Why Simple AI Automation Is Failing Your Freight P&L

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0:53We'll be right back.

1:04Malcolm: What the truck? I'm your man for the next 45 minutes. I'm your host. I go by the name of Malcolm Harris. And with me is my partner in crime, my brother, Mr. Michael Vincent. Mike, I brought out the overalls just for you, dog. What up? Is that your like snow hunting gear there for the northern mountains of Tennessee? Man, no, I just, you know, I was feeling it. I was like, you know what, I might as well. Are we going to go do some snipe hunting, bro? We're going to be doing some snipe hunting. I got on a throwback Rock 10 hat, man. Shout out to Izzy's pops. He used to be at Rock 10. He said his hat's at least 10, 11 years old.

1:46Malcolm: Really? What's up, man? What's up? How are you? Happy Friday, dog. Happy Friday. What's up, dog? Listen, man, I went to get plates for my wife's car yesterday, finally get it registered in Texas. Texas. Yeah, and I'm there, and the lady at the tax assessor's office where you got to get the plates, she's got a Texas plate, and it says Foo Fighters. I was sitting on her desk, and I said, oh, who's getting that? She goes, it just got canceled. People ordered it special. They never came to pick it up. She said, it's available right now. So if you're in Texas and you like the Foo Fighters, that plate's available.

2:26I can't, but who's going to pay for a vanity plate Foo Fighters and not pick it up? I mean, that's crazy. It's not Foo Fighters 1. It's not Foo Fighters 2. It's not Foo Fighters 10. It's the original Foo Fighters plate. You know what I'm saying, dog?

2:39Malcolm: Foo Fighters, man. I feel you. But anyway, I don't get it, bro. I don't know. How do you leave that behind? But we got a good show, don't we? Great show. That's a C-Rock City. Is that what that is? What is that? It is, hold on. It is a Rock 10 Mill division. It's the Paper Mill. Oh, okay. Got you. Yeah, it's the old Paper Mill. So, yeah, I was like, you know what? I saw it. I had on some white shoes, some Air Force ones. I was like, let me record it. Are they sponsoring your dome now for this show? Ah, man, they might as well, you know? Put a little something on the top. I can tell you. oh we got a top of show we got an awesome show all right two great guests let's look on deck right now to see exactly who we're talking to as we head into the weekend because we got two amazing individuals the first is going to be nick darman he's the founder and ceo of alvees all right with nick he is fantastic all right he's come up on the operational side of the business before building out alvees and uh he's of course rolling out foundry which is an ai agent built directly into a tms so we're gonna get into that and much more and then joe hearst if you guys don't remember we had a scheduling issue with joe a few weeks ago he said malcolm yeah that's on me i'm coming back and i am ready to get to talking all right so i was like you know what that's fine he's a co-founder and president at veroot compliance we're talking all about compliance man ct pat as well as wide suddenly in the spotlight after a new executive order and much more so between joe as well as Nick and some headlines.

4:14Malcolm: Guys, we got an awesome show as we head into the weekend, so stick around. You might learn something, all right? But before we learn something, got to pay the bills. We got two announcements. The first, what would we be without Gnosis Freight? What would we be, Michael Vincent, without Gnosis Freight? Sponsorless. We would be sponsorless. We wouldn't be able to do what we do. With that being said, you wouldn't be able to do what you do without Gnosis Freight. Again, if you're still checking. Oh, you're talking about the industry. You see what I did there? If you are still checking carrier websites, copying container data into spreadsheets, chasing updates to email chains, stop it.

4:52Malcolm: Get Gnosis right now. All right. If it's, of course, an AI operating system for global logistics, one platform to track every single container, automate execution and protect your margins across the full container lifecycle. All right. With that being said, they have saved companies millions and millions of dollars right now. All you got to do if you're looking for some cost savings, looking to be creative in your organization right now when it comes to tracking, tracing and much more, just reach out to them. We just had a guest, of course, the Hoffman. Jake Hoffman was on the show a couple of days ago.

5:21Malcolm: Really, really liked our conversation. And you guys really like them. Check them out right now at gnosisfreight.com. Book a demo. Make sure you tell them that Malcolm and Mike sent you. All right. That's Gnosis Freight again. And Michael Vincent, I'm going to see you, give or take. well I'll see you in Dallas here in a couple weeks but then I'm also going to see you again I'm going to see you again for the Future of Freight Festival ladies and gentlemen October 27th and the 28th this is the Super Bowl this is Wrestlemania this is whatever you want it to be the biggest event of the year is what it is called again F3 is happening we're going to have conversations like that one right there with your boy you're going to have conversations like that one you're going to have conversations like that one you're going to have networking events You're going to have sonar demos from Zach Strickland.

6:09Malcolm: You're going to have keynotes from Craig Fuller and company. You're going to have, of course, What the Truck is more than likely going to be there in full effect. You're going to have different folks out there. I'm trying to narrate this as it's coming through. Wait, you said more than likely. What happened? No, I'm just saying. You're crazy. Oh, man. You're going to have the lot lizards out there. Well, that's the... No, that ain't a lot lizard. Oh, man. I'm crazy. Is that really Craig? I heard a rumor that's actually Craig in there. I've never seen Craig and the lizard mascot in the same place at the same time.

