AI in freight logistics gets talked about constantly and understood rarely. In this episode of The Journey Podcast, Will Jenkins sits down with Lars Ward, VP of Automation Solutions at Transflo, to cut through the noise and talk about what artificial intelligence is actually doing inside freight operations today — what works, what doesn't, and what the gap is between the demo and the deployment.
Lars brings hard-won perspective from working across the logistics technology space: the automation tools that have delivered real operational results, the ones that looked promising and fell apart in production, and the patterns he's noticed in why some freight organizations adopt technology successfully and others spend money without seeing returns. He's direct about what makes the difference — it's rarely the technology itself and usually something about implementation, integration, or internal change management.
The conversation covers where automation is genuinely driving value in freight brokerage right now: carrier communications, document processing, load matching, and repetitive back-office work that doesn't require judgment. Lars also talks about where human judgment in freight is still irreplaceable and likely to stay that way — the nuanced carrier relationships, the customer conversations that require real reading of a situation, and the market positioning decisions that no algorithm is equipped to make.
His core argument: stop chasing buzzwords and start solving real problems. The freight organizations that win with AI are the ones who started with a specific operational problem and found the right tool for it — not the ones who bought the tool and tried to find a use for it.
Explore how Journey uses AI for freight sales development at the AI Sales Coach or learn about freight technology consulting.
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