AI shipping tools
By Marc-André Guindon
Published on November 9, 2026
In short
How Lazr’s AI shipping software reads customs invoices, packs orders, weighs parcel against freight and works in ChatGPT and Claude. Lazr is a shipping platform for the U.S. and Canada whose AI shipping tools and decision engines settle how each order ships, as parcel or as LTL (less than truckload) freight, before a label is…
In short
How Lazr’s AI shipping software reads customs invoices, packs orders, weighs parcel against freight and works in ChatGPT and Claude. Lazr is a shipping platform for the U.S. and Canada whose AI shipping tools and decision engines settle how each order ships, as parcel or as LTL (less than truckload) freight, before a label is…
How Lazr’s AI shipping software reads customs invoices, packs orders, weighs parcel against freight and works in ChatGPT and Claude.
Lazr is a shipping platform for the U.S. and Canada whose AI shipping tools and decision engines settle how each order ships, as parcel or as LTL (less than truckload) freight, before a label is printed or a bill of lading (BOL) is generated. It reads commercial invoices, packs Shopify orders into boxes and pallets, compares parcel with LTL, ranks your own carrier rates against Lazr’s and works inside ChatGPT and Claude. Ask your AI assistant about your shipments, or have it prepare one, in plain words.
Key takeaways
- Lazr works inside ChatGPT and Claude today: find orders, check tracking, read order history and prepare a shipment. Submitting from your assistant is coming soon.
- Lazr Lens AI reads your commercial invoice and pre-fills the customs fields the carrier needs.
- BoxSelect, PalletSelect and ShipMode choose the box, the pallet, and parcel or LTL before pricing. They run on Shopify stores today and are coming soon to the Lazr portal.
- Lazr ranks your negotiated carrier rates and Lazr’s rates in one list, and HS Select and the Landed Cost Calculator estimate Canadian duties and taxes before a shipment to Canada leaves.
Lazr’s AI shipping tools and decision engines at a glance
Lazr handles the shipping decisions that cost the most before the label prints: which box, which pallet, parcel or LTL, which rate and which customs data. Those calls set the price of a shipment long before anyone reviews last month’s invoices.
The expensive mistakes happen early: six parcels that should have been one pallet, a customs form retyped by hand at 4:55 pm, a rate paid because nobody checked it against your own contract. Here is what runs under the hood today.
| Feature | Problem it solves | What it does | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lazr in ChatGPT and Claude (MCP) | Shipping data locked inside one more dashboard | Lets ChatGPT, Claude and other MCP assistants find orders, check tracking, read order history and prepare a full shipment, within your permissions | Available now Submit, label and dispatch from the assistant: coming soon |
| Lazr Lens AI | Retyping customs data from an invoice you already have | AI that reads the commercial invoice, extracts line items, checks totals and pre-fills the customs fields | Available now |
| Lazr BoxSelect | Multi-item orders quoted as separate parcels | Packing optimization that fits every item in the cart into your own boxes | Available now on Shopify stores Lazr portal: coming soon |
| Lazr PalletSelect | Freight quoted on rough estimates | Load optimization that builds the pallet within its height and weight limits | Available now on Shopify stores Lazr portal: coming soon |
| Lazr ShipMode | Shipping by the wrong mode | Rules-based decision engine that quotes parcel and LTL in parallel, flags when to switch and models overflow and split options | Available now on Shopify stores Lazr portal: coming soon |
| Rate comparison | Contract rates never checked against platform rates | Ranks your carrier rates and Lazr’s carrier rates in one list | Available now |
| Lazr HS Select | Missing Harmonized System (HS) codes | Suggests the right HS code for you to confirm, through a carrier classification API | Available now AI-powered HS classification: coming soon |
| Landed Cost Calculator | Surprise duties and taxes on shipments to Canada | Estimates goods value, shipping, Canadian duties, taxes and fees, using the HS code from HS Select | Available now Landed Cost Guarantee: coming soon |
Lazr in ChatGPT and Claude: ask, prepare, and soon ship
Lazr works inside ChatGPT, Claude and other AI assistants that support the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the open standard for connecting AI assistants to business tools. Ask about your shipments in plain words, and have your assistant prepare a complete shipment in Lazr, ready for you to submit.
