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Weathernews Develops a New Global Weather and Wave Forecasting System with World-Class Accuracy

23% Improvement in Forecast Accuracy, with a Marine Weather Dataset Now Available via an API Geared for the Maritime Transport Market

Achieving Data-Driven Operations Management and Advanced Performance Analysis to Drive Digital Transformation in Maritime Transport

Weathernews Inc. has developed a new Global Weather and Wave Forecasting System with world-class accuracy and has also commenced sales of a marine weather dataset tailored to the maritime transport market. Highly accurate weather, marine, and navigation data from SeaNavigator, Weathernews’ marine weather service, will be provided via an API.

With recent surges in fuel prices and stricter environmental regulations compounded by unforeseen route changes caused by geopolitical risks significantly impacting costs and environmental footprints, demand has risen for precise data that can be used to objectively assess and analyze voyage safety and economic efficiency, as well as to build more sophisticated operations management systems. Weathernews developed the proprietary Global Weather and Wave Forecasting System to provide data with even greater precision and has found it to be 23% more accurate in forecasting wave height than its predecessor. The system provides high-accuracy, high-resolution forecasts of such maritime conditions such as wind direction, wind speed, and waves on a 0.125-degree (approximately 10+ km) grid.

This dataset packages a vast amount of weather and oceanographic data, including forecasts and historical data on waves and wind generated using the Global Weather and Wave Forecasting System, as well as data on typhoon tracks and sea ice for oceans worldwide and approximately 2,300 major ports, along with “navigation data” provided by SeaNavigator, such as route simulations, fuel consumption, and vessel speed. Weathernews aims to support voyage safety, economic efficiency, and environmental performance through data, helping captains and operations managers around the world make informed decisions.

Driving DX in Maritime Transport Through High-Accuracy Marine Weather Data

In recent years, dramatic improvements in maritime communications infrastructure have accelerated digital transformation (DX) in maritime transport, with companies pursuing system integration, AI utilization, and the development of autonomous navigation technology. With rising fuel costs and unforeseen route changes caused by geopolitical risks, demand has also grown for real-time forecast data that can help make timely navigational decisions, such as quickly redesigning optimal routes that balance safety and economic efficiency.

Moreover, amid increasingly stringent environmental regulations worldwide, CO2 emissions are now positioned as a direct cost that affects corporate profits, with historical data growing in importance for regulatory compliance and vessel performance analysis. It is against this backdrop that Weathernews has begun offering the Marine Weather Dataset, a package featuring weather, marine, and navigation data.

New Global Weather and Wave Forecasting System Increases Wave Forecast Accuracy by 23%

Weathernews has developed a new Global Weather and Wave Forecasting System with world-class accuracy and high resolution to capture rapid weather changes at the earliest stage possible. The system uses an approach that combines over 80 forecast scenarios generated from ensemble forecasts operated by the world’s leading meteorological agencies, along with meteorological satellites and the vast volume of vessel observation data possessed by Weathernews. Rather than relying on a single forecast model, it extracts the most statistically probable data from a large number of forecast scenarios, and then corrects this data to achieve high-accuracy forecasts of waves and maritime winds.

This system has successfully reduced significant wave height forecast errors by approximately 23% compared to the previous system (comparing the root mean square error (RMSE) of wave height forecasts up to 7 days ahead across all ocean areas from January to February 2026). Weathernews has also verified that its wave height forecasts are more accurate than those of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). This makes it possible to more accurately capture rising wave heights caused by rapidly developing low-pressure systems.

Wave, wind direction, and wind speed forecast data from this system will be provided through the Marine Weather Dataset for the maritime shipping industry.

Provision of a Marine Weather Dataset for the Maritime Transport Market Begins

This dataset packages two types of data: weather and marine data and navigation data. Data can be retrieved via API through the cloud, making integration with existing corporate systems easy. Users can specify latitude and longitude to retrieve relevant data easily.

