Are Bots Booking Freight Yet? Manifest Trend Check with Grace Sharkey

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 workflowsThe 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 casesFreight fraud: it’s coordinated—and most companies still fail at the basicsVisibility: we keep selling the dream, but execution (and carrier adoption) keeps punching it in the faceQuick time-capsule: what 2016 taught us, what 2026 is repeating, and why insurance keeps winningTimestamps / chapters (approx):00:00 – Intro + Grace joins04:35 – Agentic AI: what’s real vs what’s marketing10:10 – What this changes for brokers and carriers15:25 – Drones + computer vision17:30 – Fraud: why basic controls still matter25:40 – Visibility + ocean integrity31:40 – 2016 vs 2026: the industry memory test39:50 – Wrap-up + Manifest Europe noteWatch this episode on YouTube -----------------------------------------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.