As AI makes tailored applications easier to create, the distinction between building software and running a dependable business system becomes increasingly important.
Who doesn't remember their first real encounter with generative AI? That moment when you realised this was something quite different from the technology we had grown accustomed to. Suddenly, tasks that once took hours could be completed in minutes, and things that previously required specialist knowledge were within reach of almost anyone. It was difficult not to be impressed.
Since then, AI has become an increasingly useful companion in everyday office work. It can summarise lengthy documents, make sense of complex spreadsheets, draft reports and help us find answers buried in large amounts of information. Perhaps more importantly, it allows us to explore questions that were previously too time-consuming or technically demanding to pursue. Combining information from several sources, analysing unfamiliar datasets or testing a new idea has never been so accessible.
And the possibilities keep expanding. We have moved remarkably quickly from asking AI to help us complete tasks to asking it to build the tools that complete those tasks for us.
That is where things get particularly interesting.
Should shipping companies build or buy maritime software?
Software development, once largely the domain of programmers, is becoming accessible to almost anyone with an idea and a willingness to experiment.
Describe what you need, refine the result through a conversation, and before long you may have a working application tailored to your exact requirements. What once required a development team, a budget and months of planning can sometimes be achieved in a remarkably short time.
It is easy to see the appeal. Why settle for software that almost does what you want when you can build something that does exactly what you want? Internal development can make sense for a distinctive analysis, a temporary workflow or a capability central to competitive advantage. The decision is which parts to build and which operational foundations to maintain through a specialist provider.
For businesses, including shipping companies, this raises an interesting question. If AI makes it so much easier to develop applications, will we still need traditional software vendors?
At first glance, the answer might seem less obvious than it did only a few years ago.
But there is a familiar story here.
From spreadsheets to applications
Most shipping companies have, at some point, relied on an important Excel spreadsheet that only one or two people truly understood.
Perhaps it calculates hire and off-hire deductions, tracks charterparty obligations or consolidates emissions data. Over time, it has grown increasingly sophisticated, with formulas, macros and connections to other sources of information.
It works. In fact, it may work exceptionally well for the person who created it.
The challenges often emerge later. When someone else needs to use it, when the underlying data changes, when a new requirement is introduced or when the person who built it moves on.
AI now offers the possibility of replacing that spreadsheet with something far more capable. Instead of a collection of formulas and worksheets, we can have a polished application with an intuitive interface, automated processes and sophisticated calculations.
That is genuine progress. But there is a risk of carrying over the same fundamental limitation. We may have replaced a spreadsheet understood by one person with an application designed around the needs and understanding of that same person.
The technology has changed considerably. The dependency may not have changed nearly as much.
Why maritime AI needs a trusted system of record
What makes enterprise software valuable has never been limited to the effort required to write the code. An application must continue to work as business requirements evolve. It needs to accommodate different users, integrate with other systems, manage access to sensitive information and provide confidence that its calculations and records are correct.
For time charter execution, a system of record is the authoritative source for the charter terms, operational events and calculations used in commercial decisions. Information needs to remain consistent and reliable across the organisation, with a clear history of where it came from, how it has been processed and what changes have been made along the way.
In shipping, these considerations are particularly relevant. Charterparty obligations, vessel performance, emissions reporting and regulatory compliance all depend on reliable information, often shared across departments and organisations. When figures are questioned, whether internally, by counterparties or by auditors, it should be possible to trace them back to their sources and understand how they were calculated.
A system of record therefore needs to do more than store data in one place. It needs processes and checks that establish which information can be relied upon. Which terms are agreed? Which figures have been checked? Which deductions are still disputed? Who is responsible for reviewing a change? These distinctions matter to employees and to any AI working with the same information. An AI assistant needs access to the status and context of a record, as well as the record itself.
