5 Hours to Book a Truck? AI Is Coming for That

AI load negotiation is getting real for carriers — and it could cut hours out of booking a truck. Gabe Ribeiro of Hey Bubba AI breaks down where fleets actually stand on AI, why small carriers still aren’t far behind, and how AI can negotiate with multiple brokers at the same time through email, calling and APIs. He also gets into the trust issue, data safety, and the simplest way fleets can start using tools like Claude or ChatGPT without overcomplicating it. For carriers, owner-operators and small fleets, this is the practical AI conversation — not the hype cycle.

Booking a single hard-to-cover truck can consume five to six hours of a carrier’s day — and Hey Bubba AI is building toward eliminating most of that manual work. Gabriel Ribeiro, Head of Partnerships and Marketing at Hey Bubba AI, told FreightWaves that the company’s platform simultaneously negotiates with five to ten brokers at once, presenting carriers with a ranked set of options rather than forcing dispatchers to work each opportunity sequentially.

“When we’re talking to owner-operators — any fleet — when they have a tough truck to cover, it could take them five, six hours to negotiate it and book the truck depending on if it’s a same-day load or next day,” Ribeiro said. “What we’re trying to do is create five or ten different offers for them to look at to see what’s really the best option for them at that moment.”

“We do it all simultaneously at the same time with calling, emailing, APIs, and just giving the driver or the carrier the best option that is there in that moment for them.” — Gabriel Ribeiro, Head of Partnerships and Marketing, Hey Bubba AI

Beyond load negotiation, Ribeiro said the platform scans rate confirmations and bills of lading for errors — a task he argued AI handles more reliably than humans who can miss a single digit — and delivers real-time location updates to brokers through automated tracking calls triggered by carrier-defined rules. The system integrates with ELDs for hours-of-service data, VoIP services, load boards, and telematics feeds, with the goal of connecting existing tools rather than replacing them.

The company recently launched ActionWeave AI, described as an agent-orchestration backend that lets carriers select from a menu of individual agents — accounts receivable, compliance, booking — and enable them across specific parts of their operation. Ribeiro said larger organizations are already piloting the platform, and that Hey Bubba developed much of its current toolset over the past six to twelve months based directly on customer feedback.

On the driver-facing side, Ribeiro said carriers are testing a hands-free application that supports roughly 30 to 40 languages and allows drivers to interact with the system using voice commands — similar to Siri — without picking up a phone or looking at a tablet. Safety directors are driving adoption, he said, citing distracted driving as a significant accident and compliance risk. The voice interface also addresses a retention issue: drivers who need information at 11 p.m. can get it from the AI without waiting for a dispatcher to respond.

Despite the automation push, Ribeiro cautioned that most carriers with fewer than 50 to 100 trucks are still early in their AI journey and should start small. He recommended that smaller fleets open a paid account with tools like Claude or ChatGPT to handle repetitive internal tasks — such as generating standard operating procedures from a brain dump of notes — before attempting broader workflow automation. He stressed that paid accounts are essential for data security, calling it one of the first three questions any carrier should ask an AI vendor.

• Hey Bubba AI negotiates with 5 to 10 brokers simultaneously, aiming to cut load-booking time from 5 to 6 hours for hard-to-cover trucks
• Newly launched ActionWeave AI lets carriers select individual back-office agents — AR, compliance, booking — from a modular menu
• A hands-free driver app supporting 30 to 40 languages targets distracted-driving risk and dispatcher-driver friction, including after-hours needs

This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.