AI has been sitting on the sidelines of trucking — interesting, promising, but mostly theoretical.
In 2025, that changed.
This was the year AI moved from theory and into daily operations. As Mark Hill, CEO of PCS Software, put it during a recent Truckload Carriers Association fireside chat:
“AI didn’t win in 2025 because it got smarter. It won because systems finally got connected and started understanding real workflows.”
The Macro Shift That Forced Adoption
Pressure made 2025 different. Tight margins, sustained freight softness, and operational complexity pushed fleets to look for tools that actually removed friction.
Across the industry, fleets leaned into AI where it could eliminate manual work and speed up decision-making.
Where AI Delivered Real Value
Several patterns stood out this year:
- Communication at scale: AI helped fleets regain control of inboxes, calls, and routine updates.
- Document intelligence: OCR and document interpretation finally crossed the trust threshold, cutting billing cycles and exception handling.
- Dispatch support: AI didn’t replace dispatchers — it handled the routine so humans could focus on exceptions.
- Routing and efficiency: Real-time data made routing more human-aware, not just algorithmically optimal.
Jason Douglass, VP of Community Engagement at PCS notes, “Fleets aren’t adopting AI to replace people. They adopted it to survive the grind.”
The Misses Fleets Need to Learn From
Not everything worked. It’s noticeable that AI struggled where data was fragmented or tools operated in isolation. Mark states, “AI without clean data isn’t AI. It’s noise.”
The lesson in 2025 was clear: AI only performs as well as the systems and decisions surrounding it.
What This Means for 2026
Looking ahead, the industry is entering a new AI phase, one defined by connected intelligence.
AI systems won’t just optimize inside a single tool. They’ll increasingly communicate across platforms, organizations, and marketplaces — handling routine decisions so people can focus on judgment, relationships, and growth.
“The trucking company of the future isn’t choosing between people and AI,” Hill said. “It’s combining both.”
Learn more about PCS TMS with Cortex AI for your operations or get a demo to see Cortex in action.
