Trucking Leaders Balance AI Promise and Workforce Risks
Carriers Embrace Automation but Warn of Job and Social Impacts
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SAN DIEGO — The trucking industry is embracing artificial intelligence to reduce costs and improve safety, but company leaders warned during a panel at American Trucking Associations’ 2025 Management Conference & Exhibition that carriers must balance efficiency gains against legitimate concerns about job displacement and social impacts.
The discussion focused on practical AI applications already changing daily operations at fleets.
“Our goal is kind of twofold,” said Greg Ryan, lead solution engineer at . “First and foremost, we want to give you all a take on where things have been, where it’s basically developed to today, as well as what you can take home with you and start using pretty much immediately.”
Years in Development
AI goes back several decades as an area of study in the computer sciences. But in more recent years, there has been an acceleration in its development due to advances in computing power, the availability of massive datasets and breakthroughs in deep learning algorithms leading to more robust models like those tied to generative AI.
“For me, AI means automation,” said Karol Smith, director of transport compliance at . “It equates to automation. For Estes, we look at automation as support tools. It’s an integral part of our daily life working. It integrates our transport team with the operations team, safety, maintenance, finance.”
Smith noted that there is a lot of information that can be automated through these processes, eliminating many hours of work. She described the ability to develop and implement these systems into her operations as being game-changing. But, she also noted, the technology is used as a decision support tool, not as a decision-making tool.
“I would say for us, we got on the AI bandwagon fairly quickly,” said Jared Whitson, director of safety at . “We were encouraged to go and try and do all the things, and it very quickly became a full-scale resource in what we do, our job responsibilities providing insights, a lot of design work as far as document structure and stuff like that. It’s changing the world, at the end of the day, very rapidly.”
Legitimate Concerns
Whitson still stresses that it’s important to acknowledge that there are some legitimate concerns with this technology. For instance, he pointed out, it is still too early to know how this technology could impact humanity socially in the years ahead.
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“There’s some high-level social and relational human risks that are there,” Whitson said. “Obviously, just from a career perspective, it’s changing job responsibilities almost daily. From career upheaval, anybody with design responsibilities, they’ve got a lot of efficiency added to their job right now. But when you’ve got a tool or a resource that basically designs and creates for you, at some point, that becomes a concern.”
Whitson was still favorable toward the technology despite his call to take risks seriously. He recommended companies approach the technology with a good sense of what is motivating them to use it and what they are trying to accomplish. He also stressed the importance of communicating this to their workforce, including how it may impact jobs.
“We definitely look at AI as a partner,” Smith said. “AI has really changed and enhanced the human decision-making process for us so we can see what is happening. It’s identifying events, it’s identifying trends, it’s helping us do compliance work that we just don’t necessarily have time to do, so it can really handle a lot of that heavy lifting in the low-compliance areas for us. It’s been very integral for our drivers. So it’s transformed their driving behaviors.”
Operational Improvements
Smith also highlighted how the technology has led to major improvements when it comes to incident rates and reducing insurance costs. She noted that it has really helped in identifying positive and negative events that allow for more proactive driver coaching. Overall, she has found it is very useful in automating low-level operations.
“So checking an expiration date on a driver’s license, tracking expiration dates on our independent contractors’ tractors,” Smith said. “It is giving everybody the same information at the same time. I’m able to remove myself from being the hub of communications and having to call every single person that has an upcoming expiration date to being able to send an automated message to systems that your driver’s license is about to expire.”
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