6:44Malcolm: You take that for what you want. I've never seen it. So, you know, there you go. You're going to have Matt Leffler and Charles Gracie in the building, too. You're going to have a lot, man. I'm telling you. This is going to be the biggest event of the year. The feature of Freight Festival, October 27th and the 28th. Tickets are on sale right now. If you are worried about the cost, fear not, because I got something for you. It's this code. It's called Take 20. T-A-K-E-2-0. All right? Limited time right now. Go take 20 % off of admission. That's not going to be around for too much longer. So make sure that you guys are taking 20 and coming to the Future of Freight Festival live here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, October 27th and then 28th.

7:21Malcolm: It's F3 season, baby. Get ready. We are, and you should be too. All right? I'm ready for it, bro. I'm ready. We can do what to truck, remote work, what to truck. You're going to be remote with me? We'll do what to truck from here. I'll be ready to go. I'll be ready to go. Yeah. We're going to have to do it, right? Oh, 100%. 100%. All right. Cool. Cool. We'll plan. We'll do. Yeah. Yeah. Easy. We'll get a good one. We'll get it. We'll get a real good one going on there. Yeah. That's going to be the Texas. What the truck, Texas. Oh, my God. Speaking of Texas, what a segue. Woo. You were cooking with grease today, man.

7:57Yeah, bro. I was going to say, did you do your tongue exercises this morning or something? because you're just ripping through it like nothing. It's clear as a bell. You know what I mean? I'm motivated. New York. Unique New York. I'm motivated. You're just rushing it.

8:11Malcolm: I'm motivated. I just feel ready to go. I think you're just feeling it with those overalls, bro. You look good. You play good. You look good. You feel good. You play good. You play good. You play good. That's what Deion Sanders said. I feel ready to go. He gets paid to play bad right now. Yeah, man. Colorado is not going to be talking about much this year. Yeah, I don't know. It might be. I don't know why LeBron, your man LeBron, thinks he's a good coach because he ain't. No, no, no. He's a great salesman. That's okay. He's a great salesman. He's walking into these homes. I'm going to take care of your baby.

8:50Malcolm: You see what I did. With my two sons. Yeah, yeah. After his sons left. And nobody else. I think he left too. Let's talk Texas. Anyway, let's go. Oh, come on, man. Let's talk Texas. We can get DeSean Dion later. Oh, yeah, we can. Let's do it. All right, so a Texas woman is officially in the news. We brought this to you guys a couple of weeks ago. This is not a happy story. This is kind of actually gruesome. One of the two fugitives charged, of course, after the seven migrants died inside a freight container has now surrendered to federal prosecutors. All right, Carnia Garcia, she's 37, appeared Tuesday before the U.S.

9:24Malcolm: magistrate judge Matthew Waters in Del Rio, Texas. Garcia, of course, surrendered Sunday at the Del Rio port of entry, according to the U.S. attorney's office. She faces two federal counts that can bring a life sentence upon conviction. All right. So prosecutors are saying that Garcia played a key role. And you guys can look at this image right now of the container and the operation spanning about three years. The group smuggled people from Mexico using cargo trains. The August 19 release states smugglers allegedly charged each traveler or their relatives between 1500 and 10 G's. A federal grand jury indicted Garcia in July.

10:02Malcolm: And of course, you guys remember this story. Seven migrants from Mexico and Honduras died in a conic shipping container during May. They contend from the prosecutors, the indictment states smugglers moved near Union Pacific tracks in Del Rio. The group allegedly cut a lock, loaded the people inside, and closed the door. This had no ventilation, of course, no cooling. Oh, this is bad. Yeah, I mean, she does not need to see the light of day if this is true, which in all reality is true. I mean, Mike, I want to candidly, what are your thoughts about this one, bro? Yeah, I got two pretty serious thoughts.

10:41I mean, dude, can you imagine how awful that was inside there, bro?

10:46Malcolm: Think about it. I mean, we're not even talking about, I mean, no heat. I mean, it's 100 degrees. No AC, I meant. No AC, no cooling. In Texas, in the middle of dead summer, you're going to have to use the restroom. No, they suffocated under the heat conditions inside there. Can you imagine how bad that is? I mean, how gruesome that was at the end, how the mental anguish and everything. Look, if you can imagine just half of that, how are you okay with us not doing everything we can to stop the illegal migrants coming across the border in this type of fashion you we're talking about people who are taking thousands of dollars from people and then they're dying yeah the the people who died aren't the bad guys i mean some people are trying to get in and they're nefarious characters right but there's a lot of people just like i want to better my life i got nothing i'm trying to do something better i'm living in a dirt floor shack literally in, in Southern Mexico and stuff.

