Former Big Tech Engineers Use AI to Fix Trump-Era Trade Chaos

Sam Basu left his senior software engineer role at Google in early 2023, shortly after ChatGPT hit the scene. A few failed AI ventures later, he got a call from a friend asking for help filling out customs paperwork.

Curious, Basu started cold-calling customs brokers around Los Angeles — and what he found shocked him. Many were still run by mom-and-pop operations relying on fax machines and mountains of paper. During a FaceTime tour of a customer’s office, he saw stacks of manila folders piled high. The moment clicked. He flew to the office the next day.

“That was the eye-opening moment,” Basu said. “I was shocked at how the industry runs on paper, and impressed that everything around us, from the watch you’re wearing to the glasses, literally everything that’s imported, passes through this process.”

That seed of an idea has now become Amari AI, co-founded with Arushi Vashist, a former senior engineer at LinkedIn. Their small team has already onboarded over 30 customers and helped move more than $15 billion in goods — all before coming out of stealth mode. Amari has also raised $4.5 million from early-stage investors including First Round Capital and Pear VC.

Amari has two clear goals:

1. Modernize customs brokers. Many rely on outdated processes. While some use optical character recognition to speed up data entry, it’s limited and brittle. Amari automates paperwork, freeing U.S.-based employees to focus on helping customers move goods across borders efficiently.

2. Navigate trade chaos. President Trump’s unpredictable trade policies have made brokers more critical than ever. Chris Bachinski, CEO of 125-year-old GHY International and an early Amari customer, explained that many clients don’t have in-house compliance teams. They rely on brokers to interpret sudden policy changes and ensure goods already in transit reach their destination.

For Basu and Vashist, the opportunity is clear: help a critical yet overlooked industry catch up to the digital age, and prove that AI can untangle even the messiest trade headaches.