The weather and marine data includes a comprehensive range of data, such as wave height, wind direction, wind speed, and temperature, for approximately 2,300 major ports and shipping routes worldwide, along with forecast trackers for tropical cyclones (typhoons, hurricanes, and cyclones) worldwide and composite data on tidal currents and ocean currents. The dataset also includes the high-accuracy, high-resolution wave and wind forecasts from the newly developed Global Weather and Wave Forecasting System.

While the navigation data is available only when using the weather routing service on Weathernews’ SeaNavigator, it can provide data on voyage records, reports, and performance analysis, such as vessel tracks, voyage plans, fuel consumption, and noon reports from vessels.

Service Specifications

Details on Data Lineup 

Data with underlined names use forecast values from the Global Weather and Wave Forecasting System.

*1: Navigation Data is available only to companies using the Weathernews weather routing service.

SeaNavigator: A Single Marine Weather Service That Integrates All Navigation and Weather Data

Since October 2024, Weathernews has offered SeaNavigator, an integrated marine weather service that aids in environmentally sound, safe, and economically efficient operations for all types of vessels.

The service provides all the navigation and weather data needed for maritime operations on a single platform: from the latest high-resolution wave and wind forecasts to optimal route selection, calculation of arrival times and fuel consumption, and analysis of vessel performance and CO2 emissions.

AI accesses vast weather, marine, and navigation data to detect inclement weather risks for vessels in real time, automatically generate weather and marine condition reports, and perform in-depth analysis that would be time-consuming to perform manually.

In December 2025, Weathernews also launched SeaNavigator for Master, a next-generation operations support platform in which AI assists captains with operational decisions in an interactive format.

Weathernews has put into practical use the world’s first AI service designed to help captains make operational decisions on board by enabling them to ask the AI about weather risks along routes and at ports, fuel efficiency and speed forecasts, and other data directly tied to voyage planning. Users can also check the latest high-resolution wave and wind forecasts and update voyage plans with optimal route simulations.

Weathernews provides solutions optimized for individual maritime transport operator workflows, from navigation-focused data via API to content that can be operated on the SeaNavigator screen. Weathernews aims to continue leveraging the navigation support expertise and vast weather and marine data it has built over more than 40 years to help vessels around the world achieve safe and efficient voyages.

SmartSea has been selected by the Maritime Company for Navigation (MACNA) to manage its full IT infrastructure, marking a significant step in the company’s ongoing digital transformation journey.

The agreement positions SmartSea as the managed services provider for MACNA’s shore and vessel operations, taking responsibility for end-to-end IT infrastructure. This includes network management, cybersecurity, user environments, and vessel connectivity.

The Hidden Cost of a “Good Enough” Schedule

If you run a fleet with a heavy COA book, the core scheduling challenge is familiar. 80% of your cargoes are committed. The program is set. The question is how efficiently you sequence them, and what you do with the capacity left over.

That remaining 20%, the spot cargoes your team picks up to fill positioning gaps and boost utilization, is where the real scheduling leverage lives. It’s also where the most value quietly leaks away.

The committed program is only the starting point

A COA book gives you baseline revenue and planning certainty. But certainty of cargo isn’t certainty of schedule. Every planner working a fleet of twenty or thirty vessels against a dense contract program knows that sequencing options are vast, and that small differences in vessel assignment and port rotation compound across the quarter.

Assign the wrong vessel to a contracted cargo (not wrong because it can’t do the job, but wrong because it creates a longer ballast leg to the next commitment) and you’ve burned two days of bunkers and closed a window that a better spot fixture could have filled. The individual voyage still looks profitable. The schedule, taken as a whole, underperforms.

Multiply that across 40 or 50 committed voyages a quarter, and the drag on fleet-level TCE becomes significant. Not because anyone made a bad call, but because the optimization problem is simply too large to hold in your head or in a spreadsheet.

Two hundred spot cargoes. Which twenty matter?

On any given week, there might be a hundred or two hundred cargoes in the market your vessels could technically lift. The problem isn’t supply, but rather the evaluation speed.