Ask “Which of our shipments to Chicago are still on the way?” and your assistant lists them with their status. Then tell it what you’re sending and where, and it fills in the whole order in Lazr, up to the point where you submit it.
What you can do today
- Find your orders by status, date, carrier, order number or reference: “last week’s LTL orders” or “everything still on the way”.
- Check tracking: where a shipment is right now, with the carrier’s latest update.
- Read an order’s history: every tracking event, the order’s documents, and its price and invoice status when your role shows them.
- Prepare a shipment: describe what you’re shipping and where, and your assistant prefills the full order in Lazr, ready for you to review and submit.
Two orders to New Jersey are on the way:
Done. I’ve prefilled the order in Lazr, ready for you to review and submit.
- Route
- Laval, QC to Chicago, IL
- Load
- 2 pallets · chairs · LTL
- Pickup
- Tomorrow, Oct 30
A Lazr agent that ships for you Coming soon
Submit the order and generate the label for parcel, or dispatch your LTL freight, right from ChatGPT or Claude.
You stay in control
Your assistant connects with your own Lazr sign-in, and nothing happens until you approve it. It sees exactly what you see in Lazr: the same orders, and prices only if your role shows them.
Today it can look things up and prepare a shipment, but it cannot submit, book, change or cancel anything. The final submit is yours.
Lazr turns the connection on for your organization, your administrator chooses which roles may connect, and you can disconnect at any time. To get it for your team, ask your Lazr account manager.
Lazr Lens AI: customs data without retyping
Lazr Lens AI reads your commercial invoice and turns it into the structured customs data the carrier requires, pre-filled in Lazr for you to review. No one has to retype a document that already exists.
Every cross-border shipper knows the problem. You upload the invoice, and the carrier still wants every customs field entered by hand: descriptions, quantities, values and countries of origin, line by line. See how Lazr’s cross-border shipping solutions handle commercial invoices and customs documents.
Many carrier APIs don’t read the invoice you attach; they require the same data again as structured fields. Every retyped line is a chance for a typo, and every typo can delay a shipment at the border.
How Lazr Lens AI works
- Upload the commercial invoice to the shipment in Lazr.
- Lazr Lens AI reads the document and extracts each line item: description, quantity, value and country of origin.
- Lazr Lens AI checks that the line items add up to the invoice totals.
- Lazr Lens AI pre-fills the customs fields and outlines anything it couldn’t find.
- You review, complete any gaps and book the shipment.
Items in your shipment
Duty Payment Method
You may specify your own customs broker or select one from our pre-defined list.
Lazr Lens AI does the reading and the data entry; you stay in control of what gets declared. Gaps are visible instead of hidden, and the customs details flow straight into a landed cost estimate.
BoxSelect and PalletSelect: the right box and the right pallet
Lazr works out how each order should ship, which boxes and which pallet, before it prices anything, using the product sizes and packing rules in your Item Book. Choosing the right rate only matters if you’re shipping the right way.
Available today for Shopify stores. BoxSelect, PalletSelect and ShipMode run on orders from the Lazr Freight app for Shopify, for U.S. stores too. They’re coming soon to the Lazr web portal.
Contact us to get access to the Lazr Freight app for Shopify.
Lazr BoxSelect: the right box, picked automatically
Lazr knows your products and the boxes you ship with. At checkout, BoxSelect takes every item in the cart and works out the best way to fit them into your boxes: one box, or several if needed, following your packing rules.
A three-item order becomes one well-packed box, not three separate parcels.
