You Bought a Truck. Did You Buy Yourself a Second Job?

You finish driving. Then the second shift starts: finding a receipt, answering a broker, checking a missing document and asking someone at home to help with an invoice. The truck has stopped. The business has not.

If that sounds familiar, the useful question about AI is simple: which repeatable office task could stop landing on you every evening? Start there, before buying another subscription.

Start with the work, then choose the tool

Write down the last ten office interruptions you handled. Beside each one, record what information was missing, who had it and what decision ended the interruption. Repeated missing information is a good place to improve the process. A difficult business decision usually needs more than automation.

Here are five candidates to evaluate for an AI-assisted workflow. These are possible uses to configure and test against your actual records, not a list of features automatically included with every THS service:

• Document sorting: suggest the load or expense that a file belongs to, with a person checking uncertain matches.
• Missing-item lists: compare a load folder with an agreed checklist and flag documents someone still needs to obtain.
• Draft follow-ups: prepare a clear request for a missing receipt or delivery document for an authorized person to review and send.
• Daily summaries: turn recorded updates into a short list of open items, owners and next actions.
• Weekly preparation: assemble questions for your dispatcher, administrator or bookkeeper from the information already recorded.

Keep the human decision visible

A suggested message is not an approved message. A number extracted from a document is not a verified number. NIST’s generative AI guidance identifies inaccurate output as a risk and discusses the need for appropriate human review. For a trucking office, that means checking the source before a draft becomes a commitment.

Keep load acceptance, disputed charges, payments, contract changes and exceptions with the person authorized to decide them. Give each reviewer the original document, the proposed action and a clear way to correct it. Limit account access to the work assigned.

What a useful daily view could show

Illustrative example: load 104 is delivered; the delivery receipt is attached; a detention claim still needs written support; billing is waiting on that support; the assigned administrator will follow up by 3 p.m. The owner can see the issue without reading six separate messages.

That view is useful because it names an unresolved task and its next owner. A polished dashboard that only says “delivered” would miss the office work still outstanding.

Try one workflow before handing over five

1. Choose one recurring task, such as preparing delivered loads for billing.
2. Define the required documents and the person who can approve the result.
3. Run a small, supervised trial alongside your existing process.
4. Record time spent, missed items, corrections and exceptions.
5. Keep the workflow only if the evidence shows it helps.

THS can help you define the administrative work you want handled and discuss the tools, access and reporting that fit the scope. If software administration is part of the need, review TMS management. If the handoffs are unclear, start with Admin & Business Development.

Get the complimentary THS book Enter your email, phone number and area of interest on the book page to access the download.

Reference: NIST Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile. The workflow examples above are THS planning recommendations.