To properly assess whether a spot cargo is worth pursuing, you need to understand how it interacts with your existing committed schedule. Does it slot cleanly between two COA voyages? Does it reposition a vessel toward its next obligation, or pull it away? Does accepting it create a conflict three weeks out that isn’t visible today?

These aren’t questions a planner can answer quickly for two hundred cargoes against a live fleet schedule. What happens in practice is triage by instinct. The team eyeballs the list, filters by region and laycan, runs estimates on the ones that look promising, and makes a call. The shortlist might be reasonable, but reasonable is not optimal, and a cargo screened out in the first 30 seconds might have been the best option.

What if your team could evaluate all two hundred options against the full forward schedule and have a ranked shortlist of the 20 worth serious consideration in minutes? That’s what scheduling technology built for fleet-level optimization actually does. It doesn’t replace the planner’s judgment on which cargo to fix, it simply ensures their judgment is applied to the right shortlist.

The complexity multiplier

If your fleet moves breakbulk, project cargo, or multi-purpose cargoes, the challenge is harder still. It’s not just about matching cargo to vessel to laycan- it’s stowage constraints, crane ratings, multi-parcel voyages with complex port rotations, and the interaction effects between cargoes sharing the same hold space.

In chemical tankers, the complexity increases by another order of magnitude. A single vessel might have 30 or 40 tanks, each with its own coating type, heating capability, and cleaning requirements. Every parcel loaded impacts what can go in the adjacent tank. Every cargo carried previously determines what can be loaded next. The scheduling problem becomes which tank, which sequence, which cleaning regime, and whether the combination of parcels across a ten-port voyage is even physically and chemically compatible.

A consolidation opportunity across six parcels and four discharge ports might deliver significant savings on freight and port costs, but it only becomes visible when you can see every hold, every tank, every restriction, and every port call across the full voyage simultaneously. Layer in bunker optimization, port cost allocation, and the financial impact of frameworks like EU ETS, and you’re looking at a decision space that grows exponentially with every additional tank and port call. The best a planner can do manually is find an answer that works. The question is how far that answer sits from the one that works best.

Better questions, not just faster answers

The real value of fleet-wide scheduling visibility is that it changes the quality of the questions your planning team has the answers to.

Restrictions in manual planning make “does this cargo work for this vessel?”, a reasonable question for a planner to ask. With fleet-wide optimization, the planner can quickly answer more detailed questions like, “which of these spot options positions our fleet best for the next sixty days, given our COA commitments, current bunker prices, and the ETS implications of each routing?” With manual planning only, the planner has all of the same questions, but no ability to quickly answer and act on them. 

This shift is where TCE improvement actually lives. Not in squeezing individual voyage margins, but in making decisions that keep the entire schedule – contracted and spot – together, performing at a higher level over time. The planner still makes the call. What changes is what they can see when making it.

The schedule that looked good enough

All of this leads to a particular kind of loss that never shows up on your P&L. It accumulates quietly, voyage by voyage, in the gap between the schedule you’re running and the schedule you could have been running.

That gap is the cost of good enough. At Seaber, it’s the problem we’ve built our platform to solve: giving fleet operators the visibility and speed to optimize a large fleet against a complex COA program, and to find the spot cargoes that make the whole schedule work harder. If that’s a conversation worth having, we’d welcome it.

April 1, 2026: Robert Bewick

Adaptation vs Efficiency in Shipping

Shipping has improved efficiency, but operational volatility is rising. Why adaptation and better weather intelligence now define maritime performance.

Adaptation, Not Efficiency, Will Define Maritime Performance in a Volatile Environment

Shipping has made major strides in efficiency over the past decade. Hull optimisation, wind-assisted propulsion and digital fuel management have helped vessels reduce fuel consumption and emissions significantly.

But while ships are becoming more efficient, the conditions they operate in are becoming more volatile, increasing operational risk across voyages.

