• AI visibility

Guide · AI search

When a shipper asks AI for a 3PL, does our warehouse network make the list?

It can, if an assistant can find and confirm where your buildings are, what you handle, which systems you connect to and who vouches for you. Shippers and ecommerce brands choose logistics partners rarely and keep them for years, so being on the first list of candidates matters more than any single click.

By Underneath Team Guide Updated

This guide is for third-party logistics providers (3PLs) that sell warehousing, fulfillment and contract logistics: ecommerce fulfillment centers, regional warehouse operators, cold storage providers and large contract logistics firms. It does not cover the software sold to logistics companies, which we discuss in our guide to logistics software in AI search. Carriers and brokers are covered in how freight providers win shippers through AI.

The short version

  1. The market is large and growing again: US 3PL gross revenue rose 5.0% to $323.4 billion in 2025, including $72.7 billion for value-added warehousing and distribution, according to Armstrong & Associates (opens in a new tab).
  2. Winning customers is getting harder: in the 2025 Inbound Logistics 3PL Perspectives report (opens in a new tab), finding and retaining customers was 3PLs’ third-biggest challenge, cited by 46%, up 13 points in two years.
  3. Contracts stick: in the 2026 Third-Party Logistics Study (opens in a new tab), more than half of shippers said they do not rebid at contract end, and technology capability had become a decisive selection factor.
  4. Ecommerce brands outsource as they grow: in a Radial survey of 200 retail decision-makers, reported by CXM (opens in a new tab), 72% of brands with $100 million to $150 million in revenue relied on 3PLs, rising to 76% at $150 million to $200 million.
  5. Logistics buyers already use generative AI at work: 96% of 616 shippers and logistics providers surveyed by Descartes said they use it for transportation management, DC Velocity reported (opens in a new tab).

Who hires a 3PL, and what is a contract worth?

Shippers and ecommerce brands, usually through a structured search, and a won account can last many years.

Two kinds of buyers dominate. Shippers, meaning manufacturers, retailers and distributors, hire 3PLs for warehousing, distribution, transportation management and value-added services such as kitting or returns. Their buyers are supply chain and logistics leaders with procurement alongside; across business purchases generally, Forrester (opens in a new tab) finds procurement professionals are decision-makers in 53% of buying cycles. Ecommerce brands hire fulfillment providers to store inventory, pick, pack and ship orders, and connect to their store and marketplaces. In smaller brands, the founder or head of operations often runs the search. Those brands run a similar search for packaging, described in how packaging suppliers win quote requests through AI.

The point at which brands outsource is visible. In Radial’s survey, 70% of fast-growing retail brands still handled fulfillment in-house, and 59% operated from a single facility, but outsourcing became the norm once brands passed $50 million in revenue. Sellers that still ship their own orders are covered in how parcel carriers win small businesses through AI. Ecommerce keeps growing underneath: the US Census Bureau estimated second-quarter 2026 ecommerce sales at $340.2 billion, 17.1% of total retail sales and up 12.2% from a year earlier.

What a customer is worth depends on volume and service scope, and there is no public average. Large providers show the shape of the prize. GXO (opens in a new tab), a contract logistics provider, reported 2025 revenue of $13.2 billion and more than $1 billion in new contracts for the third consecutive year, which it expects to add $774 million in incremental revenue in 2026. Because many shippers do not rebid at contract end, our inference is that each new account can be worth several years of revenue, not one season’s.

Capacity also shapes the market. National industrial vacancy fell to 6.9% in the second quarter of 2026, according to Cushman & Wakefield data reported by IREI (opens in a new tab), and Prologis said roughly one-third of its leasing (opens in a new tab) in the second quarter of 2025 came from 3PLs. Providers that add space need customers to fill it.

Where does AI search sit in choosing a logistics partner?

Mostly in early research; buyers use AI widely at work but still choose partners through RFPs and site visits.

The evidence is stronger on AI use in logistics operations than on AI use in choosing a provider, so we keep the two apart.

  • Logistics teams use generative AI. In the Descartes and SAPIO Research survey of shippers and logistics providers in North America and Europe, the top uses were data entry (41%), route or load optimization (39%), freight forecasting (35%) and load matching or capacity sourcing (35%). These are operational uses, not partner searches. Carriers and brokers face their own partner search, covered in how freight providers win shippers through AI.
  • 3PLs see AI as the defining technology. In the Inbound Logistics survey, AI was the clear choice when respondents were asked about the most impactful technologies in the field, with 94% of replies.
  • Technology now decides selection. The 2026 Third-Party Logistics Study, led by Penn State’s Dr. C. John Langley with NTT DATA (opens in a new tab) and Penske Logistics, found 88% of shippers and 100% of 3PLs reporting successful partnerships, and highlighted a persistent gap between shipper expectations and 3PL technology capabilities.

