What Can Artificial Intelligence Do For Trucking Fleets?

With all the hype around ChatGPT and other “generative AI” engines, as they are called, you might think that artificial intelligence is something new.

“It may seem like AI came out of nowhere, but it dates back to the ‘60s,” explained McLeod Software data scientist Sujit Kunwor at the company's AI summit earlier this year.

Today, however, the amount of data and processing power available have created what he called a “third wave” of AI.

More in this series:

Part 1: Understanding AI in Trucking

Part 2: The Ultimate 'Plug and Play' Technology for Trucking?

Part 3: Risks and Roadblocks Facing AI in Trucking

Part 4: What Can Artificial Intelligence Do For Trucking Fleets?

The first wave of AI was rule-based. In the past couple of decades, we’ve seen the use of “big data” and machine learning bring us what Kunwor called the second wave of AI.

Today, he said, we’re in the third wave: generative AI. And it's unlocked a new level of what this technology can do for trucking fleets.

What is Generative AI?

Generative AI is different because it can not only learn from large amounts of data fed to it, but it then can use that to generate, or create, such as:

• Images (stock photos, image editing)
• Text (chatbots, search, articles, emails, term papers, summarizing legal documents, etc.)
• Sound
• Video (Short-form videos for TikTok, training/learning, AI avatars, shortening videos for social media)
• Computer code

ChatGPT is probably the most well-known example of generative AI. It and similar technology are what has caused such a flurry of interest around AI in the past year or two.

ChatGPT is an example of a “large language model.” LLMs are very large deep learning models that are pre-trained on vast amounts of data and are capable of understanding and generating human language.

In ChatGPT’s case, it has been trained on a huge chunk of information available on the Internet, and it lets users enter prompts to receive humanlike images, text or videos that are created by AI.

25 Things AI Can do for a Trucking Fleet

What makes artificial intelligence such a powerful tool for trucking companies is its ability to be applied to virtually any kind of work you can imagine. This is just a partial list of the ways AI can take fleet operations to the next level:

1. Hands-free voice assistant and communications tools for drivers
2. Predictive maintenance
3. Better maintenance scheduling
4. Parts ordering and inventory
5.  Better route optimization
6. Improved mapping/navigation
7. Improved dispatch/assigning drivers and trucks to routes
8. Real-time management of ZEV range and charging
9. Real-time alerts on how weather may affect specific drivers and loads
10. Smart dashcams
11. Detection of drowsy or distracted drivers
12. Predicting which drivers are likely to have at-fault crashes
13. Machine vision technology – powered by AI – can be used to streamline driver ID and security processes, such as automated yard access.
14. Optimizing powertrains/specs/components
15. Load-matching
16. Autonomous driving
17. Automated rate quoting
18. Detecting double-brokering fraud
19. Freight volume predictions
20. Freight-rate predictions
21. ETA estimates
22. Digitized paperwork using optical character recognition
23. Managing incoming e-mails
24. Accounting reconciliation
25. Advanced data analytics for decision-making

AI Uniquely Tailored For Your Trucking Business

In each of these cases, AI is able to gather information, analyze it, and make informed, history-based decisions based on it far faster than humans can. Moreover, once AI is plugged in to your operations, it becomes part of your team.

In other words, AI is not a “one size fits all” kind of technology. Over time, as it gathers data and observes how you and your team operate, notes the repetitive tasks you perform and the decisions you make, it will incorporate all of that knowledge into its own actions, activities and decisions.

Over time, your AI engine will become uniquely tailored to your business – and your business alone. Its actions will complement everything you do.

AI technology is only now beginning to make its presence felt in real-world fleet operations. But it has tremendous potential to take the fast-moving, dynamic world of fleet operations to levels of efficiency and productivity that would have been deemed impossible just a few years ago.