11:53So they save up their money because they trust somebody who's going to help them get somewhere to try and better their lives. And then this shit happens, right? Because we got, we got, cause we got boneheads saying, Hey, we're good. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll keep you safe in the U S and come in. It's great. No, this you're responsible for this shit. And the other part is why, why is rail and truck exempt from being responsible from this maritime is responsible for this that's a good point if grace creators on a maritime you're responsible why aren't we putting pressure on the trucks and the rail to do something to prevent this from happening right i mean some sort of penalty yeah i mean anyway just i don't think you're wrong for saying that because yeah

12:41Malcolm: maritime would technically be on the hook for this so now 100 they would you're damn right yeah dude uh you can get sued maritime gets sued for wrongful death on this type of shit for sure so there should be some accountability i'm intrigued to see how that's going to play out in court as we can say yeah because yeah that that is a good point that i don't necessarily think was touched on in the article you can check this one out of course on freightwaves.com right now uh it's a pretty pretty decent read again from phil brink came out yesterday uh phil thanks Thanks again for getting that in front of us.

13:13Malcolm: And now I want to transition into this one from Stuart Trillers. We have not talked about some stuff from Stuart in quite a while. I thought this was a really insightful one. Let's talk about this one from Stu. And we're talking about a new development at the Port of New Orleans. What's up, Mike? I just love how we just shortened it to he's now Stu. He just... You're crazy. You're crazy. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. From the family guy? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has granted a federal permit authorizing construction of a Louisiana International Terminal, a major port of New Orleans development, intended to expand the lower Mississippi River gateway's capacity of larger ships and growing cargo volumes.

13:59Malcolm: All right, so Portnola announced again the permit approval this week, calling it a key milestone for the proposed$1.8 billion greenfield terminal expected to have a capacity of 2 million container units at full build-out. This project is going to be developed in partnership with the Terminal Investment Limited, the terminal operating arm of Genova's, of course, MSC, and terminal operators Ports America, which are contributing more than$800 million toward development. The terminal has received$300 million in federal grants. Mike, when I saw this, I thought about it, and I was like, I wonder what he's thinking.

14:32Malcolm: Is this a good move? Is this a bad move? Does this move the needle at all? Why is there such an emphasis in the port of New Orleans right now? Smelled like pork to me, bro. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. If it looks like pork and smells like pork, it's probably a duck. But this is, look, the only good thing about this is they didn't go to spend like$8 billion to just to raise the bridge that they would have had to to just use the ports they already have, right? Because it would have been like$8 billion to do that. Both of them are stupid. Both of them are pork. There's absolutely zero reason for this at all.

15:14Zero. And there's nobody in logistics who can change my freaking mind. Okay. Look, by 2028, they'll be able to handle 180 ,000 TEUs. Statistically, zero. Okay. There's 5.7 million TEUs. And by the way, shrinking and shrinking. We don't need the extra capacity. This is a NOLA doesn't have the market share and they want it, period. There isn't any logistical needs for it at all. It's a 25-year build out before they get to 2 million TEUs. So let's see, in 25 years, they'll be able to handle 50 % of the current capacity, that cut not even 50 percent 43 percent of the capacity that's that's coming in right now in 25 years but is it does this does this make any sense to you i was gonna say like container imports are container imports are declining nearshoring is land-based it's not this so don't give me the years nearshoring is going to change things it is there's going to be even less because container traffic into the U.S., guess what?

16:23It isn't growing. And, okay, there's already excess capacity right now, right? There's already excess capacity right now. And if we need capacity, it's not in a freaking golf.

16:41Malcolm: No, no. I mean, I was literally going to say, I was like, this just doesn't make sense to me. What is Cozumel? Is Cozumel certainly going to start exporting into the U.S. It's going to be booming out of Cozumel. Or the Yucatan is going to be booming like crazy. What is it? I thought about that campaign. Are they betting on Trump converting Cuba to democracy and they're going to start, I mean, we're bringing in Cuban cigars now? I mean, I don't know. Geographically, it didn't make sense to me. And that's what I wanted to kind of drive home. It's pork. It's zero. It's going to create jobs. and it's might as well go outside and burn 1.8 billion dollars because it's it's money pissed away no for sure i couldn't agree more i couldn't agree more we'll talk more about this one i'm sure next week as we have more developments but wanted to kind of uh get that one in your ear our last headline we talked about college athletics a little bit earlier i'm excited to talk about this one because uh of course i have some familiarity with this brand axle logistics has officially landed a five-year jersey patch deal with Tennessee basketball all right this one guys first off I think this is incredible to kind of put put the numbers don't you I do I absolutely how much money did they spend all right they give Tennessee basketball this is a five-year deal and it's going to be worth around three million dollars all right so this is uh this is something to really, really look at.

18:12Malcolm: I think that for this, this is the first partnership that Tennessee basketball has ever had when it comes to a brand being on jerseys. This has never happened before. I think that it is, for me, and looking at this, shout out first off to Axel for being able to kind of, I don't know, when it comes to running a brokerage, I think from just an overall standpoint, Axel is the Chick-fil-A of 3PLs. You know why I say that? Oh, wow. You, woo, come on now. Yeah. Thanks. Axl is the 3PL of, excuse me, Axl is the Chick-fil-A of 3PLs. And I say that is because that. Are they not open on Sundays? I don't think they need to be.

