For most people, borders are something you only notice when they fail. Goods appear on shelves, parcels arrive at doorsteps, supply chains keep moving — and the complex machinery that enables it all remains largely invisible. That invisibility is by design. When customs works well, it fades into the background, quietly protecting society, supporting economic growth, and allowing legitimate trade to flow.
But sustaining that quiet success has become increasingly difficult. Borders are no longer just physical locations, or even a set of administrative processes. They’re evolving into decision systems, and the pressure on those systems is rising faster than most organisations can adapt. Nowhere was this more evident than at the World Customs Organization (WCO) Technology Conference 2026, held in Abu Dhabi in late January.
Our Director of Trade and Growth, Jose Puyana, attended the conference alongside our Chief Technology Officer, Dave Wood. What follows are the eight key conclusions that stood out most clearly for him.
1. The weight on customs has fundamentally changed
Customs administrations today operate under a set of demands that aren’t just complex, but often competing. At any given moment, they’re expected to deliver border security, collect revenue, facilitate trade, support economic competitiveness, and protect society. All at once!
Layered on top of this are powerful external pressures: geopolitical instability, increasingly sophisticated illicit trade, rising global volumes, and heightened expectations from governments, businesses, and consumers alike. At the same time, public debate around market access, resilience, and competitiveness has brought borders firmly into the political spotlight.
The result is customs no longer managing trade at the margins. Instead, it’s managing systemic complexity at scale.
This is why technology is no longer optional. As the WCO’s Secretary General, Ian Saunders, put it, “customs administrations face a need for continuous adaptation to fulfil their mandates”. The role of technology in that adaptation is unquestionable as well as increasingly urgent.
2. Technology is essential, but not sufficient
There’s no shortage of technology in the border space. AI, advanced analytics, non-intrusive inspection (NII), digital trade corridors, product passports, and verifiable credentials were all on display in Abu Dhabi.
Yet a recurring theme across the conference was scepticism as much as optimism. Many administrations have pilots. Many have tools. Far fewer have transformed outcomes. The reason is simple: digital transformation isn’t just an IT project.
Turning data into insight, and emerging technologies into practical tools, is fundamentally a governance and operating model challenge. Senior leaders must decide what risks they are willing to take, how accountability is structured, and how decisions are made, long before they decide which tools to buy.
Technology enables change, but it doesn’t create it. Without clarity of purpose, prioritisation, and organisational readiness, even the most advanced solutions struggle to move beyond experimentation.
3. Data is seen as the foundation (and the friction)
If there was one theme that quietly underpinned almost every discussion, it was data. Not just how much data is collected, but how it’s shared, protected, interpreted, and trusted. Data quality and meaning—rather than just data availability—are now the primary constraints on progress.
Customs, logistics providers, regulators, and technology vendors all talk about data. But data without common meaning is unusable. If two systems disagree on what “consignor”, “origin”, or “shipment” actually mean, automation fails, regardless of how sophisticated the analytics layered on top is.
This is why standards such as the WCO Data Model matter far more than they appear to on the surface. They aren’t simply technical schemas; they’re semantic and governance artefacts. They encode shared understanding across jurisdictions, organisations, and systems, enabling interoperability at scale.
Every “next-generation” concept (i.e., advance cargo information, digital trade corridors, product passports, verifiable credentials) depends on this foundation. Without it, innovation fragments.
4. E-Commerce broke the model
Nowhere is this more visible than in e-commerce. Low-value, high-volume parcel flows have overwhelmed legacy customs models that were designed for containerised trade. De minimis thresholds, split shipments, and platform-driven commerce have exposed the limits of document-centric, reactive controls.
The challenge isn’t that customs lacks technology. It’s that enforcement has become data-limited rather than tech-limited. Traders want speed, predictability, and transparency. Authorities need security, revenue protection, and compliance. The problem isn’t choosing between these objectives but balancing them at scale.
That balance requires risk-based, upstream approaches: earlier data, predictive analytics, and models that allow most flows to pass automatically while focusing scarce attention on the minority that matter.
5. Re-engineering trust
A powerful analogy shared at the conference captured this shift well: a passport isn’t just a document. It’s identity, compliance history, permissions, and trust. Why shouldn’t goods have the same thing?
This idea underpins the growing interest in product passports and persistent digital identities for goods. Rather than treating each shipment as an isolated transaction, these approaches create a continuously updated view of products, their origins, components, movements, and compliance status.
In this model, declarations become references rather than evidence. Compliance happens earlier, sometimes before goods are even manufactured, and risk management fundamentally changes when authorities have reliable data weeks before arrival.
Crucially, trust here isn’t created through centralisation. It emerges through evidence: supplier data, importer attestations, and movement information reinforcing each other. Full traceability everywhere is neither realistic nor desirable; risk-based traceability is.
Borders are increasingly becoming systems for managing trust, not checking paperwork.
6. Humans are still the system
As was expected, AI featured prominently throughout the conference, but so did caution. Two tensions stood out. On the one hand, AI is often applied too narrowly, bolted onto existing processes without rethinking end-to-end operating models. On the other, there’s a rush to operationalise AI without redesigning workflows, governance, or workforce roles.
The real question isn’t “can we deploy AI?”, but “what does human plus AI actually look like?” AI systems inevitably learn from human decisions, which ones are acted on, overridden, or ignored. If AI is designed in organisational silos, frontline officers become the integration layer, overwhelmed rather than empowered.
A simple test emerged repeatedly: if a system does not make the officer’s job easier, it has failed, even if its predictions are technically accurate.
7. Ports, corridors, and the expanding border
Another quiet shift is the changing role of ports. No longer just physical handoff points, ports are becoming data aggregation hubs, risk-orchestration layers, and early-warning systems for customs.
Whoever sits closest to arrival, dwell, and movement data has disproportionate influence over facilitation and enforcement outcomes. It’s why collaboration across customs, port operators, carriers, and traders is no longer optional.
Technology layered on top of silos doesn’t create agility. Agility comes from co-design, shared incentives, and joint governance, supported by digital infrastructure, not defined by it.
8. What this means for governments
For governments, the implication isn’t the need for more tools, but rather clearer priorities. Integration beats bespoke builds. For the consulting and delivery ecosystem, the message is equally stark. The market’s crowded with products and platforms. What’s scarce is the capability to connect them, operationalise them, and sustain change over time.
The real work ahead isn’t glamorous. It’s about data quality, standards, trust, workforce readiness, and the discipline to scale what works.
The next horizon
The next horizon for borders won’t be defined by the next technology wave. What will differentiate successful customs administrations is their ability to absorb change, govern complexity, and design systems around human decision-making, while keeping trade moving and society protected.
Borders are being rebuilt, not modernised. The question’s no longer whether this transformation will happen, but whether it will be done deliberately, responsibly, and at pace.