Just like a lot of core sectors, the trucking industry is currently on the cusp of an AI revolution.
Thanks to the popularization of tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini, generative AI is now available to everyone, helping business leaders find creative ways to streamline key processes and optimize logistics, without breaking the bank.
Yet, with new artificial intelligence trends emerging each week, understanding how to utilize the technology to its best extent can be a challenge. To help you along your journey, we’ve distilled seven practical ways you can use generative AI to gain a lead in the industry today — exploring potential use cases, different AI tools, and more.
The Trucking Industry Continues to Navigate a Bumpy Ride
No two days are the same in the trucking and fleet industry, but it’s safe to say the last few years have been especially challenging.
Due to a scope of factors including an aging workforce, high turnover rates, and new job opportunities emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, the US trucking industry has been grappling with driver shortages for years. While the situation is slowly improving, the American Trucking Association (ATA) estimates that the sector will need to hire roughly 110,000 drivers per year to keep up with industry demands, placing growing pressure on managers to hire eligible recruits.
In addition, 2023 saw the trucking industry move into the bottoming phase of the truckload cycle – a period that was characterized by minimal freight demand, a rise in cancellations, and an excess in stock and vehicles. This cycle bottom caused prices to drop industry-wide, forcing many trucking business owners to enter survival mode.
While the industry has witnessed promising growth so far in 2025, many trucking managers will find themselves at a crossroads: keep trucking on as usual, or seek to overcome modern challenges with modern solutions? If you’re planning on adopting the latter strategy, we explain exactly how this can be done, next.
6 Ways to Use Generative AI to Enhance Your Trucking Business
Chances are, you’re not currently making the most of AI tools like ChatGPT. Here are some useful ways to use chatbots to improve the operations of your trucking business:
1. Creating contract templates
Whether you’re creating a contract to handle shipping, independent contractors, or carrier agreements, tools like ChatGPT can be used to generate basic contract structures, which you’re able to customize to meet your legal requirements.
Simply enter relevant information into the chatbot, like who the contract is between, the contract type, and the purpose of the contract, describe your preferred tone, and let the tool do the leg work for you.
We advise checking these templates for errors or inconsistencies and getting them reviewed and approved by legal experts before, to avoid regulatory malpractice.
2. Building customer service chatbots for drivers
It’s important that your customers are able to reach out for help when needed, specifically in the case of unforeseen delays and issues. Creating customer chatbots for drivers helps to free up driver time, allowing them to focus on the task at hand.
Creating tailored customer service chatbots might sound very technical, especially for users with little tech know-how. However, thanks to rapid developments in generative AI, the process is much easier than it may seem.
All you need to do is pick which AI tool you’re going to use, define the purpose of the chatbot, identify which common driver issues it’s looking to address – from delivery status to delay reporting – before determining what functions it’s going to include.
There are lots of no-code options to choose from as well. Learn more about how to create customer service chatbots in our step-by-step guide.
3. Creating practice scenarios for drivers
Testing drivers with practice scenarios can be a crucial way for them to build their skills and stay safe on the road. While real-world practice is the best way to mitigate potential dangers, AI chatbots can also be used to simulate risky scenarios, providing valuable opportunities for learning and feedback.
For instance, chatbots like ChatGPT can present drivers with scenarios like road hazards, dangerous drivers, and adverse weather conditions, before asking them how they would respond to the situation. The tool can then offer feedback to the driver to help steer them in the right direction. Chatbots can also simulate emergency situations like breakdowns or accidents, and test drivers on their response.
We recommend combining the creation of practice scenarios with security-focused technology, to help keep your drivers, and your precious cargo safe. For instance, lots of dashcams have collision detector sensors to alert users about potential impacts.
Check out our guide to the best dash cam apps to learn how the best solutions compare.
4. Optimizing predictive maintenance
Predictive maintenance refers to the regular and routine maintenance of assets, to keep costly, and potentially dangerous events to a minimum.
For trucking businesses, using a fleet management system to identify potential errors is a must. But chatbots like ChatGPT can be used to enhance predictive maintenance strategies in a number of ways. Firstly, AI chatbots are capable of analyzing vast amounts of historical data, helping trucking businesses identify anomalies that could indicate impending failures.
Chatbots can also help business owners form action plans after these issues are spotted. Specifically, the tool can create tailored maintenance recommendations, and even identify what hardware needs to be ordered to prevent similar incidents from happening again in the future.
5. Keeping up with regulatory requirements
Trucking businesses are forced to adhere to fairly stringent state and federal complement regulations. Fortunately, generative AI chatbots can be used to help you toe the line in a number of ways.
Whether trucking managers are seeking clarity on hours of service (HOS), environmental, or weight and size regulations, ChatGPT can be used to quickly access up-to-date information about regulations, saving them the time it would have taken to trawl through web results. These chatbots also distill complex information in plain language, which will be especially useful for employees who aren’t experienced in reading through text-heavy regulatory documents.
You’re also able to use AI chatbots to create useful compliance checklists, based on the specific circumstances of your trucking company. Simply define key regulatory areas – from Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations, and specify a timeline for your checklist.
6. Hiring and onboarding new recruits
With many trucking companies across the country struggling with driver shortages, finding creative ways to secure qualified workers has never been more important.
If you’re still creating job descriptions manually, you should consider using tools like ChatGPT to make the ads more appealing. You can also use chatbots to incorporate relevant keywords into the descriptions, helping to improve their visibility on job boards. You can also instruct the tool to cater ads to a specific audience, such as younger drivers, for example.
AI chatbots can also be used to summarize and analyze large volumes of resumes, saving you the time and energy it would take to review the candidates’ skills and experience manually. It’s important to note that a lot of chatbots have landed in hot water for their data privacy blunders, so you should avoid sharing any personal candidate information when screening resumes.
Navigating the Chatbot Competition: Which AI Tool Is Best For You?
The chatbot market is booming, with new AI platforms popping up in app stores daily. While this abundance of choice results in tremendous opportunities, it can also make deciding on an AI platform hard, especially if you’re new to the technology.
After testing the leading generative AI chatbots, we found that OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the best all-rounder, due to its powerful large language model (LLM), conversational approach to input and output, and ability to retrieve and summarize previous conversations. The platform also lets you create your very own chatbot through its GPT Store, which could be useful for companies planning on building a customer service bot for its drivers.
Google’s Gemini is another reliable option that offers real-time web access – an area where ChatGPT doesn’t excel. The platform is also better at research-based tasks and complex reasoning, while Anthropic’s Claude boasts a huge context window which makes it the best choice for trucking businesses using AI to review large numbers of resumes.