3PL Summit: Trimble exec sees AI changing brokerage cost structure

BIO: McIntire is a seasoned professional with over 15 years of experience in the supply chain industry and its digital transformation. He is a strong advocate for data-driven processes and decision-making. McIntire is recognized as one of the innovators in applying AI and machine learning to freight procurement and assignment.

KEY QUOTES FROM MCINTIRE:

“You ask [AI] to think about something and get reflections. You pay by the thought and it’s a much cheaper thought. … So it takes this cost, which used to be a fixed cost, and it converts it into a variable cost. And that’s important in particular for the brokerage community.”

“Arguably, the most important aspect of a brokerage business is its ability to sell. It’s usually what it’s constrained by. So if you ask, ‘How would you double the business?,’ typically, you wouldn’t double. You wouldn’t say, well, the hardest part of doubling the business is going to be securing capacity, issuing invoices, adding a new office, winning enough business and winning enough customers. And there’s some real key ratios here that have always existed about how much book of business each head count can produce and how long it’ll take them to ramp to get to that level. And I think that those [ratios] are really disrupted by the arrival of AI.”

“I suspect what [AI] leads to is just a really different relationship between us and our technology. Rather than being tools that we have to build and configure and train for our workers, our workers have to really adapt to the tool actually. … We end up with these very superpowered individuals.”

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