Weather patterns are shifting. Trade routes are being reshaped by geopolitical developments. Port congestion and disruption are becoming less predictable. These factors are increasingly working against the gains made in efficiency.

Greater efficiency does not necessarily translate into more predictable voyages. Many operators are finding that while fuel performance has improved, operational control has not.

This is exposing a gap in how the industry approaches performance.

In particular, extended heavy weather periods are increasingly falling outside Charter Party warranties, creating blind spots in how voyages are assessed. When weather is excluded from performance evaluation, it becomes harder to understand what is truly driving outcomes, and where improvements can be made.

At the same time, planning assumptions are often still based on generalisations rather than real risk data. When conditions deviate from expectations, operations shift from planned execution to reactive decision-making.

The risks that matter most are not always the most extreme events. More often, disruption builds from conditions that persist longer than expected or occur more frequently than assumed. A series of moderate events can have the same operational impact as a single severe one.

This points to a structural challenge. Planning is still largely static, while the operating environment is increasingly dynamic.

The shift to adaptation

Shipping is entering a phase where adaptation becomes a core operational capability.

This means anticipating disruption rather than absorbing it. It requires moving beyond planning for expected conditions and preparing for a range of possible outcomes.

Weather intelligence plays a central role in this shift.

Not only in understanding what is likely to happen, but in evaluating how different scenarios could affect a specific voyage. This includes assessing how conditions evolve over time, how they interact with vessel performance, and how decisions on route, speed and timing influence outcomes.

Three layers become essential:

• Historical awareness: understanding past patterns and how current conditions compare
• Forecasting: understanding what is expected and where uncertainty begins
• Scenario planning: evaluating possible outcomes and preparing responses

When these layers are combined, weather becomes more than a source of information. It becomes a tool for managing uncertainty.

From efficiency to resilience

The commercial implications are becoming clearer.

Charterers are placing greater emphasis on schedule reliability. Investors and insurers are looking more closely at how operational performance links to emissions and long-term resilience.

At the same time, volatility is no longer an exception. It is becoming a constant factor in daily operations.

In this environment, efficiency alone is not enough.

Resilience now depends on how early disruption is identified and how effectively it is managed. The operators that perform best will be those who treat weather as a core operational input and integrate it into decision-making throughout the voyage.

Leaving nothing to chance

The industry is moving beyond a focus on optimisation under stable conditions. The challenge now is maintaining performance when conditions are unstable.

This requires systems and processes that can continuously assess risk, adapt plans, and support confident decisions in real time.

For decades, weather has been a factor in maritime operations. Today, it is becoming a defining variable.

In an environment shaped by uncertainty, the ability to anticipate and manage disruption is what will separate strong performance from average performance.

Because in today’s operating reality, leaving outcomes to chance is no longer an option.

Two thirds of shipping companies have begun digitizing, streamlining technical management and reducing operating expenses (OPEX) by up to 20%. Digital solutions enhance regulatory compliance, optimize crew performance, and offer substantial savings in insurance premiums.

In today’s maritime industry, standing still is moving backward. The wave of digitalization isn’t coming—it’s here. From regulators to companies’ internal procedures, the need to streamline processes and enhance safety is pressing. 

According to Wärtsilä Marine Business, 2/3 of shipping companies have started on their digital journey, with this being just the beginning, as almost all of them are currently exploring digital solutions.

Technical Management is the key factor that ensures safe and reliable operations of the global merchant fleet, which consists of more than one-hundred-thousand vessels. However, technical management teams often get bogged down by manual processes, leading to delays, avoidable human error, and missed opportunities. Digitization is the low hanging fruit that saves cost and increases efficiency. 

The question now isn’t why to digitize – but how.

A glimpse at the potential savings

Technical operations cover a broad spectrum, from safety and regulatory compliance to sustainability and timely deliveries.

After years of running operations manually and with low efficiency, digitization brings substantial saving opportunities in reduction of operating expenses (OPEX). 