We found no public survey that measures how often shippers ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity to suggest a 3PL. A reasonable expectation, given how widely logistics teams already use generative AI, is that many start a provider search the same way they start other research: by asking an assistant for options, then checking them.

What do shippers and brands ask when they look for a 3PL?

They combine a location, a product type, an order profile and a system, then ask who can handle it.

The questions below are our own examples of the shape these searches take. We did not observe them in real buyer logs.

What the shipper needsSample question we drafted
Regional coverage“3PL with warehouses on both coasts for two-day ground delivery to most of the US”
Product handling“Temperature-controlled warehousing near Dallas for a frozen food brand”
Ecommerce fulfillment“Fulfillment for a skin care brand shipping about 5,000 orders a month, with Shopify integration”
Retail compliance“3PL experienced with Walmart and Target retail routing and labeling”
Regulated goods“Contract logistics providers with FDA-registered warehouses in New Jersey”
Comparison“Compare these three fulfillment providers on cost per order, returns handling and onboarding time”

Location words matter. In our country study, adding “in the United Kingdom” to a question raised the share of local-market brands in ChatGPT’s answers from 25.4% to 49.1%. That study did not cover logistics, but a 3PL’s value is tied to place. We infer that providers who state their facility locations, delivery coverage and regional strengths clearly give assistants more to match when a question names a city, state or region.

How does an AI answer become an RFP invitation and a contract?

Through a longlist, a check of capabilities, an RFP or quote, site visits and solution design, and a multi-year agreement.

  1. Longlist. A logistics leader or brand founder asks an assistant, a peer, a directory or a search engine for providers that fit the job. Industry rankings, such as the Inbound Logistics Top 100 3PLs, often feed this list.
  2. Capability check. The buyer visits provider websites to confirm locations, certifications, integrations, industries served and minimums.
  3. RFP or quote. Shippers send a request for information or proposal; ecommerce brands share order data and ask for pricing per order, storage and receiving.
  4. Site visits and design. Finalists host visits, propose staffing, technology and network design, and negotiate service level agreements.
  5. Contract and renewal. The agreement often runs for years, and many shippers renew without a rebid.

Being named by an assistant helps a 3PL at the longlist and capability-check stages; service, reliability, price and the site visit settle the contract. Buyers say what matters: in a Transport Intelligence survey (opens in a new tab) of logistics buyers in late 2023, reliability and accuracy made up 32.1% of responses on the most important selection criteria, price 20.5% and geographic coverage 10.8%. In the Inbound Logistics survey, shippers rated service more important than price by 72% to 28%.

What decides whether an assistant names a logistics provider?

Facts and outside endorsements it can find; the platforms explain how they search, not how they choose providers.

Documented by the platforms. OpenAI says (opens in a new tab) ChatGPT search typically rewrites a question into one or more targeted queries sent to search providers, and that a site should allow OpenAI’s search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, to be eligible for inclusion. Google says (opens in a new tab) AI Mode runs multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources, which it calls “query fan-out.” Neither publishes how individual providers are picked.

Observed in our studies, across several industries but not logistics specifically:

  • Assistants look for rankings and publications. In our hidden searches study, ChatGPT ran a search aimed at a named publication, ranking or award in 43.8% of its answers, and ran a mean of 3.7 searches per question.
  • Trade press and rankings carry weight. Our brand entity study found that a tenfold rise in the independent sites naming a provider in the cited pages came with 4.7 times the odds that it was recommended.
  • Lists vary from run to run. In our consistency study, only 25.2% of the brands ChatGPT named for a question appeared in all five repeats, so one test answer is a sample, not a verdict.

Our inference for 3PLs. The trust factors are what a logistics buyer checks on a site visit, written where a machine can read them: facility addresses and square footage, temperature zones, certifications such as food-grade, FDA registration, bonded or hazardous-materials handling, integrations with ecommerce platforms, marketplaces and EDI, order and pallet volumes you serve well, industries served, and service level commitments. Inclusion in trade rankings, coverage in logistics publications and customer case studies published with permission give an assistant outside confirmation.

What does a 3PL lose when AI leaves it out?

RFP invitations and quote requests it never sees, in a market where customers rarely come back up for bid.

