Uptake Technologies CEO sees power in AI for fleet owners

He pointed out large language models (LLMs) as an opportunity for fleets. Important data about trucks can be hidden in the comments, notes and messages that go back and forth in a company, rather than just work orders themselves. The LLM can examine and structure that data in a searchable way, which McElhinney said enables customers to use their own data to predict failures or breakdowns — leading to big savings by avoiding unexpected costs. 

McElhinney also said AI can be handy for search. Large organizations have data scattered across the entire company, from emails to Excel spreadsheets to Word documents. AI can unify and organize that data in a central location, giving employees the ability to search all the documents.

An example of this is how Uptake Technologies merges truck data with work order data and uses it to determine truck issues and how to streamline maintenance. The company has been performing substantial analysis on tire failures. The insights gleaned identify and address tire-related issues, which the company said had led to an 83% drop in significant tire failures among clients. 

McElhinney said the company is excited about analyzing asset life cycles and how fleet owners determine when to retire trucks. 

“We solve one problem for our customers, and that’s we reduce unplanned downtime,” he said. “So how we do that is by leveraging AI. … Typically, we can reduce unplanned downtime 10 to 40% — something in that range.”