Consider a disputed off-hire deduction. Before anyone accepts a revised hire balance, they need to establish which charter terms apply, which event records support the calculation and whether the deduction has been agreed. AI can help investigate the discrepancy, but a plausible answer is not an approved settlement. A connected workflow should preserve the supporting evidence and make the decision status clear.
A calculation that produces the right answer today is useful. A system that consistently produces trustworthy results, preserves an auditable history and provides a shared source of truth over time is something more.
This is where the distinction between creating an application and maintaining a business system becomes important.
AI can dramatically reduce the effort involved in developing new functionality. It does not, by itself, remove the responsibility for maintaining that functionality, preserving data integrity or ensuring that the system continues to meet security, traceability and audit requirements. That responsibility also has a cost. Hosting, support, testing, integrations and updates continue long after the first application is built. Compare the full cost of an internal system, including ownership, testing, support, security and updates, with the full cost of a subscription, implementation, integration and internal administration.
And as applications grow in importance, so do those responsibilities.
How AI changes the value of maritime software
In his book Reshuffle, Sangeet Paul examines how AI changes coordination and shifts competitive advantage as capabilities become easier to obtain. Applied to maritime software, this raises a practical question: when creating an application becomes cheaper, what remains difficult? “For time charter operations, we believe the harder problems include establishing agreed records, maintaining contractual and calculation context, and coordinating decisions across teams and counterparties. As application development becomes easier, the value of solving these problems may grow.
This distinction is particularly relevant to shipping. Managing a vessel under a time charter involves vessel particulars, charterparty terms, hire calculations, emissions obligations and operational events. This information often sits across departments, spreadsheets and systems, requiring manual reconciliation before it can be trusted or acted upon.
AI can extract information, generate reports and investigate discrepancies. But if each task still requires assembling and checking information from several sources, much of the underlying work remains.
A shared, trusted system of record opens up more possibilities. Employees and AI can work from the same agreed terms, checked figures and operational context. Imagine asking a question about your fleet, combining chartering, operational and emissions data, and exploring different scenarios without commissioning a report or developing a permanent feature. Some questions may be asked only once. Others may lead to new ways of working.
This is where AI becomes particularly useful: giving employees more freedom to explore, supported by reliable information and consistent business logic.
How Ankeri connects time charter records and AI
For maritime software providers such as Ankeri, this is an exciting development.
Ankeri is a time charter management platform for shipowners, managers and operators. It connects vessel information, charterparty terms, hire invoicing and emissions workflows, providing shared operational context across teams.
Behind that platform lies something equally important: consistent calculations, trusted records, traceable data and a shared understanding of the business across teams. These capabilities take considerable industry knowledge and continuous development to establish and maintain.
As AI becomes part of everyday work, that foundation becomes an increasingly valuable asset.
Ankeri AI already lets users ask questions in natural language across their permitted fleet and chartering data. Through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), teams can also connect compatible external AI clients to Ankeri data using their existing account permissions. This gives them another way to use the operational foundation their teams maintain.
By combining maritime business context with flexible AI tools, shipping companies can explore new questions while retaining control over their operational records. Ernst Russ describes in their Ankeri testimonial how bringing ship profiles, contract details, performance metrics, and invoicing into one consistent user experience improves collaboration across departments.
AI will undoubtedly change how enterprise software is developed, delivered and used. It may also change which features need to be built into applications at all. For software providers, this creates an opportunity to focus even more on what matters: maintaining reliable business systems while making their information more accessible and useful. Shipping companies may still choose to build their own analyses, interfaces and specialised tools. The opportunity is to connect them to a maintained operational foundation, with clear permissions and responsibilities, rather than recreate charter terms and calculation rules in each new application.
But making software easier to create does not make the responsibilities of running a business any less demanding.
The real opportunity may not be that every company can become its own software vendor. It is that every employee can do considerably more with the systems their company already trusts. Want to explore what this could mean for your fleet?
Book a demo to see how Ankeri connects time charter records, hire invoicing, emissions workflows and AI access .