Flexport releases onslaught of AI tools in a move inspired by ‘Founder Mode’

Freight and logistics companies Flexport Receives a number of new products and functions, many AI use, which the company says that this will be the first in a number of semi -annual announcements of this kind.

If, similar to Airbnbs, the approach to seasonal product announcements is similar, then this was the inspiration for the new approach from Flexport.

“Brian Chesky told me to do it,” said the founder of Flexport, Ryan Petersen, in an interview and referred to the Airbnb CEO. “He gave this great lecture that Paul Graham wrote an essay aboutI was there that day and he gave some great advice. ”

The next product publication will take place in the “late summer”.

Petersen said Techcrunch that the move to a “release” cadence in one twice a year offers two great advantages. One, he said, is “there is nothing better than the power of a deadline.” The other is more about marketing.

“We have developed a lot of great technology over the years, but it comes out incrementally. There is not much fanfare, buzz and the opportunity to tell the story in such a way that customers can see what they did, what they have built, ”Petersen told Techcrunch.

According to Flexport, more than 20 different products, many of which have already been used internally, will start all powered with a combination of AI from Openai, Anthropic and AWS. The Big Product campaign comes when Petersen completed its first year as a CEO of Flexport after shooting The former Amazon manager Dave Clark At the end of 2023 to get “ [Flexport’s] House in order. “

The new products include Flexport Intelligence with which companies receive information about their programs with natural language requests. One other than Control Tower gives customers “real-time visibility and control over their entire logistics network, even on freight that is not managed by Flexport,” said the company.

Before that, these were things that Flexport’s employees did for its customers. Leaning from AI to carry out these tasks and essentially convey this relationship is a big change for the company – especially because one of the reasons why Petersen Clark was dismissed, it was that the company had devalued customer relationships.

“This is something that we are really aware of. I’m still a big follower of ‘people first’, ”said Petersen. He said the new products will offer “the best of both worlds”, since companies still have the opportunity to call a flexport team member – ideally someone who knows them well – and receive help if they need or prefer it.

For this purpose, Petersen expects the assumption of AI to help expand its ranks and not replace the workers.

“I think the company – and I think it will be – but the company that does the best work of this work will not have fewer employees. You will have more because they will grow so quickly. If you are cheaper than other people, you need more people than ever to make service, sales, advice, technology, development and cetera, ”he said.

Another effort that was announced on Monday is the admission of AI-operated language agents in some of his own workflows.

Petersen emphasized that Flexport carefully introduces this ability. The company is currently testing this with the truckers and camps that use its logistics platform. The AI ​​Voice Agent calls drivers to inform them that loads are available in its region, and warehouses to check basic details such as operating times.

Petersen said that this helps with these simple conversations, but that Flexport still closes these transactions through the regular workflow on its platform. He said that he was “hesitant” to hurry to include language agents in other parts of Flexport’s business until the ability and reliability improves.

“My standard quality bar for customer care is very high,” he said. “I think there is a future in which customers will be happy to speak to a AI when it is really good to answer your question.”

This does not mean that Petersen is planning to slowly move with the AI ​​overall. In fact, he said he loves the speed with which Flexport could experiment.

“Our teams can watch every place [customer] Pain and find a process that can be made better through an LLM or another form of machine learning, and just do it. And the next day it gets live, it is used by thousands of companies without having to sign corporate contracts or asking people, ”he said.