Mug set · Boxes
ITEM BOOKLazr PalletSelect: the right pallet, built automatically
With your pallet’s size and limits already in Lazr, PalletSelect stacks every item of a freight order onto your pallet, layer by layer, within its height and weight limits.
Freight is then quoted on the loaded pallet that will actually leave your dock, not on a rough estimate.
Standard pallet
ITEM BOOKShipMode: parcel or LTL, compared before you pay
Lazr ShipMode is a rules-based decision engine that requests parcel and LTL prices in parallel and flags when switching modes makes sense. It follows rules you set, not an AI model, and you always make the final call on LTL vs parcel.
Six heavy boxes sent as six parcels can cost more than pallet shipping for the same load. When a shipment meets your rules, ShipMode compares three options:
- Option 1: one pallet instead of several parcels. ShipMode quotes the cartons as parcel shipping and as one pallet of LTL freight at the same time, and flags the switch when the pallet is cheaper.
- Option 2: full pallet plus parcel. When a load outgrows a single pallet, the full pallet ships LTL and the overflow ships parcel.
- Option 3: balanced split. The load is divided into two evenly balanced pallets.
Option 2 · Full pallet + parcel
Option 3 · Split across 2 pallets
A packing manifest for every pallet and box
Every packed order also comes with a packing manifest: each pallet and each box rendered in 3D, item by item, with positions and weights, ready to print for the warehouse floor.
Your rates or Lazr’s rates: the best one wins
Lazr compares your own negotiated carrier rates with Lazr’s carrier rates on every order and ranks them in one list, so the best rate wins whichever contract it comes from.
Some shippers have hard-won contracts with carriers such as FedEx, UPS, DHL or XPO. Others rely on a platform’s negotiated rates. Too often, the two never meet in the same quote.
With Lazr Pricing Intelligence, Lazr’s team adds your negotiated carrier rates to your account. Lazr then queries them alongside Lazr’s carrier rates across parcel and LTL, in real time, in one ranked list. Each quote is tagged as your rate or a Lazr rate, and the best option rises to the top.
UPSStandard4 daysManaged (Lazr Freight)$35.79Base coverage
DHLExpress Worldwide3 daysManaged (Lazr Freight)$48.81Base coverageUPSWorldwide Expedited4 daysUnmanaged$83.57Base coverage
FedExInternational Economy3 daysManaged (Lazr Freight)$85.30Base coverageFedExInternational Priority1 dayManaged (Lazr Freight)$87.45Base coverageYou keep the contracts you negotiated, and you see exactly why the winner won. A Lazr account is free with no subscription; a transactional fee applies when you ship on your own carrier contracts.
Cross-border: HS codes and landed cost for Canada and Mexico
Lazr connects the cross-border workflow for U.S. shippers: Lazr Lens AI reads the commercial invoice, HS Select finds missing Harmonized System (HS) codes, and the Landed Cost Calculator estimates Canadian duties and taxes before a shipment leaves.
Shipping from the U.S. to Canada: Canadian rules apply, set by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). As of November 2026, the CBSA low-value thresholds for courier shipments imported from the U.S. are: up to CAD 40, duty and tax free; above CAD 40 up to CAD 150, duty free but taxes apply; above CAD 150, duties and taxes apply. Some exceptions apply, and mail follows a lower threshold.
Shipping from the U.S. to Mexico: Mexico’s National Customs Agency (ANAM) applies Mexican rules. Lazr’s LTL coverage includes Mexico, and parcel supports international shipping.
Goods entering the U.S.: imports and customer returns from Canada or Mexico follow U.S. rules. As of November 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has indefinitely suspended the de minimis exemption for imports valued at $800 or less that arrive through any mode other than the international postal network. Those shipments now need a formal or informal customs entry.
- Lazr HS Select suggests a missing HS code for you to confirm. AI-powered HS classification is coming soon.
- The Landed Cost Calculator combines goods value, shipping, and estimated Canadian duties, taxes and fees for U.S. to Canada shipments, using the HS code from HS Select.
