Descartes: From The Dot-Com Era To The AI Era

A look at Descartes’ evolution from the dot-com era to AI, including key announcements, acquisitions, and takeaways from its 2026 Innovation Forum.

Oct 26, 2026

The opening keynote session at the recent Descartes Innovation Forum featured CEO Ed Ryan, President and COO Scott Pagan, and EVP of Product Management Ken Wood. In his remarks, Scott mentioned how all three of them started working at Descartes 25 years ago, which is a very long time in the software industry. It’s like dog years: 25 years at a supply chain software company is about 140 years elsewhere.

As I sat in the audience, I realized that my time covering Descartes as an industry analyst is even longer: 27 years. I’m not sure if the dog years math applies to analysts, but suffice it to say, I’ve been around a long time (longer than most industry analysts at the event).

I go back to the days when we were slapping the letter ‘e’ in front of everything: e-Business, e-Procurement, e-Commerce, e-Transportation, e-CRM, e-Learning, and the list goes on.

(Fun fact: Ed Ryan joined Descartes via its acquisition of E-Transport in February 2000.)

E-commerce stuck, but we thankfully dropped the prefix from everything else.

This is a long-winded way of me saying…

The First Half of 2026: What’s Changed, What’s Worked, and What’s Next

The first half of 2026 has been anything but predictable. Tariffs, geopolitical tensions, AI advancements, changing transportation market conditions, and other developments have created new challenges — and new opportunities — for supply chain organizations. As we reach the midpoint of the year, we’d like to understand what has had the greatest impact on your organization, what has surprised you, where you’ve made the most progress, and what priorities will shape the months ahead.

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