Blythe and Grace Sharkey (Orderful; formerly FreightWaves) break down what everyone’s been talking about coming out of Manifest: agentic AI moving into real workflows, drones/computer vision becoming more practical, freight fraud getting more coordinated, and why “end-to-end visibility” still isn’t end-to-end (spoiler: carrier adoption and execution still run the show).

The gist (what we cover):

• Agentic AI: not just demos—people are pushing it into rate negotiation and booking workflows
• The uncomfortable question: what happens to brokerage models when humans aren’t the bottleneck?
• Drones + computer vision: still early, but moving from “cool tech” to real use cases
• Freight fraud: it’s coordinated—and most companies still fail at the basics
• Visibility: we keep selling the dream, but execution (and carrier adoption) keeps punching it in the face
• Quick time-capsule: what 2016 taught us, what 2026 is repeating, and why insurance keeps winning

Timestamps / chapters (approx):

• 00:00 – Intro + Grace joins
• 04:35 – Agentic AI: what’s real vs what’s marketing
• 10:10 – What this changes for brokers and carriers
• 15:25 – Drones + computer vision
• 17:30 – Fraud: why basic controls still matter
• 25:40 – Visibility + ocean integrity
• 31:40 – 2016 vs 2026: the industry memory test
• 39:50 – Wrap-up + Manifest Europe note

Watch this episode on YouTube

Feedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.

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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!

SPI Logistics has been a Day 1 supporter of this podcast which is why we're proud to promote them in every episode. During that time, we've gotten to know the team and their agents to confidently say they are the best home for freight agents in North America for 40 years and counting. Listen to past episodes to hear why.

CargoRex is the search engine for the logistics industry—connecting LSPs with the right tools, services, events, and creators to explore, discover, and evolve.

Digital Dispatch maximizes and manages your #1 sales tool with a website that establishes trust and builds rock-solid relationships with your leads and customers.

CargoRex.io 2.0 is live and this isn’t a paint job. It’s a rebuild around how people actually research logistics tech when they don’t know what to search for yet.

In this episode, I break down what changed, why it changed, and how to use CargoRex to move from “I think we have a problem” to “here’s the shortlist and the questions we need to ask.”

What’s inside:

-- A redesigned site built for faster discovery (not endless scrolling)

-- A revamped search model: broad-match exploration + tighter category paths

-- 3 live Buying Guides (with more coming): LogTech Implementation, Buying a TMS, and Visibility

-- A stronger company listing page: integrations, associations, awards, news, white papers, case studies, and more

-- Save-and-export Lists (CSV) so your research isn’t trapped in browser tabs

-- Logged-in dashboards that separate your activity from what’s trending site-wide

-- New contributor submissions so operators, consultants, and creators can add real-world lessons to the guides

If you’ve got a logistics-adjacent business, claim your listing (free), fill it out, and make it easier for the right buyers to find you. And if you’re researching tools, use the lead form on listings so companies can see the signal that CargoRex is driving the conversation.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Feedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.

-----------------------------------------

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!

SPI Logistics has been a Day 1 supporter of this podcast which is why we're proud to promote them in every episode. During that time, we've gotten to know the team and their agents to confidently say they are the best home for freight agents in North America for 40 years and counting. Listen to past episodes to hear why.

CargoRex is the search engine for the logistics industry—connecting LSPs with the right tools, services, events, and creators to explore, discover, and evolve.

Digital Dispatch maximizes and manages your #1 sales tool with a website that establishes trust and builds rock-solid relationships with your leads and customers.

Everyone loves a shiny demo. Nobody wants to talk about the messy middle: implementation. That’s where budgets blow up, timelines slip, and teams quietly blame the software.

Nate Johnson (CEO of GLCS) joins Blythe Milligan to break down what actually makes logistics tech rollouts work.

• The first question teams skip: “Why are you buying this?”
• Why “go-live” is not the same thing as success
• The hidden costs that show up after the subscription fee
• Why training and documentation decide adoption
• Integrations, EDI, and why “it should connect” is usually a lie
• AI in logistics: what’s real, what’s marketing, and what buyers should demand

Links:

• Connect with Nate on LinkedIn (and you better tell him Blythe sent you)
• GLCS Website
• Nate's podcast, Driving Forward

Watch the video version here.

Feedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.

-----------------------------------------

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!

SPI Logistics has been a Day 1 supporter of this podcast which is why we're proud to promote them in every episode. During that time, we've gotten to know the team and their agents to confidently say they are the best home for freight agents in North America for 40 years and counting. Listen to past episodes to hear why.

CargoRex is the search engine for the logistics industry—connecting LSPs with the right tools, services, events, and creators to explore, discover, and evolve.

Digital Dispatch maximizes and manages your #1 sales tool with a website that establishes trust and builds rock-solid relationships with your leads and customers.