Can AI Really Make Fleet Drivers Safer?

0:00All 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

1:02the 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

2:05and 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

3:07cost 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.

4:11Where 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

5:15make 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,

6:17all 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.

7:20Create 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

8:24the industry going. Sure. Excellent. Well, David, thank you for taking the time today. I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Yeah. Thanks. All right.