Article Summary
Key findings from the report
- Logistics costs vs. GDP: Total U.S. business logistics expenditures have climbed to $2.4 trillion, representing roughly 7.8% of the country's gross domestic product.
- Macroeconomic pressure: The broader logistics landscape is currently being reshaped by powerful systemic forces, including unequal global growth patterns, stricter financial conditions, changing trade routes, workforce shortages, and unstable energy prices.
- Uneven AI integration and ROI: While Artificial Intelligence offers tangible financial benefits, its success is limited to highly specific use cases, resulting in fractured and inconsistent adoption rates between shippers and logistics providers.
- Strategic playbook for disruption: To combat labor shortages and ongoing supply chain volatility, forward-thinking operations are heavily investing in digital automation and prioritizing key objectives: strengthening resilience, optimizing asset output, securing end-to-end visibility, and carefully timing major capital investments.
It has become apparent that there has been a fundamental shift in the logistics operating environment in the U.S. That’s according to the 37th annual Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals State of Logistics Report, released by global consulting firm Kearney and presented by Penske Logistics.
Report author Korhan Acar noted that last year’s report was called “Navigating Through the Fog,” describing an industry seeking greater visibility while recognizing that standing still posed the greatest risk.
“Today, the fog has become the operating environment,” Acar said during an in-person and virtual presentation of the report from Kearney’s New York City office. “Geopolitical uncertainty, trade realignment, energy volatility, inflationary pressures and rapid technological change have combined to create a new era of persistent disruption.”
The report, which serves as a benchmark for the health and direction of the logistics industry across every major mode, including trucking, introduced a new section this year called the “State of AI in Logistics.” The 2026 report highlights that disruption is here to stay, showing itself in various forms of volatility. Acar said the message behind this year’s edition, called “Forged in Disruption,” is that competitive advantage will be forged through the ability to deliver profitable growth while managing disruption.
And one solution to navigating it, he said, is AI.
“AI is working, and this is no longer hype. There are leaders in the industry that have already progressed quite a bit in making practical use cases,” Acar said. “As volatility persists and profitable growth becomes the mandate, AI is helping leaders make faster, better-informed decisions across increasingly complex supply chains.”
Signs point to recovery
Acar said productivity has always been an important aspect of supply chains, but it has become even more important in recent years as logistics leaders deal with volatility. AI is one way of improving productivity, he said.
The report noted that performance will increasingly depend on network design, pricing discipline and digital productivity, not merely on demand recovery. Acar said recovery is being driven by supply exits, not demand growth, but the industry is on the path to recovery, said Andres Mendoza Pena, another author of the report.
“It does look like the market has turned the corner, and we can all agree that it has been a long corner,” Pena said. “I think we can say with a high degree of confidence that the down cycle has come to an end.”
Pena pointed to the truckload market as evidence. Recent spot rates were above the $3-per-mile mark, and contract rates were below the $3 mark, he said, adding that is a clear sign that the market is on the capacity side. According to the report, motor carrier expenditures grew 1.7% in 2025 as carrier exits tightened capacity, supporting a supply driven recovery despite mixed freight demand.
The report annually calculates the U.S. Business Logistics Cost (USBLC) as a percentage of the nominal gross domestic product. According to the State of Logistics report, USBLC decreased 1% year over year between 2024 and 2025. Full truckload costs were up 2.6% from $387 billion in 2024; less than truckload costs were down 3.3% from $66 billion in 2024; and private or dedicated costs were up 1.6% from $416.7 billion in 2024.
Following several years of USBLC being at a higher basis level, it totaled $2.4 trillion overall in 2025, declining to 7.8% of nominal GDP, Acar noted. He said demand will have to significantly pick up for expenditures to grow.
Pena holds a positive outlook, he said, pointing to strong demand growth indicators in the Purchasing Managers Index.
He said the question remains to what extent is that driven by hedging against inflationary pressures versus strong underlying demand driven by reshoring or by some sectors that are performing extremely well like data centers.
“I think where we see inflationary pressures evolve will dictate to what extent demand can help to accelerate the recovery or will continue to be a capacity-led recovery,” Pena said.
Forces shaping the macro environment
Kearney projects the U.S. to grow 2.4% this year, Acar said, while acknowledging that global growth remains positive, though increasing uneven across regions and trade corridors.
The report listed five structural forces that defined the macro environment in 2025 and show no signs of resolution: asymmetrical global growth; tightening financial conditions due to persistent inflation and rising public debt; accelerating trade flow and geoeconomic realignment; labor market and productivity constraints; and energy price volatility.
Acar said rising public debt and persistent inflation are tightening financial conditions and increasing capital discipline; trade flows continue to realign as China+1, friend-shoring and tariff complexity reshape sourcing decisions; trade policy, which changed every 1.5 weeks on average in 2025, is making tariff complexity a permanent operating variable; labor shortages and productivity constraints are accelerating investment in automation and AI; and energy volatility, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, continues to create cost and operational uncertainty.
Paul Bingham, director of transportation consulting at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said the U.S. freight market is reflecting the pain it has been through for the last five to six years, starting with the pandemic and then continuing with a series of other disruptions, including the Russia war with Ukraine and most recently the U.S. war with Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
He said this required supply chains to adapt through not only a reworking of networks but also through the adoption of technology.
“We're really in this era where now, structurally, this volatility and change seems to be unrelenting, and that means the companies that are going to be successful are those that build the systems and have the decision-making capabilities and the information to act upon changes quickly that gets as far away from the days of the single lowest-cost provider and lean supply chains that we're never going to return to,” Bingham said.