- Your Item Book stores HS codes, country of origin and declared values for every product, so you enter them once.
Lazr is not a customs broker: it helps you prepare accurate documentation, and compliance stays with you as the shipper.
Landed Cost Guarantee, powered by AI Coming soon
Turn on the Landed Cost Guarantee for a cross-border shipment and the landed cost you quote is guaranteed*.
*The Landed Cost Guarantee is an optional service. Coverage depends on the shipment’s eligibility and on the accuracy of the product information provided. Some goods, destinations and charges are excluded. Full terms and conditions apply.
Built for the decision, not the dashboard
What sets Lazr apart is when it acts: before the label. It reads your customs documents, compares parcel with LTL before pricing, ranks your contract rates against Lazr’s, and works inside ChatGPT and Claude.
That’s AI logistics software the way Lazr builds it: AI and decision engines working together, transparent about how they reach an answer, and always leaving the final call with you. All of it runs on Lazr’s multi-carrier shipping software, with 100+ connected carriers for parcel and LTL, including FedEx, UPS, DHL and XPO.
Founded in 2017 and based in Boisbriand, Québec, Lazr is built for shippers across the U.S. and Canada, in English and French.
See the engine run on your own shipments
Create your free Lazr account in under 3 minutes, or book a demo with our team.
Frequently asked questions
What is Lazr Lens AI?
Lazr Lens AI is an AI feature in Lazr, a freight and parcel shipping platform, that reads a commercial invoice and pre-fills the customs fields a carrier requires. It extracts each line item, checks that the totals add up and flags anything missing. You review the data before booking, so no one has to retype an invoice that already exists.
Does Lazr use AI to choose between parcel and LTL?
No. Lazr ShipMode compares parcel and LTL using rules you set, not an AI model. When a shipment meets those rules, ShipMode requests both prices in parallel and flags when a pallet would cost less than separate parcels.
For loads too big for one pallet, it can ship the overflow as parcel or split the load across two pallets. ShipMode is available today for Shopify stores and coming soon to the Lazr web portal.
Can Lazr compare my own carrier rates with Lazr’s rates?
Yes. Lazr’s team adds your negotiated carrier rates to your account, and Lazr quotes them alongside Lazr’s carrier rates for parcel and LTL.
Each quote is labeled as your rate or a Lazr rate, and the list is ranked so the best option rises to the top, whichever contract it comes from. You keep your existing carrier agreements.
What does the de minimis suspension mean for U.S. imports?
As of November 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has suspended the de minimis exemption for imports valued at $800 or less that arrive by any mode other than the international postal network. Goods entering the U.S., including customer returns from Canada or Mexico, now need a formal or informal customs entry.
Shipments from the U.S. to Canada follow Canadian rules set by the CBSA instead.
How do I find the HS code for my product?
In Lazr, HS Select suggests the Harmonized System (HS) code for your product when one is missing, using a carrier classification API, and you confirm it before shipping. AI-powered HS classification is coming soon. Save the confirmed code in your Item Book with the country of origin and declared value, and Lazr reuses it on every shipment and in the Landed Cost Calculator.
Can I use Lazr in ChatGPT or Claude?
Yes. Lazr connects to ChatGPT, Claude and other assistants that support the Model Context Protocol (MCP). After you sign in with your Lazr account and approve the connection, you can find orders, check tracking, read an order’s history and have the assistant prepare a full shipment for you to submit.
Submitting and generating labels from the assistant is coming soon. Ask your Lazr account manager to turn it on.
Is Lazr a customs broker?
No. Lazr is a shipping platform, not a customs broker. It helps you prepare accurate customs documentation: Lazr Lens AI reads your commercial invoice, HS Select suggests HS codes for you to confirm, and customs documents are generated with the shipment.
You review what gets declared, and compliance stays with you as the shipper.
