Trimble CEO Rob Painter says fleets can’t change the weak market, but can pivot using technology to protect and increase profit.
With revenue harder to come by, carriers need tools that help them find better freight, strip out inefficiencies and automate manual work at scale, he told trucknews.com at the Trimble Insight Tech Conference in New Orleans, La.
Painter said the profit equation remains straightforward — revenue minus cost — and Trimble focuses on things fleets can control. On the revenue side, carriers want to secure the best possible freight and cut empty miles. On the cost side, fuel, labor, safety, insurance and maintenance continue to weigh heavily on margins.
He said that a connected technology ecosystem can produce measurable gains in each category, and those small improvements compound quickly across a full fleet.
He pointed to the company’s routing, mapping and marketplace tools as examples of how data can align the right truck with the right load at the right moment. Better matching increases billable miles and reduces waste, even when rates remain depressed.
Next-gen TMS unveiled
Painter and Michael Kornhauser, Trimble’s vice president of transportation and logistics, kicked off the conference by unveiling the next-gen Trimble TMS (transportation management system), new AI agents and workflows and expanded integrations like Fleet Hub, Freight Marketplace and Fuel Dispatch.
The TMS is designed for the “AI age.” The system is modular, cloud-native and capable of operating as either a full end-to-end platform or as a set of modules layered onto existing Trimble TMS products.
AI is embedded throughout the system, from tender grading and AI-assisted load building to predictive network balance forecasts that extend up to a week into the future.
Refining algorithms
Painter said the scale and quality of the data behind these tools is a critical differentiator. Trimble’s systems manage more than a million vehicles and process tens of billions of dollars in freight activity annually.
That volume provides the training ground needed to refine AI algorithms and make them more accurate and predictive.
Kornhauser said the design goal was flexibility. Fleets can adopt the new TMS without a risky “rip-and-replace” transition.
The TMS includes modules for order management, capacity planning, supply and demand balancing, shipment status, back-office functions and a central control center. It also offers unified reporting and a single source of truth for operational and financial decisions.
Fuel tools such as Expert Fuel help drivers buy the right fuel at the right price, while route planning and dwell-time reduction features limit idling and unproductive minutes.
Communication tool Fleet Hub
Labor costs also loom large, particularly when driver turnover remains high. Painter noted that replacing a driver can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars, and many of those losses stem from communication gaps and inefficient back-office processes.
Trimble is addressing this challenge with Fleet Hub, a cloud-based communication tool that links drivers and dispatchers more directly.
It speeds message delivery, integrates with multiple telematics providers, and connects directly to Trimble’s workflow tech, giving drivers more immediate, accurate instructions. The company says improving this communication experience can strengthen retention by helping drivers feel supported and connected to the operation.
Matching shippers, brokers and carriers
Procurement efficiency is another focus area. Freight Marketplace uses AI to match shippers, brokers and carriers more effectively. Shippers gain automated carrier vetting and a clearer path to reliable coverage, while carriers gain access to freight from major shippers already using the system.
The company says this approach improves capacity alignment and reduces the back-and-forth that normally slows tender acceptance during tight or volatile markets.
Trimble is targeting fuel hauling operations for digital improvements. It has rolled out an integration that performs terminal allocation and credit checks before dispatch, eliminating the common “no load” scenario in which a driver arrives at a location only to learn they cannot load.
Return on investment
By validating orders ahead of time and feeding information directly into the fuel dispatch system, fleets can avoid wasted miles and lost time.
Painter and Kornhauser stressed the role of AI in delivering an immediate return on investment. Kornhauser said the company’s new AI agents remove manual, error-prone tasks that consume hours of daily work across order entry, maintenance and breakdown response.
A new Order Intake Agent can ingest freight orders arriving by email, PDF or electronic data interchange and automatically enter them into a fleet’s TMS, reducing the need for human review in most cases.
Eliminating paperwork
For maintenance teams, an Invoice Scanning Agent interprets repair invoices and attaches the data directly to repair orders, eliminating a significant amount of paperwork.
A Road Call Agent captures driver breakdown information in natural language and automatically opens a ticket for the maintenance team, reducing response times and improving driver support during stressful roadside events.
Kornhauser said these AI workflows don’t replace people; they free them to focus on higher-value work and exception management. For fleets, the impact is two-fold. Labor can be reallocated instead of increased, and the quality and speed of decisions improves.
Trimble also expanded into financial automation with Freight Audit, which automates audit and settlement processes.
Streamlining payment
The system integrates with a major payment network to streamline payment cycles, reduce disputes and give shippers and logistics providers more transparent oversight of their freight spend. Carriers can be paid quickly once invoices are approved, helping stabilize cash flow in an unpredictable market.
Painter said the impact of these tools is exponential. A few minutes saved per load, a cleaner driver communication loop or a small improvement in fuel economy may not sound significant on their own, he said, but across hundreds of trucks and thousands of loads, the gains compound into profit.
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