18:55Malcolm: I think they are cool at what they do, which is domestic, which is sticking to just the core fundamentals, just like Chick-fil-A is going to stick to chicken. They're going to stick to what they know over the road, double down on the things that are important to them is their secret ingredient pickle juice their secret ingredient is is bro personnel i just think they like like seeing it up close it's just like wow like like they really it's it's a good spot and i think that understanding marketing right and just like 3pls they don't necessarily like of course you got organizations that are national brands whether it's a jb hunt whether it's an old dominion who's the ltl partner know the sec but like you don't necessarily see three pls be so bullish on marketing and social media and that's a testament to their organization man i want your thoughts though i think how do you didn't mega didn't megacorp put their stuff on a golfer or something yeah yeah they put their stuff on a golfer i mean you got people doing individual but we haven't seen this at least to my knowledge for college athletics i got three takes what's up what's up when you come when you come out here and we do what the truck from 146 Media Studios right here in Fort Worth.

20:08Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We do what the truck Texas. We'll do a taste test between Chick-fil-A and Dave's Hot Chicken. I got you. That's a one. It's gonna blow your mind. Alright? That's one. Alright? Two, way to go Tennessee. The next stop college basketball is gonna look like NASCAR because it's gonna cramp all over them. I'd hate that. Three. And C. Axel, come on. What are you talking about? Look. At a million dollars a year, me personally, I am a better spend. And I'll tell you why. I personally reach 150 ,000 views a month. A month. Tennessee basketball does not. Watch your mouth. These are facts.

21:08Throw it in your AI, my friend. 73 % of my personal audience are in the logistics industry, and 60 % of them are VPing up. 40 % of those are president at C-suite. UT basketball is 18 to 22-year-olds, and they're only alum. I'm just saying, Axel, if you want to really reach people, put a million bucks a year on what to truck. Because Malcolm and I crush, we actually crush those numbers. You want to hit actual logistics people and people who care rather than some dude who's arguably doing something nefarious in the Pike frat house at UT. You know what I'm saying? I mean, what are we doing here, bro?

22:04Bro, you are hilarious.

22:06Malcolm: I'm saying if Axl does want to double down on advertising. Call up my man. Drew, John, John, Ali, holler at your boy. I will put you on every piece of media that I put out there. Look, I guarantee you Craig will put actual logistics on what the truck for a million dollars a year. He'll do it for five. I'm willing to bet he'll do it for$500 ,000 a year. Yo, you are hilarious, bro. Like 10 out of 10. I think you'll see this. This is in the Sports and Business Journal. This has been everywhere. Oh, man. Really cool. You're going to see more companies start to do this when it comes to the NIL. I think it's dope.

22:47Malcolm: and I think Michael Vincent is hilarious. Read more on this. There's a full breakdown, excuse me, on this article right now on FreightWaves.com. Adam Wingfield put this on out. This is dope. This is dope. You wouldn't think it was so funny if you knew how serious I was. I know. That's why I'm laughing. I can't stop laughing because I know it would happen. But you just look at the numbers. It actually, I'm accurate. Yeah. It is a way better value at twice the price to put your name on this show, or even me personally, or Malcolm personally. Let's run the numbers. It just is. It just is. It just is.

23:26In August, who are you reaching on that basketball jersey? Nobody. Nobody.

23:31Malcolm: Zero people. It's October to March. Well, if we ever make it to March. Rick Barnes, I need something out of you. And after March Madness Selection Day, zero people. Yeah, yeah. You see what I did there? I see what I did there. I see what you did there. Okay. I see what you did there. Thank you, bro. Hey, let's get to the business. We got a couple guests here. Yeah, we got one waiting. I can't wait for this guy. I'm excited for him, man. He's a dog, man. He's a founder and CEO of Alves. I like both these guys, actually. I don't want to leave our man out either. Both of you. No, no, no, no, no. You're good.

24:07Malcolm: You're good. He is the founder and CEO of Alves. I'm excited to have this conversation with him. We kind of teed it up earlier. He's doing so much within the space, specifically when it comes to AI. But before we get to him, we're going to talk a little bit about his background. And he's been waiting patiently. He probably has the best hair on this segment right now. Let's give it up for Mr. Nick Darman. Welcome to What the Truck, bro. How are you? Good. How are you? Doing well, man. Good to see you. How's your week been? It's pretty good. I'm really excited to be on this show. And I have two things I want to accomplish in this show.

24:43I'll share a little bit about it later. Hey, Michael, how you doing? I'm doing fantastic, Nick. How are you, brother? You doing good? Good, good. Great to see you in Texas. Yeah, I was just going to say, you know, when you go, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. It's not necessarily the same in the stockyards. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. I may or may not have some footage of your fun night on the stock. I don't know, Cody, did we get any pic? Did we get anything? There it is. Look at this guy.

25:25And look, that's half a bottle of Whistlepig in him, too. You know what I'm saying? I mean, think if he wasn't just kicking that bull's ass right there in the middle of the stockyard. You guys are funny.

25:42I like that. No, I mean, you guys got this tour. Like you go to different cities and you'd visit with new customers and old customers. And you guys go out there. You really kind of do this. I was talking to Ava about it and Patrick. You guys kind of do this, what Carlos here would call forward deployment engineering, right? You get there and you work with your clients to actually develop solutions into your solutions that then help them, right? It's not, you're not forcing their business into your solutions, which is what I love. And that's where we got that footage from. I saw Nick about, what was it, last week, I think it was, out there.

