Agentic Commodities
How AI is already transforming physical commodities
By Philip Koenig, founder of CommodityAI and former physical commodities trader
The first inside account of what happens when AI meets the most paper-heavy, relationship-driven business on earth. Part history, part field guide, written for the people who actually move the trade.
Free e-book and US print copies, shipping included. The book’s in final production; request yours and we’ll send it within ~2 weeks.
The hidden operating system of the global economy
For five centuries, physical commodity traders have moved the resources the world runs on: the grains that feed us, the metals that build our cities, and the energy in between.
Yet this multi-trillion-dollar business still runs on phone calls, PDFs, spreadsheets, and institutional knowledge that takes decades to build.
That’s changing faster than at any point in the industry’s history.
“The traders who mastered the telex, the container ship, and the Bloomberg terminal built empires. The ones who didn’t disappeared. AI is the next line in that ledger.”
Written for the people who move the trade
Whether you sit on the desk or run the team behind it, this book is about your daily reality, and where it’s heading.
Traders
Where your edge moves when documents, data, and decisions stop being manual.
Operations
From chasing PDFs and re-keying contracts to managing exceptions, not data entry.
Finance
Faster confirmations and numbers you can trust, because the data underneath is clean.
Risk
A live, complete view of exposure, without the spreadsheet archaeology.
Compliance
Every trade traceable and current, so audits stop being fire drills.
Quants & analysts
Your model is only as good as its inputs. Clean, current data means sharper forecasts and less time as a data janitor.
Part history, part field guide
Where the industry has been, what AI actually changes, and how to act on it.
About the author
Philip Koenig is the co-founder and CEO of CommodityAI. He spent seven years trading physical sugar at ED&F Man and Grupo Pantaleon, long enough to tire of watching a multi-trillion-dollar industry run on manual data entry, PDFs, and spreadsheets.
He started CommodityAI in Silicon Valley to fix exactly that, building AI agents that handle the document grind behind every trade. Agentic Commodities is his dispatch from the front lines.
Get your copy of Agentic Commodities
Free e-book and US print copies, shipping included. The book is in final production; request yours now and we’ll send it within ~2 weeks.
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