In one of KPMG’s maritime industry research studies, it was determined that digital solutions can help reduce OPEX by 10%-20% per category. For an average container vessel with ca. US$ 3,000,000 OPEX / year, the saving potential amounts to over US$ 483,000 per vessel per year. For a company that has 40 vessels under management, this represents over US$ 19,000,000 in savings per year.

Digitalization brings optimizations to all sides

‍Inspection and maintenance 

According to AGCS, 80% of accidents happen due to human error. Top reasons for human errors are: Fatigue, inadequate communication, lack of general technical knowledge, inadequate knowledge of the ship’s system, automation error, decision based on incomplete information, faulty standards and procedures being followed, poor maintenance, hazardous working environment. 

Many of these reasons can be addressed by filling in the information gap, which can be optimized easily by digitization. On the one hand, crews can follow standards and regulations through on-the-job guidance, and collect structured data. On the other hand, generic tasks like manual data entry and report generation are eliminated, freeing up the 65% of TSIs time “being wasted” to focus on other more important tasks. 

Industry regulators are taking initiatives on making changes. This means that digitialization trend is going to last. The Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF)’s updated inspection regime SIRE 2.0 is already requiring their inspectors to use mobile devices that have all the related regulations incorporated. Vessels that don’t pass the regime will face severe consequences like not being able to carry cargo. With the full rollout for SIRE 2.0 in early 2024 approaching, many tanker companies have started to implement internal inspection inspection regimes that leverage mobile devices and modern software as well. 

At the same time, according to EMSA, 41.5% of EU seafarers are digital-natives. This underscores a potent opportunity: integrating technology into frontline operations and providing on-the-job training to bridge the expertise gap. 

At the same time, according to EMSA, 41.5% of EU seafarers are digital-natives. This underscores a potent opportunity: integrating technology into frontline operations and providing on-the-job training to bridge the expertise gap. 

Manning

There are 1.89 million seafarers powering the growing world fleet. By 2030, over 30% of those in management or senior supervisory roles are expected to retire. Coupled with the fact that fleets are growing, and ever larger vessels, seafarers are getting promoted faster. With less experienced seafarers in the supervisory ranks, concerns about quality grow stronger.

At the same time, according to EMSA, 41.5% of EU seafarers are digital-natives. This underscores a potent opportunity: integrating technology into frontline operations and providing on-the-job training to bridge the expertise gap. 

Currently, a large part of seafarers roles involve collecting and passing on information, especially amidst tightening regulations. By having the convenience of retrieving and reporting information in the palm of their hands, and getting guidance on-the-job, crews’ burdens are lighted, and standards are more reliably followed.

Based on the experience of Kaiko Systems, equipping seafarers with a mobile App to plan, conduct, and document their daily jobs not only makes it easier for them to perform high-quality work. It also saves them up to 50% of time spent on inspections, by automating the lengthy reporting process. 

On the other hand, as seasoned seafarers approach retirement, their wealth of knowledge and know-hows could be lost. Through digitized solutions, expertise and experience that is built up over decades onboard, can be made accessible to the next generation. 

Over the next five years, companies with a digitized seafarer workforce will develop competitive advantages on growth and market authority.

Insurance

In the marine insurance sector, Hull & Machinery (H&M) insurances typically have a gross loss ratio of 90%. This high ratio indicates that for every $100 earned in premiums, insurers pay out $90 in claims. 

This is exacerbated by repeated incidents and the complexities of the post-pandemic landscape, causing insurance premiums in 2022 to soar to alarmingly high levels, with many shipowners observing double-digit percentage increases.

Through ensuring job quality and enabling data exchange, digitization will benefit the whole value chain from ship owners through to brokers, insurers, and reinsurers. 

• Shipping companies reduce avoidable incidents by 30% to 60%
• Insurers can harness real-time insights to adjust premiums, ensuring a more precise risk assessment, and having reduced claims probabilities. 
• Brokers, utilizing reliable and structured data, are better positioned to offer targeted risk mitigation strategies. 