26:19You guys are funny. You're putting a smile on my face. You know, to do that, I have to share. For some reason, people like to give me feedback. especially when I see him face-to-face. And one of the two recent feedbacks, one of them came from Carlos last week in Texas. He's like, hey, Nick, you guys are getting too technical. When you explain all the terms, everything you guys are doing when it comes to AI, make sure you explain it in a way that the frontline operators understand. I'm like, okay, point taken. And the second one, which is a funny one, this guy comes up to me and he tells me, Nick, after watching some of your YouTube videos and whatnot, I didn't think you were approachable.

27:10You're too tense. But now that I'm with you, drinking a beer with you, you're actually a fun guy to be around. Can you actually be the same way in front of the camera? And that's my goal today. I'm going to try to be or sound more approachable so let's see how that works out well it's gonna be a rough day if you're not i want the truck because we don't we don't put up with that unapproachable stuff we're not gonna we're not gonna let you do it there's no way perfect it ain't gonna i love it man i love it let's get into it brother let's get into what you're building there at at at alvis and and the you know i've i've pronounce Alves like 112 different ways.

27:58You know what I'm saying? Where did the name come from? Well, it has it has different connotations. The reason why I want to pronounce it Alves and not Alves has to do with the fact that I want to sound where I want the name to sound like Elvis. And we always say what Elvis did to rock and roll is what Elvis is doing to logistics space. That's our... That's so dope. I love it. I'm a fan. Elvis. Can you do a little bit of Elvis for us? You got the... Next time I see you, I'll try my best. All right. We'll get you in there. I'll need Carlos to be by me. Now he's got the pipes to pull it off for sure.

28:46I've heard him say it.

28:48Malcolm: I want to stop. I want to talk about Foundry, all right? Because you said that earlier, you want to be able to break something down for the typical frontline person or frontline operator to be able to digest. A lot of the demographic of our show are those folks. Of course, we have C-suite decision makers and folks like yourself. But in layman's terms, Foundry, what is this and how is it impacting operations day to day? Because it's pretty complex. Yeah, so Foundry in essence, it's an agentic layer built in Alvis. The best way for me to describe how Foundry actually helps our customers is to give you a background as to what we're doing at Alvis.

29:38And I'm sure everyone knows that Alvis is an end-to-end order-to-cash platform. And the three things I want everyone to remember about Alvis is that we are hybrid architecture. That's one. Two, we are a native EDI platform. And three, we just released Foundry. So let me break this down real quick. What does hybrid architecture mean for us? When I was an operator, I used to run a freight brokerage and a carrier division. And many times when shippers will give me more freight than the trucks I had in my fleet, I had to figure out how to broker out or give back the freight. If you give it back, you're just leaving money on the table.

30:22And so I was looking for a platform that will help me create this unified dashboard where I see all of my freight, the freight that goes for my trucks, and all the overflow freight should go to my brokerage. And at the same time, I wanted to have the accounting separated from those two divisions. And I couldn't find that platform, which is the reason why we created this hybrid architecture where all of the freight that you manage, it doesn't matter whether you are operating your truck. And if your truck breaks down, you could just with one click, go back to your open load status and assign another outside carrier.

31:03And now you're going to the brokerage environment. And at the same time, the P &L, the backend, has to match which division you're actually booking in. Your user doesn't do anything. That system does everything on their behalf. So that's the hybrid architecture. Then we moved on to solve another big problem, which is EDI. In my opinion, a lot of people have lost a lot of relationships with shippers because of not managing EDI properly. There's a lot that goes in, especially when it comes to maintaining your scorecard with the shipper. And we decided to build our own EDI in-house. That way it's actually ingrained in the workflows, in the everyday workflows.

31:49And there's no third-party integrator. You don't have to actually deal with different messages that didn't actually post on Chipper's platform and vice versa. You are actually working everything in real time when it comes to EDI and our platform. And now we've actually launched Foundry. And this is really exciting for me because Foundry is really taking everything that we've built this far to the next level. And yeah, you've probably heard a lot about other platforms. They're building all kinds of agents, but they have to plug into our platform or they have to plug into other platforms, other system of records to make sense of the data and then figure out how to build the agents properly that helps the end user.

32:45With us, given the fact that we understand the context, our own developers that built Alvis have also built Foundry. And therefore, the context is there. We don't have to clean the data. The data is already unlocked and properly configured so that Foundry works flawlessly for you. I'm just going to stop here.

33:08Malcolm: No, no, no. It's very intriguing. It knocked out like four questions I had for you. listen i think the discussion here is really around is really around foundry nick and and i've got a bit more intimate knowledge of what what foundry is and i think and correct me if i'm wrong but i think the big message here to people really is that you're allowing or not even allowing you're enabling and supporting people that don't necessarily have the bandwidth in as far as people and maybe even intelligence to really utilize AI as a revenue generator and bring it into their system. Am I right there? It's those.

