- Nationwide digital freight network company Convoy announced it reached 100% automated brokering in the top freight markets
Nationwide digital freight network company Convoy recently announced that it has reached 100% automated brokering in the top freight markets. Plus the company achieved another first in the trucking industry, including 100% automated brokering of loads to carriers, comprised of matching and pricing on lanes in top freight markets, including Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and several other places.
Earlier this year, Convoy achieved 100% automated load matching. And with today’s milestone, the company has now achieved 100% automated load pricing, completing full automation of the brokering process.
After matching a load to a truck, brokers and asset-based carriers manually negotiate the pricing for each load typically done by phone or email. And this inefficient process takes hours to complete and contributes to higher prices for shippers as well as more hassle for drivers and carriers.
Convoy’s digital freight network combines its dense network of carriers with the use of machine learning models to fully automate the process of matching and pricing a truck to a load — which can happen in minutes rather than hours.
“100% automated brokering is a significant milestone that enables Convoy to operate more efficiently, leading to reduced costs for shippers and full trucks for carriers,” said Convoy’s chief product officer Ziad Ismail. “With automation reducing manual work, Convoy’s operations team can focus on establishing new markets and expanding our carrier base to meet our growing demand.”
As the freight volume increases across Convoy’s digital freight network, carriers get more load options, better routes, and fewer empty miles thus allowing them to earn more. And at the same time, as more carriers work with Convoy, capacity increases and costs decrease for shippers. Automated brokering accelerates this flywheel effect to further benefit both sides of the marketplace.
“This breakthrough on automated platform pricing by Convoy on high-density cargo lanes is significant and definitive towards achieving a future of truly automated touch-of-a-single-button-type brokering.” added Frost and Sullivan team lead of commercial vehicle research and consulting Silpa Paul. “Digital freight providers have been around for years but where they have struggled is precisely in automating pricing. Most have had to create a system of customer account executives with call support to actually complete the brokerage process. Thus, they have been operating more or less like traditional brokers.”
Ever since Convoy launched in 2015, the company has been developing and refining machine learning models to automate otherwise manual processes. Last month, Convy raised $400 million in funding to accelerate its development of first-to-market products and technologies focused on improving efficiency in trucking.
Some of the shippers that utilize Convoy include Anheuser-Busch, CHEP, and Waiākea. Convoy was co-founded by CEO Dan Lewis and CTO Grant Goodale. And some of the company’s investors include Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos via Bezos Expeditions, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, Hadi Partovi and Ali Partovi, Tom Chapman, former Starbucks president Howard Behar, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, David Lawee via CapitalG, Baillie Gifford, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Simon Rothman via Greylock Partners, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, Henry Kravis, and Gary Chartrand.