Drawing parallels from health insurance where insurers incentivize individuals to perform health activities with perks like free Apple watches or cashbacks, Kaiko Systems collaborates with insurers to offer similar incentives to shipowners. Specifically, shipowners can get a 15% premium reduction by using Kaiko Systems for ensuring quality during routine on-board work — a potential saving of almost US$ 2,000,000 for a 40-vessel fleet.

Digitization stands as a win-win for shipping and insurance entities alike, elevating the quality of onboard technical tasks and ensuring transparency in vessel health.

Enabling the next generation of technical operations 

The maritime industry is now at a pivotal juncture. Embracing digitalization is no longer a choice, but an urgent necessity, driven by the workforce structure change to the benefits of all interconnected stakeholders in the industry. 

Whether it’s the increased operational efficiency for the employees, the direct cost savings through a significant reduction in OPEX for the shipping companies, or the enhancement of safety and quality control on board for the regulators and insurance companies. The digital revolution offers tangible advantages that are obvious. And the opportunities cited in this blog post only underscore the beginning of what’s possible.

Kaiko Systems, among others, exemplifies the potential of this digital frontier for the industry, where manual processes are not just being replaced, but are being reimagined to optimize efficiency and profitability. And beyond the technology and tools, lies a vision of setting a paradigm shift towards safer, smarter, more collaborative maritime technical operations. 

From Digitalization to Automation: 2026 Will Redefine Maritime Operations

This year has marked a major leap forward in maritime digitalization, driven by rapid advances in AI and a surge in tools supporting compliance and operational efficiency. But the wider shift happening across global industries goes far beyond adopting new software. In accounting, property management, transportation, legal, IT services and wealth management, we are now seeing a new kind of consolidation: AI-native, large-scale service companies. Venture and private equity funds are acquiring dozens of fragmented service providers, placing them onto unified AI operating systems, and operating them at dramatically higher levels of productivity, consistency and margin than traditional players. These AI-native platforms are already overtaking incumbents in cost, speed and reliability.

Maritime is not exempt from what is reshaping the rest of the service economy. Our sector shares the same characteristics as those undergoing consolidation today: highly fragmented structures, people-intensive operations, heavy compliance workloads, and wide variability in process execution. Traditional consolidation is already well underway, but the next competitive pressure will come from operators who embrace data standardization and AI automation far earlier and more decisively than the rest of the market. The message is becoming increasingly clear: companies must become streamlined, interoperable and AI-assisted—or risk being absorbed into more efficient, AI-native platforms as the industry evolves.

The IMO’s decision to delay its Net Zero Framework has also shifted attention back toward core operational fundamentals. While sustainability remains essential, there is renewed focus on the basics: safe operations, high-quality training, and digital tools that genuinely empower and protect seafarers. The next five years will be defined by AI-driven productivity gains and interoperability between ship and shore, reducing time spent on routine administration and enabling humans to focus on decisions that impact safety, availability and cost. Crucially, AI is not here to replace crewmembers. It is here to support them, remove administrative friction, and strengthen confidence in judgment.

Over the past year, growing proof points have shifted the adoption curve. With improved connectivity, new standards, and rising expectations through frameworks like SIRE 2.0 and RightShip, companies are gaining confidence because digital tools now demonstrate clear, measurable ROI. When technology fits real operational workflows, maritime adopts quickly—something we have seen repeatedly whenever solutions genuinely save time, reduce risk or pay for themselves. The task for 2026 is ensuring that late adopters can onboard without disruption, through turnkey rollouts, offline-capable systems and full visibility for crews and shore teams alike.

Regulation will continue to raise minimum standards, but it rarely drives transformation alone. True progress depends on leadership: sharing best practices, highlighting peers’ successes, and demonstrating with evidence what effective digitalization looks like in day-to-day operations. As we move into 2026, the shift will no longer be about digitizing paperwork but about automating work. AI will shoulder administrative weight onboard and ashore, enabling continuous readiness, risk- and cost-based maintenance planning, and far greater visibility into human factors such as corrosion patterns, behavioral trends and recurring operational gaps. This is where the industry will see the most meaningful gains: fewer surprises, stronger planning horizons, and more time allocated to real operational work.

