23-05-2025
Over 90 high-level representatives from over 30 posts worldwide, including 20 CEOs, met in The Hague for the IPC 2025 Annual Conference on 21-22 May. Hosted by PostNL, this year’s IPC Annual Conference was themed “Artificial Intelligence in the postal industry”.
Holger Winklbauer, IPC CEO, says: “Artificial Intelligence is profoundly transforming various sectors of our economy, including the postal industry. As highlighted at our conference, AI is already driving and will continue to drive transformative advancements in the postal sector by optimising operational efficiency and delivering innovative solutions to customers and e-commerce delivery users. The IPC event offered valuable insights into cutting-edge AI developments and fostered the exchange of best practices, empowering postal services to share and learn from one another’s experiences”.
The conference looked at the opportunities AI presents for optimising postal processes but also at the potential risks associated with the use of AI in various business sectors of the postal industry.
To set the scene, the conference began with three keynote speeches by Wolfram Wiesemann, Professor of Analytics & Operations at Imperial College Business School; Michael Mowat, Supply Chain Strategy and Operations Leader, IBM Consulting, and Erik Muttersbach, co-founder of Forto.
All keynote speakers insisted on the rapid pace of AI developments from an increasingly wide range of stakeholders. They highlighted the potential of AI for forecasting, inventory management, customer service, and many other use cases. In the future, they expect a shift towards autonomous decision-making by AI.
Speakers at the conference also underlined the need to address security as well as ethical and governance issues linked to AI.
The keynote speeches were followed by a panel of postal experts who shared tangible use cases of AI in postal processes across posts worldwide, including the usage of Computer Vision to improve efficiency in sorting centres and an AI-supported customs clearance system.
Tone Wille, Chair of IPC Board concluded “It is not a question of if but when. We need a cultural change, allowing people to experiment. External cooperation is also essential to build on each other’s experience”.