AI is already driving results in many industries but it’s also becoming clear that real impact depends on something more fundamental: choosing the correct use cases and building the right data foundations.

That reality was front and centre at our recent high-level roundtable, moderated by our CEO Namrata Nadkarni and featuring digital experts Grant Allen from Google and Katherine Howell from Uber. The session explored what meaningful, practical digitalisation actually looks like for the maritime industry.

With the increasingly robust evidence that smart investment in AI delivers genuine ROI, which also includes the World Trade Organization (WTO) predicting it could boost global trade by 40%, it was a timely exploration of how to overcome barriers to seize this potential in maritime.

Some barriers won’t be easy to overcome. Our recent poll found more than half of people believe an ‘old system mentality’ is holding back maritime from embracing the digital future, which means both modernising systems and adopting new thinking will be crucial.

At the same time, maritime businesses need to successfully determine when AI is the right solution for their specific requirements. As our invited experts noted, understanding when to use AI will prove a key initial step ahead of implementing new technologies.

One thing is clear – AI is not a magic fix. Businesses only see value when they can identify specific, well-defined problems and have the data quality, governance and systems in place to support new technologies. Many maritime companies still wrestle with legacy systems, fragmented datasets and a lack of standardisation, issues that need to be addressed before AI can deliver the returns seen elsewhere.

Want to learn more about how maritime can rise to the challenge? Make sure to follow us for exclusive video insights from the first session in our year-long campaign, which will culminate in an industry report and digital summit in London in 2026.

Thanks again to all participants in our first roundtable: Chris Greenwood, Grant Allen, Katherine Howell, Grant Hunter, Kirsi Tikka, Ph.D., Helen McCormick, Fiona Watson and Ashlee Williams.