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Artificial Intelligence and Transportation: Making Sense of AI’s Real Impact
Q There’s a lot of talk about AI in transportation right now. From your perspective, where does AI actually create real value for carriers today? A AI creates value where carriers already feel pain. Tight margins, nonstop decisions, teams doing too much with too little. That’s the reality. AI helps when it steps into that pressure and removes friction from everyday work. Dispatch is the obvious place to start. Dispatchers make hundreds of judgment calls a day. Which load is worth taking. Which driver actually fits once you account for hours, equipment, deadhead, and customer history. For years, that has been handled with experience, spreadsheets, and a lot of mental math. AI is good at taking all of those variables at once and narrowing the choices. It doesn’t replace judgment. It gives you fewer bad options to think about. The other big win is reducing busywork. Carriers are drowning in emails, documents, updates, and follow-ups. None of that creates margin, but it eats time. When AI handles the sorting, capturing, and hand-offs, people can focus on the exceptions that actually matter. That’s where productivity gains show up without hiring more staff. Q Many fleets are cautious. Some worry about hype, others about disruption. How should transportation leaders evaluate AI realistically? A A little skepticism is healthy. The fastest way to get burned is chasing AI because it sounds impressive. The test is simple: Does it save time or protect margin? If you can’t answer that quickly, it’s probably noise.
Leaders should also pay attention to how AI fits into real workflows. If it lives in a separate system or forces teams to relearn their jobs from scratch, adoption will stall. Carriers don’t have the luxury of stopping operations to experiment. The technology has to meet people where they already work. Transparency matters too. If a system is making recommendations, operators need to understand why. Trucking runs on accountability. People want to see the logic behind a decision, not just be told “the system says so.” Trust is what turns technology into something teams actually use. Q Looking ahead, how do you see AI changing the transportation workforce over the next few years? A AI doesn’t eliminate work. It changes what work looks like. Routine tasks fade into the background, and judgment becomes more valuable. Dispatchers spend less time hunting for information and more time solving problems and managing relationships. I think we move toward exception-based operations. Systems handle the predictable work, and people step in when something breaks, shifts, or needs a human call. That’s how you scale without burning people out. Transportation has always rewarded experience and adaptability. AI is just another tool that gives carriers leverage in a tough market. The fleets that win won’t be the ones chasing every new feature. They’ll be the ones using technology to make clearer decisions, faster, without losing the human side that still runs this business.
Mark Hill CEO PCS Software sales@pcssoft.com pcssoft.com 800-474-8241
January 2026 • Inbound Logistics 49
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