Marcura CEO: AI Should Handle the Grunt Work, Not the Decisions
Marcura Group CEO Henrik Hyldahn says the shipping industry should use AI to eliminate routine tasks, freeing operations professionals to focus on high-stakes decisions. The company, which merged with digital procurement platform ShipServ in 2023-2024, is rolling out AI tools designed to augment human expertise rather than replace it.
The practical applications are straightforward. AI can generate documents in minutes and flag inconsistencies in charterparties - catching errors that might otherwise cost thousands of dollars. A human specialist still reviews and validates the output before any decision is made, since mistakes in voyage management create cascading expenses.
"The first thing you want to use AI for is to eliminate as much of the work as possible - to get it completely automated and gone so that they focus on the decision side of things, on what are really the core value levers for them," Hyldahn said.
Preserving Institutional Knowledge
Marcura sees another benefit: AI can capture the institutional knowledge of experienced staff. As senior employees retire, their expertise and lessons-learned can be preserved in AI systems, making that knowledge available to the next generation of operations professionals.
Hyldahn came to maritime through an unconventional path. After corporate roles at Coca-Cola and Carlsberg in Denmark, a conversation with a Norwegian shipowner convinced him to enter the industry. He became CEO of ShipServ in 2020, then took the top job at Marcura following the acquisition.
The merged company combines Marcura's expertise in voyage transactions for charterers, traders, and operators with ShipServ's platform for managing vessel operating expenses and procurement.
Learn more about implementing AI Agents & Automation in your operations, or explore resources on AI for Operations.
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