Can AI Really Make Fleet Drivers Safer?

All right. Well, I'm happy to be here with David Glinds, director of product management

on the technology product space for wheels. Thanks for being here, David.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Love talking technology, love talking safety,

love talking driver interaction with new products as it relates to fleets.

So let's get in to some, what are some next-gen things that you're seeing out in the marketplace

in terms of technology that fleets are really going to start to have to pay attention to?

Yeah, I think the connected data obviously is at the forefront of everyone's mind, especially

OEM connected data, how quickly can we get that data into the wheels systems and not

just get the data in, but how quickly can you make it actionable and valuable to both

the drivers and the fleets? Yeah, for sure. I mean, we've had that issue for years with

the data overload as a phrase that we've been having for 15 years. How are we doing that

in ways that are a little bit more effective than it was, say, six, seven years ago?

Yeah, I think obviously AI is the big game changer in the last few years. No surprises

there. I think the connected data and how you can take those events and curate a unique

experience for the drivers in the moment is the groundbreaking new technology that we're

seeing out there. So imagine someone is a driver, a fleet driver, and they have a number

of speeding events, seatbelt events, crash, God forbid, and all of a sudden the technology

itself can create and curate a custom lesson for them saying, hey, Chris, I noticed over

the last few days, few weeks, your driving behavior has been erratic on this day you did

this, on this day you did that. And it's an actual avatar training that person on their

driving behavior. So instead of the standardized 20 courses that a lot of fleets are using

and assigned to the drivers, some of the emerging technologies out there are creating on the

fly training specifically for drivers. It's sophisticated, very cool stuff. Yeah, really.

And so a fleet manager doesn't have to get so specific with that. I mean, the AI or

the program is going to say, okay, these are your drivers, these are your risks. These

are training that I can assign to these drivers. And the fleet manager can basically say,

go for it. And then it gets pushed out. Exactly. The fleet manager creates the parameters,

what are the specific behaviors, the specific events that they want to focus on and all of

a sudden the training behind the scenes can be curated for that specific driver. Wow,

very cool. Where are we at with safety sort of in cab coaching? I mean, that's been around

for a while. Where do you see that going? So I think the number of inquiries that we

received in the last year for cameras and in cab coaching has dwarfed any other year.

So it's only no kidding increasing. Yeah, it's okay. A number of inquiries per week. It's

exciting to see the technology take hold and people really interested in it. I think the

cost has been a barrier a little bit. Those costs are coming down. Technology evolves,

which is great. I think the in cab coaching can be effective. We've seen it be effective

initially where a driver immediately will change the behavior based upon the beeping or if there's

a voice in the in cab experience, if there's no coaching going along with that from a person,

a manager or a safety manager, or again, in the future, one of these customizable,

configurable on the fly training sessions, then the behavior will just start to go back into

that habits. Right. So it's not just the alerts in the cab by itself really won't work. It has to

be the alerts coupled with coaching from a safety manager or a line manager. Sure. Okay.

Now let's talk about driver communication in general. I mean, we have sort of this

divider evolution with younger drivers in how they interact with social media. I mean,

the old method of text messages and emails may be, I don't know, evolving into something else.

Where do you see that going? I think that the attention span of and even not just the younger

generations of all of us is becoming shorter. So I think that the communication needs to be succinct,

can't hit people over the heads with too much text. That's not groundbreaking information,

I guess, but I think that's what we are seeing in the safety spaces is following those trends as well.

So how do we effectively reach the driver in the moment, too? So it's the reaction that you're

seeing from the driver based upon that specific behavior. If it's too far off in the future,

from whenever they the event occurred, then it will be a meaningless instruction to the driver.

So short succinct to the point and again, coupled with the coaching can be more effective.

Yeah. And that's really cool. I mean, really what I'm getting from you is that we are really being

able to fine tune reactions to behaviors and specific coaching and communicating and coaching,

essentially. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the the fleets that care a lot about safety and

the fleets that care and have the budget for safety, they'll realize that the camera investments

make sense, right? So you have one fatal accident, one very bad accident, the costs are

can be astronomical and you're kicking yourself or not having the technology in place earlier. So

I think the smart fleets are getting ahead of it. They're the risk department,

safety department are putting these in place and realizing that allocating the budget to it

makes sense. Well, and I was going to follow up on that in terms of where technology budget is

better placed. I mean, there's a lot of technology out there and it's kind of expensive on the

face of it, right? Do you see any areas where the ROI seems to be better? I think that the camera

ROI is strong. I think it also kind of depends on the type of fleet that it is,

shared service vehicles, for example, versus an assigned vehicle. You're going to get a lot more

sales drivers that are reluctant to install this type of in-cab technology. Sure. When you start

positioning the technology as this is going to save you and prevent you from being held responsible,

all of a sudden the conversation changes with our clients. That's one of the benefit that we've

had in shifting the conversation about why, you know, instead of being brother, it seems to be

more of a dated conversation with the clients compared to where it is now. Now it's about how is

this technology going to help you? For shared fleets that use our checkout solution, for example,

or shared vehicle managing who is in what vehicle, what time. It's easier to sell a technology

solution like cameras because they know that it's also going to protect them on the job. They're

driving for their job specifically. They want that actual protection. Okay. And have you seen

on the corporate fleet space because we're talking about salespeople that are making a lot of

money for the company, where they might be a little bit more receptive now to cameras because

of the safety aspect. I think a little bit. I think there's still more resistance than you'll see

on the service side, but it's different than it was five years ago. People are, I mean, again,

some companies are saying that you're not going to be hired unless you have this, right? So those

types of companies are real. They must have had something in the past that made them sure.

Create that policy. And I think they were seeing a little bit of resistance, but not as much

as we used to. Okay. Hey, last question. Let me ask you sort of big picture. What's on the horizon

that fleets may be not paying too much attention to, but they need to start. We're talking about

2026 and beyond. What's evolving that's on your radar that you want to tell our fleet audience?

I think that the connected data inside the driver's hand and making it actionable is the number one

thing that we'll see this year, right? So how do you get ahead of maintenance because of the

company you're receiving, right? Again, this is not the, you know, diagnostic trouble goes have been

around for a long time. How, you know, you see a check engine light on your dash. Do you necessarily

know what the meaning of that is? No. But if you have the technology to interpret that code for you

and you can see in your mobile app or on desktop portal, the explanation of what that area is,

and then all of a sudden you schedule an appointment. Yep. And now those codes are going over to the shop

before you even get to the shop. Yep. That's where we see the our technology going and where we see

the industry going. Sure. Excellent. Well, David, thank you for taking the time today. I really

appreciate it. You're welcome. Yeah. Thanks. All right.