🎣 The Future of Track-and-Trace

We sat down with Thomas Mella, Co-Founder of TrackFlo & President of Sightline Freight Partners, to discuss why he believes a large “washout” is coming for AI agent providers, and how TrackFlo, a tracking operations platform, is helping brokerages achieve higher margins. 

Freight Tech’s Real Bottleneck Isn’t AI, It’s Relationships 

Freight Tech’s Relationship Problem 

We dove right into the cold, hard truth that freight tech vendors don’t want to admit:

The product usually isn’t the problem. Relationships are.

Many vendors focus entirely on building the product, forgetting that freight has always been a people-first business. 

You can build the best platform in the world, but if brokers don’t trust you, understand you, or feel supported by you, the technology alone won’t carry the deal itself.

Thomas admitted that even TrackFlo hit a point where scaling relationships became difficult:

“At a certain point, the product scales, but the relationships don’t scale. I can only maintain so many quality relationships with people once you get to a certain number.”

Integration matters more than flashy tech 

When asked what brokers actually care about when buying software, he said this: 

“... Even if a tech vendor has the greatest technology solution in the world, if he can’t integrate or get the data out of your TMS into that solution, there are very few solutions that operate on their own.”

That’s the hidden reality of freight tech. 

AI's “washout” phase 

But Thomas believes a major revolution is coming for freight AI agent providers. 

“How can they continue to grow and scale without having deep expertise and being able to charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for these continuous deployments to find opportunities to do that... It just seems like there’s going to be a huge washout of these providers.” 

With more noise now than there ever was before, it’s hard to differentiate yourself from the next AI product.

Thomas believes it's the generic AI platforms that will struggle in the long term. 

“If you have a specific thing that you’re solving for, I think those folks can be successful and have a productive business, but if you’re just saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to solve your problem using AI’ ... I think that there’s going to be a splintering of that market."

So how do companies actually differentiate themselves?

“You can build a driver network, and you’re layering AI on top of it... They’re not an AI company at its core, but they’re building a network of people and layering AI on top of it.”

What TrackFlo actually does 

This is where TrackFlo comes in.

The AI automation handles the routine, your team handles the exceptions, and you get the metrics to measure team and service-level performance.

TrackFlo helps brokers achieve industry-low tracking costs (and higher margins) through relentless AI automation, smarter workflows, and better metrics.

The platform drills into:

• How teams are solving issues
• How quickly they’re resolving them
• and how many shipment problems they’re actively managing

Thomas made it clear that the platform is not built for brokerages that simply want to operate at the absolute lowest cost possible. 

The future of track-and-trace 

Thomas’ prediction on track-and-trace and its future in our industry?

• Automated tracking will continue to accelerate
• There’s a space for a super app to help you source capacity, vet carriers, track, and do payables
• Brokers will be forced to focus more on service and differentiation as sourcing and other operational tasks become increasingly automated

“And that’s where I think our customers would say that TrackFlo is helping them- it’s their TMS for track-and-trace.”

Watch it on YouTube now, listen to the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts soon.

Presented by OTR Solutions

Introducing: OTR Select

"Post and Pray" shouldn't be the only way to find new capacity - now with OTR Select it's never been easier to find reliable capacity and market insights. 

• Real Capacity: Built on millions of invoice-backed loads from continuously vetted carriers, not self-reported or scraped data.
• Real Rates: View legitimate rates based on what carriers are actually accepting, helping you quote faster and protect margin.
• The Most Secure Network: Every carrier in the OTR Network is vetted on entry and monitored 24/7/365.

OTR Select is a capacity and rate intelligence platform available to a select group of brokers.

Carrier of the Week (Presented by SearchCarriers.com)

Haynes Enterprises Inc

• MC: 376919
• Location:  Alvarado, TX
• Equipment: Flatbed
• Phone Number: (817) 225-0011

Freight Humor