Flexport releases AI tools attack in a move inspired by ‘Founder Function’

Promotion and Supply Freight Transport Company Bending unfolds a News and features suiteMany of which use AI, what the company says will be the first in a series of six -month announcements of this kind.

If this sounds similar to Airbnb’s approach to seasonal products, this is due to the fact that it was the inspiration for Flexport’s new approach.

“Brian Chesky told me to do it,” Flexport Ryan Petersen’s founder said in an interview, referring to Airbnb CEO. ‘He gave this great discussion that Paul Graham wrote an essay forcalled “Mode Founder”, I was there that day, and gave some great tips. ”

The next release of the product will come to “Late Summer”, according to Flexport.

Petersen told TechCrunch that moving to a Cadence “Release” twice a year offers two great benefits. Someone, he said, is “there is nothing like the power of a deadline.” The other is more for marketing.

“We have developed a lot of great technology over the years, but this is going out gradually. .

FLEXPORT reports that it starts more than 20 products on Monday, many of which already used internally, all that is powered by a combination of AI from Openai, Anthropic and AWS. Promotion of the big product comes as Petersen completed his first full year back as Flexport CEO after launching his former Amazon Dave Clark executive in late 2023 in an effort to “get [Flexport’s] home in class. ”

Among the new products is Flexport Intelligence, which allows businesses to receive information about their missions using natural language prompts. Another, called Tower Control, will give customers to “visibility and real -time control and control over their entire logistics network, even in loads not managed by Flexport,” according to the company.

Previously, these were things that Flexport staff did for his clients. AI’s inclination to perform these duties and, in essence, the mediation of this relationship is a big change for the company – especially because one of the reasons why Petersen fired Clark was because he thought the company had underestimate the relationships of her customers.

“This is something we really realize. I am still a huge loyal to ‘people first,’ said Petersen. He said new products will offer ‘the best of both worlds’, because businesses will still be able to invite a A member of the Flexport team – ideally, someone who knows them well – and get help if they need it or prefer it.

To this end, Petersen said he expects AI’s embrace will help Flexport develop his classes, not replace workers.

“I think the company – and I think it will be us – but the company that makes the best work to automate this project will have no less employees. You will have more because you will grow so fast. If you are cheaper than other people you will need More people than ever make service, sales, counseling, technology, development, etc., “he said.

Another effort announced by FLEXPORT on Monday is the inclusion of AI vocalists in some of its own work flows.

Petersen stressed that Flexport carefully introduces this feature. The company is currently testing it with truck operators and warehouses using the logistics platform. Ai Voice Agent invites drivers to tell them that there are loads available to get their area and call the warehouses to verify the basic details such as operating hours.

Petersen said this helps in these simple conversations, but that FlexPort is still closing these transactions through regular workflow on its platform. He said he was “hesitant” to rush to include vocal agents in other parts of FlexPort until capacity and reliability improves.

“The typical quality bar to do these things the customer is facing is really high,” he said. “I think there is a future where customers will be happy to talk to an AI if it’s really good to answer their question.”

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

“Our teams can see in any place [customer] Pain and find a process that can be done better than an LLM or other form of mechanical learning, and you just do it. And the next day, it is alive, it is used by thousands of companies without having to go for business contracts or begging people, “he said.