Legacy Customs technology risks becoming obsolete unless it is rebuilt around large language models (LLMs), Jean Gurunlian, founder and architect of the ASYCUDA system, warned at the World Customs Organization (WCO) Technology Conference 2026 in Abu Dhabi.
Speaking at the event, Gurunlian said traditional Customs platforms, many of which rely on static rules, manual updates and long development cycles, can no longer cope with the speed and complexity of modern trade and regulatory environments.
“No Customs system that has not been built on LLM will survive,” Gurunlian said. “The first real outcome of LLMs is that they have made all existing Customs systems obsolete.”
Gurunlian, who designed ASYCUDA and oversaw its deployment in more than 100 countries, said the pace of regulatory and policy change has fundamentally shifted, rendering legacy systems unfit for purpose.
“Customs systems that cannot adapt to changing laws, regulations, or operational requirements within very short timeframes simply will not survive anymore,” he said. “If a system needs years to adjust, it is already too late.”
According to Gurunlian, many existing Customs platforms still take months or years to implement legislative amendments, tariff changes or new non-tariff measures, even as trade policy becomes increasingly volatile.
“Tariffs and non-tariff barriers have increasingly become political weapons,” he said. “They can change overnight, sometimes without warning. With LLM-enabled systems, those changes can be interpreted, applied, and operationalized in seconds.”
Gurunlian argued that adaptability is no longer an optional feature but a core requirement, adding that Customs technology must now be designed for continuous learning, contextual understanding and rapid improvement.
“The systems, including those that I created, are bound to become obsolete,” he said. “If a system cannot be improved in production, it should not be deployed.”
He cautioned that governments and Customs administrations face a critical choice, warning that continued investment in static, rule-based systems could lock institutions into technology unable to respond to geopolitical shocks, regulatory volatility and the growing complexity of global trade.
“LLMs change the nature of systems themselves,” Gurunlian said. “This is not about adding AI on top of existing platforms. It is about rethinking Customs systems from the ground up.”
