This morning, an email appeared in my inbox.
At the top there was no chart, no spreadsheet and no photograph of a roll container, but a cheerful illustration. A car, a stack of schoolbooks far too high to be sensible, and a sign pointing to Makkum. Stacked so high that every logistics professional immediately thinks: that could never work.
And yet it is right.
Not literally, but emotionally.
After two months of full cars, thousands of kilometres, piles of books and long days, one drawing suddenly captured what it had felt like.
I smiled.
Not only at the illustration, but also at the thought that apparently I am not the only one using AI.
People sometimes act as though AI plays the leading role. As though the answer to everything is a clever prompt.
But that is not what I see.
I see colleagues helping one another when a lorry is late. People lifting boxes, planners rearranging schedules, temporary workers starting their first day, and a logistics manager trying to keep an overview while reality pays no attention to the plan.
And somewhere in between, someone makes a nice illustration with AI.
Fine.
The illustration is not the achievement.
The people are.
AI did not write that email. AI did not receive the books. AI did not drive the kilometres. AI did not solve problems at the loading bay.
AI merely helped to tell the story a little more beautifully.
Perhaps that is where AI is strongest.
Not in the foreground.
But beside us.
A tool, not a colleague. An aid, not a hero.
That is why I like one simple thought.
Humans first.
The rest will follow.