could Help Fix A $1.8 Trillion Global Supply Chain Problem

**Alyson Shontell** (0:00)
Moving nearly two trillion dollars worth of goods every year, FedEx is deeply connected to the flow of global trade. Facing unpredictable tariffs, fleet disruptions, and intense competition, the company is entering a new era of re-globalization, where automated belt systems, edge robotics, and new trade patterns are rewriting the rules of global supply chains.

**Raj Subramaniam** (0:18)
In essence, we are moving from one equilibrium state to another equilibrium state.

**Alyson Shontell** (0:23)
I'm here in Memphis where FedEx is headquartered, and I spoke with CEO Raj Subramaniam. We talked about his rise within the company from the lowest level possible up to the CEO seat, how he's overhauling the logistics company and taking it through three transformations and how he's thinking about AI, robotics, and the future of the company.
I'm Alyson Shontell, and this is Fortune 500 Titans and Disruptors of Industry. We'll be back after a brief message from our sponsor.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:55)
Fortune spoke with Deloitte US. CEO Jason Gersotis on maximizing AI agents and what CEOs should consider as they assess and prioritize use cases for AI.

**Jason Gersotis** (1:06)
This is on the topic of every CXO conversation I'm a part of, and I think the thought process has to be looking for high impact areas that may not be necessarily the most glamorous or high profile functional areas, are ripe for automation and use of this technology to create efficiencies as well as innovation. And over time, AI agents will be also in customer facing and growth oriented domains. In our case, Deloitte, we're using it within our finance organization looking at very mundane processes like expense management and working capital management. We're seeing other organizations using in call centers and with software development that can be automated.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:50)
What are the key elements for successfully implementing AI agents?

**Jason Gersotis** (1:54)
Comes down to intentionality. And so I think that intentionality in going functional area by functional area, in concert with business and IT leadership in an enterprise, it needs to be a mainstream business planning effort that's budgeted, that's KPIs are developed, and there's real accountability for actual business outcomes and impact because of agentic capabilities.

**Alyson Shontell** (2:18)
Raj, thank you so much for having me here in Memphis at your FedEx Experience Center. It's a gorgeous, huge facility, and it's an honor to be with you.
You're a Fortune 500 number 50 CEO.

**Raj Subramaniam** (2:30)
Well, Alyson, great to see you in Memphis, and we would love to have you in Memphis. And I'm glad that you are right here in our Experience Center, and we look forward to this conversation.

**Alyson Shontell** (2:40)
Yeah, thank you. I was just saying, I've had my second helping of barbecue, so I'm good for this interview.
So I know you move about 18 million packages all over the world on average per day. That is a lot of insight that you have into the physical economy and just the global economy at scale. And I'm curious as you look at all the metrics that you have at your disposal, what are the things that you're seeing about the global economy that the rest of us might not have from your vantage point?

**Raj Subramaniam** (3:07)
Yeah, well, that's an excellent question, Alyson. First of all, these 18 million packages, actually they represent shipments from about two to three million active shippers and about 300 million recipients around the world. And we are in the center of this ecosystem.
The interesting thing is that it also generates two petabytes of data every single day.
But about the system, so we see the supply chains from the bottom up. In many ways, we are the referendum on global supply chains. This may not have been that interesting two or three years ago, but it is very interesting today because the supply chain patterns are changing very rapidly. I've been doing this for 35 years and I've been watching this flows. And we had one set of equilibrium over this period of time. And in 2025, we had a lot of changes. And I've never seen a change in one year like we have seen in 2025 I'll let you know what I mean. For example, the US import was down and US export was up. And those combinations thereof haven't seen in a long time. The intra-regional traffic is up.
We have Latin America inbound up significantly. A lot of countries, Southeast Asia, India, they're growing very rapidly. So, it's all happening all at the same time. In essence, the supply chain patterns are changing. And we are moving from one equilibrium state to another equilibrium state. And we are in the middle of such a transition. And, you know, I just coined the term re-globalization to kind of capture the point. But it's a very interesting time as we are watching these changes happen firsthand in real time.