Connectivity improvements and mounting compliance pressures have already pushed many leaders from document-based to data-driven operations. Data is increasingly being used to target maintenance, forecast risks, and evaluate readiness with far greater precision. Yet major challenges remain—fragmented systems, duplicate workflows, inconsistent onboard adoption, and significant administrative burden for technical teams. These gaps create real risk, as well as an opportunity: the companies that solve them first will set the operational benchmark for the decade.

The path forward lies in standardizing how data is collected, interpreted and shared—from observations and defect reports to photographic evidence and structured analytics. The goal is not simply to collect more information, but to ensure that data leads to better decisions and better outcomes. As other industries have shown, the organizations that embrace automation and AI-supported operations will widen the efficiency gap quickly, creating competitive pressure that slower adopters will struggle to match.

Maritime now stands at the same inflection point as many other service sectors. The coming years will reward companies that build interoperable, AI-assisted operating models and penalize those that cling to manual, inconsistent processes. The industry has a choice: evolve into streamlined, data-driven platforms—or risk being consolidated into those who already have. But the essence of progress remains unchanged. We win only when crews and technical managers win—when workflows become clearer, surprises become fewer, and people have more time for real operational work. This is the next wave of maritime innovation, and 2026 will bring it firmly into view.

– Fabian Fussek, Co-Founder and CEO of Kaiko Systems

Three new LLM-powered features that turn messy maritime data into actionable insights

AI has generated a lot of excitement in the maritime world, but cutting through the hype to find practical, high-value applications isn’t always straightforward. At Seaber, we believe the most impactful uses of Large Language Models (LLMs) right now aren’t magic “agents” running the business—they’re tools that help people work faster and make better decisions by solving long-standing data problems.

In recent months, we’ve introduced three new LLM-powered features that address exactly these challenges:

• Cargo dictation and automatic form filling
• Spreadsheet data normalization
• Port and commodity name mapping in external API data

All three share the same goal: turning unstructured or inconsistent information into clean, actionable, system-ready data.

Let’s dive into each of them.

1. Voice-to-cargo: dictate a cargo and turn it instantly into structured data

Chartering managers often work on the move—between calls, reviewing lists, checking the market, talking to brokers. Many have told us: “I just want to quickly capture a potential cargo without typing everything out.”

Our new cargo dictation tool solves exactly that. Whether on mobile or desktop, a user can simply speak:

“Twenty thousand metric tons of methanol from Fujairah to Antwerp. Loading speed two hundred metric tons per hour, discharge speed two-fifty. Laycan first to fourteenth of December. Freight forty-five dollars per ton.”

Our LLM transcribes and interprets the spoken sentence, extracts every relevant data point, and automatically fills in the cargo form inside Seaber. The user simply checks the fields and saves.

This does two things immediately:

• Reduces manual entry time (especially on mobile, where typing is slow)
• Eliminates formatting errors or missing fields

And as soon as the cargo is saved, the system can automatically:

• Suggest candidate vessels in your fleet
• Highlight voyages where the cargo could be included
• Show potential TCE impacts

One short dictation becomes a fully evaluated opportunity in seconds.

2. Automatic normalization of messy spreadsheets

In real operations, cargo lists rarely come in a clean, machine-readable format. Teams share spreadsheets with:

• Inconsistent column names
• Different units
• Merged cells
• Human typos
• Partial details
• Changing templates across departments

Our new LLM-based spreadsheet normalizer allows users to upload any spreadsheet—no matter how chaotic—and have it automatically interpreted and mapped to Seaber’s internal cargo schema. The LLM model is self-hosted to ensure privacy of sensitive data.