33:55Yeah. Can you talk to that a little bit? Because that's where I really see the value in what you're doing at Foundry is people like AI, well, crap, I hope I can get into it or whatever it is, or I don't have the ability. Or they're the people who think, oh, well, I'm putting decisions and questions and data into Grok and it's spitting out answers for me. That's safe and cool. Right? Because you're saying, no, wait a minute. Here's how you really need to do things. Is that a fair kind of breaking it down? Yes. So when you look at all the other platforms that build AI agents, they will actually send forward deployed engineers and they will build things with agents for you.

34:43We are doing the same thing, but we've taken it to another level as well, where we want the users, we want the owners of the companies or the managers of those companies to actually build AI agents themselves. And this is how we created Foundry. We basically created this open source philosophy where we're handling the keys to you. You build those blocks. you can create the integrations that you need. You don't need us to get involved to create a specific integration. We could show you the basic infrastructure. And if you have a little bit of technical understanding, you'll be able to put the two and two together and create that integration for you.

35:31However, if you choose for us to build it for you, we'll do it for you. But we'll show you how to do it. And I think that's very different than what you see on the market. The market offers where they build it for you. They hold the keys. They control how the workflows are created. And if you want to change something, you go to them and they will change that workflow for you. Whereas what we've designed, we've designed Foundry the opposite way, where you can actually build those blocks and the logic and the flow. And you take it from there. Sometimes you probably need some help, especially when it comes to deeper, more complex scenarios.

36:14You'll call us, you'll call all the staff and we'll be able to help you navigate or build it for you. But at the end of the day, it should be self-explanatory how you could actually build the blocks yourself.

36:27Malcolm: Nick, there's so many folks in the space that, I mean, we hear AI all the time. We literally had an AI symposium event this year at Freight Waves. How do you, you know, for folks that you work with, kind of decipher between the, I guess, the AI question, right? It's like, all right, is this real or is this just saying that we have AI and it's just hype? Like, how do you decipher between the two and see? You talked about the return on investment, but it just feels like this is a term that everybody's just sticking to the wall and hoping that, you know, that folks pick up. You know what I'm saying?

37:03Yes, so AI could definitely confuse a lot of people and AI could also be damaging and it could give you the opposite effect than what people think. That's why it's important to understand your SOPs. It's important to partner up with the right platform where they actually shield the data for you. a platform that will be able to create, I call them security agents, where they actually double check what the agents that you designed is doing. Is the agent that you designed doing what it was intended or it's hallucinating? Why do agents hallucinating? Because it operates on probabilistic logic. It's not static, right?

37:53Sometimes the agent is going to give you an A and the same problem, that same agent will give you a B. So how do you actually configure that in a way where it's giving you deterministic actions? Because we cannot allow agents to make these kind of mistakes. We cannot have different answers for the same problem. And that's what we've designed in Foundry, is to take the complex scenario, complex tasks that usual automation is not able to do. The repeatable automation that's been done for many years, those are mundane tasks. Those are simple tasks to automate. And you should continue to automate that way.

38:39You need to actually create a deterministic formula to derive with the same answer every time. But then you got more complex three-dimensional problems, and that's where agents come in. Again, these agents, they have to be controlled so you get the deterministic answer. And in order to do it, you need to combine those two paradigms. And that's how Foundry is built. you allow the agents to solve the problems through LLM and memory. And then you take those answers and you deploy them through what we call flow in Foundry. And the flow has deterministic formula that's actually going to guardrail and give you the answers that you need in order to make the decisions for whatever use case you're working on.

39:33Malcolm: Did that make sense? Or it's too complex? It definitely, we definitely did. I was going to say, we're going to have to have you back because - It made me want to approach you on the street and say, what's up, dog? Like, for real. Like, I'm like very intrigued. Again, Nick Darman, the founder of CEO at Alvis. Not Alvis, Alvis, like Elvis. Thank you. Nick, thank you so much for being here on What the Truck, man. This was fantastic, dude. Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. We're going to need you to come down here hopefully for F3 by the end of the year so we can redo this episode and add a little bit more context here in person.

40:14Perfect. I look forward to it.

40:16Malcolm: Likewise. Likewise. Yeah, baby. Thanks, Nick. Peace and love, brother. All right. See you around, guys. See you around. See you around. Nick is awesome. He geeks out on it. He geeks out on it so much that he gets it. he's so easy. You know what I mean? I mean, if you look at AI, like, look, it isn't the answer. It's the tool to give you things that can give you the answer. Yeah, 100%. That's number one understanding, right? I could not agree more. I could not agree more. And then go from there. It gives you the power to get, to build things that will then give you the answer. And anyway, with that power, you need guardrails like he's talking about.

40:56Malcolm: Listen, we're about to go into the nine-minute offense. All right, Mr. Michael Vincent, I'm giving you the time around. The nine-minute drill, right? The nine-minute drill. All right, we're going to get Joe in. Is this where you're down by three and you don't want to score too fast? We don't want to score too fast. All right, we want to bleed the clock a little bit, but also we got some stuff to talk about. I'm bringing him out, the co-founder and president of Root Compliance, talking all about international. I'm excited to get this guy on, man. This is going to be a great one. Mr. Joe Hurst. Joe.

