Overheard at the Broker Carrier Summit: The Industry’s View on AI is Taking Some Intriguing Turns

Is the logistics industry making significant steps in understanding and implementing artificial intelligence? The talk at a recent industry conference suggests that is definitely the trend.

Managing Partner Riley Wiles and Head of North America Services Ryan Shannon recently attended the Spring 2026 Broker Carrier Summit in Overland Park, Kansas – not far from our headquarters in Kansas City. And the report when they returned suggests a shift in industry thinking about AI.

“It feels like a lot of logistics leaders are really seeing the power of AI, and they’re taking their time on how to implement it,” Ryan says. “I was blown awaty just scratching the surface of some of what’s being discussed. It was eye-opening for me.”

One critical detail was the increasingly autonomous role AI is playing within transportation management systems.

“TMS platforms are evolving to the point it’s not just a place to punch in tracking and tracing,” Ryan says. “They actually do the tracking and tracing for you, using AI employees to make calls, check calls and text drivers. All this is done by the TMS you purchased.”

While AI is often discussed in terms of its ability to make human team members more productive, Riley added some specific definition to that idea.

“Let’s say a carrier manager or a capacity manager normally spends time smashing the phones to source capacity for client shipments,” Riley says. “We can now use AI employees to do that at a higher volume and greater efficiency. And there is very much a human keeping an eye on every shipment.”

At the same time, AI helps employees deal with the deluge that sometimes results when an attempt to source carriers is successful.

“Let’s say we put a load out there to members of our carrier network,” Ryan says. “A lot of the time our phones start blowing up instantly. We’ll get 40 to 50 calls from carriers looking to take these loads. The AI employee can answer all of these calls and vet the carriers for the best fit.”

The next Broker Carrier Summit, which will be held in Dallas in October, is an opportunity for both colleagues and competitors in the field to get together and exchange insights about the direction of the industry. Riley says it can also serve as a reality check for those who are convinced their tools and talents are everything the industry needs.

“Our industry has been historically littered with tech people who think their tech is perfect for freight, but they’ve never really worked in freight before,” Riley says. “I’ve seen a lot of money dumped into tech and get advertised as the next greatest thing – and turn out to be an absolute dud.”

As always, the Bestway team will go wherever it can gain greater insight to help produce the best results for our clients. We look forward to sharing more of that insight in this space.