90% of Warehouses Are Flying Blind. Here's What That Actually Costs.

Most warehouse operators have no idea what's actually happening on their floor right now. Not a rough estimate. No idea. The WMS says one thing. Ground truth is something else entirely. And the workers running the operation walk 12 to 15 miles a day on concrete trying to close that gap.In this episode, Blythe talks with Sankalp Arora, CEO and Co-Founder of Gather AI, live at Manifest 2026. Gather AI uses drones and cameras on forklifts to give warehouse operators real-time inventory visibility with no power drops, no new infrastructure, and a facility map completed in one to two weeks. Average customer payback: 4.5 months.In this episode:How drones and forklift cameras work together to turn a warehouse into real-time inventory intelligence -- no power drops ($15,000 each to install), no Wi-Fi constraintsWhy half of every warehouse's total cost is people and equipment traveling, and what that means for where automation investment actually pays offThe "Amazon Go store" analogy: what a fully instrumented warehouse looks like in practiceWhy the average warehouse worker walks 12 to 15 miles a day on concrete -- and why fixing that is as much a retention play as a productivity oneWhat the software stack looks like on a day-to-day basis and why workers end up living in Gather AI's dashboard instead of the legacy WMSThe 3-step buying framework for operators who've been burned by big capex automation projects beforeWhat Gather AI's $40M Series B is funding and what end-to-end warehouse orchestration looks like in practiceWatch this episode on YouTubeLinks and resources:• Gather AI website: gather.ai• Email Sankalp directly: [email protected]• Gather AI on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/gather-space-ai• Everything is Logistics: everythingislogistics.com• Freight tech vendor research: cargorex.io -----------------------------------------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.