Examples include:

• Market cargo lists shared in Teams/email
• Shared internal “potential cargo” spreadsheets
• Previous cargo compatibility charts
• Congestion lists
• Any ad-hoc operational sheet that contains valuable data

Once uploaded, the LLM:

• Reads the sheet
• Infers the meaning of each column
• Normalizes commodity names, ports, units, laycans, and rates
• Converts it into clean structured data
• Inserts it into the system for verification

This replaces hours of manual cleanup with a simple upload-and-confirm workflow.

3. Normalizing port and commodity names from external APIs

Even when data comes from a structured API, naming is rarely consistent. One provider may use “Fujairah”, another “FOJ”, another “Port of Fujayrah”. Commodities are even messier: “Methanol”, “MEOH”, “Methylic Alcohol”, “MeOH (Bulk)”.

Our LLM-powered alias mapper continuously cleans and aligns incoming data from external sources by:

• Normalizing spelling variations
• Recognizing synonyms
• Mapping API values to internal Seaber definitions
• Highlighting uncertain or ambiguous matches

Users remain in control: they can review, validate, or reject these mappings. Transparency is built in, and every assumption the model makes is visible to the user.

This ensures that external data streams can be consumed reliably without building and maintaining huge hard-coded dictionaries.

Why we started with these three use cases

There’s a lot of discussion around “agentic AI” and complex autonomous workflows. Those will have their place, especially in operational automation. But when we looked at the biggest, clearest sources of value today, the answer was obvious:

The maritime industry runs on unstructured, inconsistent, messy data
→ LLMs are uniquely suited to turn that into structured data.

Data quality is the biggest bottleneck for automation and optimization
→ By solving naming, formatting, and interpretation problems at the source, we enable better calculations, better scheduling suggestions, and more accurate TCE insights.

These tools enhance, not replace, human decision-making
→ Every LLM step in our system includes a validation layer. Users stay in full control.

The ROI is immediate
→ These features remove friction in daily workflows that everyone in chartering, operations, and scheduling experiences.

LLMs as the glue between humans, data, and systems

The real promise of LLMs in maritime operations isn’t in replacing people. It’s in connecting the way humans naturally work—voice notes, spreadsheets, emails—with the strict data requirements of digital systems.

These new features are only the beginning. We’re continuing to explore AI-powered tools that:

• Reduce manual work
• Improve data consistency
• Support real-time planning
• Surface opportunities faster
• Enhance decision-making in complex scheduling environments

At Seaber, our philosophy remains simple: use AI where it brings clear, practical, measurable value—and always keep the user in control.

Maritime tech start-up Tilla has closed a EUR2 million funding round to expand its crewing logistics platform.

The latest round of funding for Berlin-headquartered Tilla was led by Singapore-based maritime venture capital fund Motion Ventures and included a strategic investment by Belgian shipping company Exmar owned by the Saverys family.

The new round of funding brings Tilla’s total to EUR4 million since 2021. With the latest funding Tilla plans to expand into the Mediterranean and Asia – Pacific markets and rapidly scale up its team.

“The involvement of Motion Ventures and Exmar provides more than just financial support: Their deep maritime expertise and global networks are a key asset, reinforcing Tilla’s credibility and market position as it aims to become the world’s leading end-to-end platform for crew change management,” Tilla said.

Tilla aims to modernise and digitise the crew change process which it estimates costs the industry $12 billion annually and remains a largely manual process.

Niklas Weidmann, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Tilla, said “Our ambition is to become the global market leader and ultimately optimise every step of every crew change, everywhere in the world. The funding will help us get there.

The start-up claims that by using its AI-powered platform ship managers can reduce costs by up to 24% and time savings of 40%.

To date Tilla has facilitated more than 35,000 crew trips and clients include Peter Döhle Schiffahrts-KG, Essberger, Stödig Shipmanagement, Wilson, Exmar, and Seatrade.

Ariane Saverys, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of new investor Exmar, commented: “After integrating Tilla’s platform into our own operations, we were impressed by its impact and the team’s expertise. Investing in Tilla reflects our confidence in their future and the value they bring to maritime crew logistics worldwide.”