41:29Malcolm: Looking good. Welcome to What the Truck, my man. Uh-oh. Joe, I can't hear you. If we have audio issues. There we go. There we go. There we go. All right. There we go. Let's go, Miggy. Let's go to the dude. Let's have some fun. Let's make it up. Hey, I heard you bought tickets and you got in the lottery to script out the first first run there at Akron Zips. Yeah, so if you haven't heard, okay, so this is crazy. I can't believe you brought this up, Michael. So my alma mater has this crazy, we didn't even talk about this, just so everybody knows here. This is just, this was thrown at me here. You can win tickets to be the offensive coordinator for the game.

42:18That's how bad we suck. So anyway, this is very interesting. So I did not win. I did not win. but that would be awesome. I thought you did. Cody, come on now. Oh, my gosh. We got the playbook. Oh, my gosh. There we did. Oh, yeah, there we go. This is the annexation of Puerto Rico. We are going to run it exactly like we practiced. Now get out there and execute. Now get out there and execute. Oh, my gosh. That is so great. That is so great. Cody is the best. Cody is awesome. Let me tell you how brilliant this was, though, right? And it's okay. they sold out every suite for the first time in program history they sold out every suite they sold their tickets like hotcakes man they're packed with season ticket holders it was brilliant and there's I gotta interrupt you here because I went to school in the late 90s at Akron and I think it was like 96, we decided to give away three hot dogs with this little campus group I was in.

43:28This has nothing to do with what we're talking about today. We were able to give away 12 hot dogs. We were giving them away. We only had 12 hot dogs. We could only give away 12 hot dogs. So, hey, listen, I'm glad for the Zips, my alma mater. Let's go.

43:48You think a couple of hungry college kids would want more than 12 hot dogs, right? Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I could have ate. I mean, Joey Chestnut obviously was not in the house when that happened. That's right. No, he was not. He was not. Well, hey, what's up, guys? What's going on, and how can we help here?

44:08Malcolm: Man, you can help a lot of ways. First off, I want to talk about not only this executive order, but just things that you're seeing right now in the international space. Talk to me. Yeah, well, thanks, Malcolm. Yeah, so this is crazy. I mean, we go for a long, long time, and all of a sudden the White House weighs in with this executive order. And the international space is sort of now being treated by the White House as a privilege, not a right. So all these companies that are out there today operating as importers of record, foreign importers of record, they're being scrutinized by the federal government now.

44:53And so we're jumping in and we've got a lot to talk about today on that. So does that, who needs to worry about this thing, man? Do freight brokers and forwarders, warehouses, that type of stuff have to worry about this stuff? Or is it just like the importer of record that needs to? Yeah, I think it matters. It all depends, right, on who you're serving. But let's start first with the foreign importer of record. This was the big deal that the Trump administration put pen to paper. They said, listen, if you're a foreign importer of record, you now either need to be CTPAT validated, which we'll talk about CTPAT in a minute, or you need to use a customs broker that's CTPAT validated.

45:39that's a big deal, right? So if you're using a customs broker that doesn't have their CTPAT validation, obviously you can't move any cargo into the United States after the 180-day deadline that the clock started on June 3rd. So there's a lot of shuffling around to make sure these foreign importers of record can establish themselves with a customs broker that has CTPAT. So we do that. We help companies get CTPAT certification. And so we've had a lot of these customs brokers coming out saying, oh my gosh, I serve 10 foreign importers of record. I'm not CTPAT validated. How do I get certified? So that's what we're going through in our business.

46:21Malcolm: That makes sense. Now I want to talk about, because when people hear CTPAT, obviously we know it because we've all been around the industry and the space, but for those that are just kind of more so domestic forward and focused rather, what does that mean in its entirety? Yeah. So CTPAT stands for customs, trade partnership against terrorism. Again, when you bring that up at a party, people are like, oh yeah, okay, how about them bears, right? But what it is, what it is, talk about being non-approachable, right? A little callback there, love Nick. But yeah, that's the goal we have to, you know, in this market is to try to, simplify what this all means.

47:09And what CTPAD is, it's a voluntary program set up by the US government that allows companies to be a trusted trader in that import-export chain. So what happens is if you are part of that program, you get less inspections because they trust you, they know what you're doing. You have to fill out a bunch of information and build this whole entire program. It's like ISO compliance, if you've ever been through that. But for the CBP and for the federal government, you have to put all these controls in place. So we build the software and technology to help send out all these questionnaires to all the vendors and forced labor laws and making sure everything's going right with them.

47:51And then you get these benefits. You get the fast lane. You guys seen the fast lane? Like when you're coming and crossing the Mexico or Canadian border, that lane all the way in the right is the fast lane. So you get to participate in that and you get a CBP guy like on your side. So I was watching the start of the show. You were kicking off and talking about the container issue where people are living in those containers. And if you're CTPAT, you're right, that was crazy. Rest in peace. But we're talking about the fact that if you're a CTPAT certified, you should have all those controls in place.

48:31And the CBP is going to acknowledge that, that you don't have those issues coming up. So they're encouraging people to join the program. And that executive order is kind of forcing the hand of some of these foreign importers of record to work with somebody that has this program in place. Does that help a little bit with the context?