We found no public measurement of logistics contracts lost to AI absence, so we label our reasoning:

  • Fewer chances to compete. With more than half of shippers not rebidding at contract end, each search a provider misses may be the only opening for years.
  • Customer acquisition is already the pressure point. When 46% of 3PLs call finding and retaining customers a top challenge, an extra place on early lists matters.
  • Wrong facts disqualify quietly. An assistant that says you have no cold storage, no West Coast building or no Shopify connection removes you from a list you never knew existed. Our guide to fixing wrong brand information in AI answers shows how to trace an error to the page it came from.
  • Failed partnerships create new searches. In the Inbound Logistics survey, poor customer service was shippers’ top reason for a failed 3PL partnership, at 34%. Every failure starts a search for a replacement.

How does GEO work for a 3PL or fulfillment provider?

Generative engine optimization (GEO) helps AI assistants find, describe and verify your network, capabilities and reputation.

For a logistics provider, the work usually includes:

  1. One page per facility. Address, size, temperature zones, certifications, equipment, carriers and delivery coverage, in text rather than only in a map image or brochure.
  2. Capability pages by buyer type. Separate, plain descriptions for ecommerce fulfillment, retail compliance, B2B distribution, kitting, returns and cold chain, each stating order profiles and minimums.
  3. Integration facts. A clear list of the store platforms, marketplaces, warehouse and transportation systems and EDI standards you connect to, with any limits stated honestly. How those system vendors get found is covered in logistics software in AI search.
  4. Consistent identity. The same company name, facility list and capabilities across your site, directories, LinkedIn, association listings and trade rankings.
  5. Independent proof. Rankings and awards you qualify for, trade press coverage, conference talks and customer case studies with permission. Our guide on how brands build authority for AI search explains why outside sources carry weight.
  6. Comparison-ready content. Straight answers to in-house versus outsourced fulfillment, one 3PL or several (27% of shippers in the Inbound Logistics survey preferred more than one), and how pricing is built.
  7. Crawl access and measurement. Let the documented search crawlers reach your pages, then ask a fixed set of location, vertical and capability questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google’s AI features, repeatedly, and compare the results with the RFPs and quote requests you receive.

Nobody can promise that an assistant will name your company. The work makes your network the easiest one for an assistant, and then a logistics buyer, to check.

What remains unproven about AI search in 3PL selection?

The data shows logistics teams using AI and buyers choosing 3PLs on service, not how many contracts AI answers start.

  • No attribution data. We found no public study linking AI answers to RFP invitations, quotes or 3PL contracts.
  • Operational AI is not search AI. The Descartes survey measures generative AI in transportation management, not provider selection.
  • Some sources are older or partial. The Transport Intelligence criteria come from a late-2023 survey, and much of the 2026 3PL study is behind a download.
  • Surveys come from interested parties. Radial and GXO sell logistics services, and Descartes sells logistics software.
  • Our studies are cross-industry. Applying them to logistics is our inference.

Where should a logistics provider start?

Start by asking assistants the location, product and capability questions your best customers asked before they hired you.

That check shows whether your company is named for your strongest regions and verticals, whether your facilities, certifications and integrations are described correctly, which rankings and publications the answers rely on, and which providers appear in your place. The next step is to publish those facts where assistants read them and to earn the outside coverage that confirms them.

If your growth depends on a few new multi-year accounts a year, get in touch for a review of your AI search visibility. We will show where your company appears when shippers and brands ask AI for a logistics partner, why other providers are named, and which changes are most likely to bring more RFP invitations and qualified quote requests. Facility pages, integration lists and trade coverage are the kind of 3PL work our generative engine optimization service page describes, along with how results are measured against incoming RFPs.

Frequently asked questions

Do shippers really ask ChatGPT to recommend a 3PL?

There is no public measurement of that yet. Logistics teams already use generative AI widely at work, 96% in the Descartes survey, so it is reasonable to expect some provider searches to start there, followed by RFPs and site visits.

Does a small regional 3PL have a chance against national providers?

Yes, for questions tied to a place, product type or service that fewer providers match. State those specifics plainly and earn local and trade coverage that confirms them.

Are top 3PL lists worth the effort?

They can be. Our hidden searches study found ChatGPT often searching for named rankings and publications, and buyers read the same lists. Enter only those you qualify for honestly.

Will AI search replace RFPs and site visits?

No. Contracts still depend on proposals, visits and pricing. AI can change which providers get invited.

Sources

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