48:50Malcolm: That provides a lot of context and color to this. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it's confusing as to, I mean, it gets confusing as to who needs to worry about it. But basically, everybody kind of does, right? They at least need to get some sort of guidance. For sure. Everybody that's, I say this, anybody that's moving any appreciable amount of cargo inside and outside of the U.S. needs to worry about it. So as of, I think, two or three years ago, we were at the CTPAT Summit, which is something they do on a yearly basis. The government gets all their team together. This year, it's going to be in Philly.

49:31It's actually, I think, in less than a month here. And a lot of huge BCOs, a lot of the big trucking companies that do cross-border work, all descend on this conference. And they made the announcement that over 51 % of all cargo that moves in and out of the United States is done through CTPAT channels. Right. So, yeah, which is I thought it was a mind boggling number. It shows you how many people are participating in what is a voluntary program. but to be honest, this executive order, at least for foreign importers of record, made the program non-voluntary in the sense that, yeah, well, you gotta use a customs broker now.

50:13So anyway, you can kind of see where the trend is going. If you move any appreciable amount of cargo, you gotta start knowing what those five letters CT-PAT means. You gotta investigate it and figure out how to get certified if you wanna be with the big boys. Everyone we talk about on this show and in logistics that's moving cross border is either CT-PAT certified or they want to be CT-PAT certified. Yeah, CT-PAT. It's not just for sleep apnea anymore. That's right. That's right. Absolutely. I can't tell you how many times you're discussing it and somebody screws up that acronym. Yeah, there you go.

50:50You can keep that one. That one's for free. That was a free one.

50:54Malcolm: That was beautiful, Michael Vincent. Thank you. When it comes to Verru and what you guys are expecting, in the next, let's just say year. What's on deck for y 'all? And how can we, I guess, look at, I guess the blind spots that are happening. Like, is there a most common like theme that you're seeing? And then what are you all doing about it right now? Compliance, Malcolm. I mean, it's all about compliance. So there's, you know, a lot of people come on this show and they're in the industry focusing on the order entry side, right? The TMS side. getting things from A to B. And we focus on that 15 to 25 % of the compliance guy.

51:37And I'll get on my soapbox for a minute. The compliance guy is usually kind of in the basement or like, you know, with the red stapler in the basement. And if you remember that movie clip. Yes. And our theme, if you want a theme, is to move that guy up into the corner office, Move that person up into the coroner office because, you know, with the Montgomery versus Cree ruling, we do carrier compliance. We do TSA compliance or the TSA compliance network for the entire country. And with CTPAT, you've got to focus on these things, right? So if any of those acronyms affect you, that's what we do. And so we make good friends with the compliance person because, like I said, they're often looked at by the other folks in the company being like, oh, do we have to do this compliance stuff?

52:34Come on. And we want them to be our friends and give them the tools to get all these acronyms settled down.

52:43Malcolm: That's so real. Mike, you got 60 seconds to get one last question in, brother. Oh, man. I'm just, where does this go from here, dude? I mean, let me ask you this. Is this an impactful piece of legislation? Is it going to be impactful? Do you think it's a good move? Oh, first of all, I think it's a good move because every other country has these trusted trader programs and they're pretty mandatory versus ours is voluntary. And we're seeing more and more issues here with some of these things you guys discussed at the beginning of the program and fraud and contraband and things like that. So I think it's necessary.

53:27I hate red tape. I'm a red-blooded American, just like the rest of y 'all. I don't like the regulations. But when you're moving cargo in and out of the border with everything that's going on, you've got to have a plan. You can't just wing it. So it is important. and the importers of record as well. The Trump administration came out, the other thing that was in the executive order and said, listen, anybody that's doing this today, we're gonna take you through the ringer. We're gonna make sure all your founders are legit. We wanna review all the paperwork and make sure when you filed for this importer of record, it wasn't some fake company.

54:00So they're kind of going through all the roster and roles and making sure that everybody's operating at a legit level here. So it is impactful. And I think what it does is set the table in the future to say, hey, again, if you're moving any appreciable cargo in and out, be part of this program.

54:19Malcolm: Joe Harris, co-founder and president of Verru Compliance. Joe, do not be a stranger. Come back to What the Trot, man. You got to open an invite. This is one heck of a conversation to go into the weekend, bro. Appreciate it, guys. Have a great weekend. You as well, man. We got to get him on right after the Akron's first game. Absolutely. He's going to be called the players. Sold out, baby. Let's go. Let's go. let's go I love it I'll take two dogs man I got two dogs that's one third appreciate you guys on the show today man been an awesome one let's look at the road ahead before we get about here because we got three great guests for Monday Brad call with Chuck he is the co-founder of By Wonder is going to be in the building and then the ladies from Changemakers are going to be here Miss Megan Gabriel as well as Miss Veronica Van Loon are going to be here on the show.

55:13Malcolm: That's it for myself, Malcolm Harris, and my man, Michael Vincent. It's been another episode of What the Truck. Y 'all have a good weekend. Peace, love. We'll see ya. Peace and love.

55:45We'll be right back.