The short version
- The market is huge and fragmented: the US trucking freight bill was about $906 billion in 2024, and of almost 580,000 active motor carriers, 91.5% operate 10 or fewer trucks, according to the American Trucking Associations (opens in a new tab).
- Trust is the scarce asset: in the 35th Annual Study of Logistics and Transportation Trends (opens in a new tab), only 16% of respondents had high trust in freight brokers, against 33% for freight forwarders and about 53% for asset-based carriers.
- AI use is rising faster than trust in it: the same study found AI use among logistics employees rose from 45% to 65% in a year, yet only 7% reported high trust in AI-generated outputs.
- Shippers buy on service: 67% of shippers in a Denim and Peerless Research Group survey (opens in a new tab) named service level and reliability as the top factor in choosing a freight partner; only 10% named price.
- Speed of quoting is now a weapon: C.H. Robinson (opens in a new tab) receives about 600,000 rate quote requests a year in North America and, with an AI tool, now answers all of them in about 32 seconds, against 17 to 20 minutes before.
Who buys freight, and what is a shipper worth?
Shippers’ transportation and procurement teams buy it, lane by lane, and a won lane pays every week.
The US trucking market alone is enormous. The ATA estimates trucks moved roughly 72.7% of the nation’s freight by weight in 2024. Forwarding is global and concentrated at the top: Logistics Management’s Top 25 Freight Forwarders report (opens in a new tab) cites Transport Intelligence’s estimate of a market worth about $240 billion in 2025, with DSV at $37.4 billion, DHL at $35.5 billion and Kuehne+Nagel at $33.8 billion in gross revenue.
Brokerage shows the unit economics. Members reporting to the Transportation Intermediaries Association handled 1.74 million shipments in the second quarter, with an average invoice of $1,690 per shipment, and truckload accounted for 72% of broker activity, Logistics Management reported (opens in a new tab). A shipper that moves a few loads a week on one lane is therefore worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to a broker or carrier, and a contract freight relationship across several lanes can be worth much more. The arithmetic is ours, from those averages.
The buying unit varies by provider type:
| Provider | Typical buyer | What they are choosing |
|---|---|---|
| Asset carrier (FTL, LTL) | Transportation manager, freight procurement | Lanes, equipment, service levels, contract rates |
| Freight broker | Shipping or logistics manager, often for spot or overflow freight | Capacity on demand, carrier vetting, price |
| Intermodal provider | Transportation manager on long-haul lanes | Cost against transit time |
| Ocean or air forwarder | Importer, exporter, supply chain lead | Trade-lane coverage, customs, booking reliability |
Warehouse and fulfillment providers sell differently again; see how 3PLs make the AI shortlist.
How do shippers choose a freight provider today?
On reliability first, then trust, then price, with independent rankings and reviews as checks.
The Denim survey covered nearly 100 shippers, a small sample, but its message matches other evidence: service and reliability dominate, and poor communication or invoicing drive churn. Independent rankings formalize this. In Mastio & Co.’s annual LTL survey (opens in a new tab), the firm conducted 1,630 interviews with LTL shippers and rated 147 carriers on 28 service metrics, from on-time delivery and damages to billing accuracy and claims. Old Dominion Freight Line ranked as the top national carrier for a 16th consecutive year.
Trust is under strain. In the 35th Annual Study, 39% of respondents said trust among trading partners had deteriorated over five years, and only 22% said it had improved. Fraud is part of the reason: 47% were very or extremely concerned about double brokering, 45% about carrier identity fraud and 53% about AI-generated or fabricated documents. The study was fielded shortly after the Supreme Court’s Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II ruling on negligent-selection claims against brokers, and its authors describe a “trust, but verify” era that depends on documented verification.
Review platforms play a role too. CarrierSource describes itself as a platform for transportation provider reviews and sells brokers and carriers data on what shippers research there, according to Air Freight News (opens in a new tab). That a business can be built on shipper research activity shows that shippers do look up providers before they call.
Where do AI assistants sit in a shipper’s research?
Early, as one research tool among several, and treated with caution. No public study yet measures how often shippers ask AI assistants to find freight providers.
The 35th Annual Study shows AI is now part of daily logistics work. Overall employee use of AI rose from 45% to 65% between 2025 and 2026, and the share using it with their organization’s approval rose from 16% to 47%. But 38% reported low or no trust in AI-generated outputs, and AI ranked last among the seven data and information sources the study evaluated.
For freight sellers, that combination means two things. Shippers will use assistants to build a list or compare options, so absence there costs a look. And they will verify what the assistant says, so the facts it repeats must match what they find on the provider’s site, on review platforms and in rankings.
Digital booking is also mainstream in forwarding. Freightos (opens in a new tab) reported 458 thousand transactions and a record $422 million in gross booking value in the second quarter of 2026, with about 21 thousand unique buyer users booking freight on its platforms. Shippers who book online are a short step from asking an assistant where to book.
What do shippers ask AI assistants about freight?
Lane-specific, mode-specific and trust-specific questions. The examples below are hypothetical, written to show the pattern, not taken from logs.
- “Which reefer carriers run Laredo to Chicago with team drivers?”
- “LTL carriers with liftgate and inside delivery in the Northeast.”
- “Freight forwarder for full-container ocean shipments from Vietnam to Savannah, with customs brokerage.”
- “Is intermodal cheaper than truckload from Los Angeles to Dallas, and how much slower?”
- “How do I check that a freight broker is legitimate and not double brokering?”
- “How much does it cost to ship two pallets from Atlanta to Denver?”
Three of these are about capacity on a lane, one about mode choice, one about trust and one about price. Rate questions are hard for any assistant because freight prices move daily; we expect answers to give ranges and point to quoting tools rather than firm rates. Parcel carriers face their own version of the rate question, covered in how shipping platforms win small sellers. The trust question is the one brokers should worry about most, given the fraud concerns above.
How does AI visibility become freight revenue?
Through the quote request. An AI answer that names a provider for a lane leads to a quote, a test load, then recurring freight.
The path is short and fast:
- A shipper asks about capacity or a mode on a specific lane.
- The answer names a few providers, often citing rankings, directories or the providers’ own lane pages.
- The shipper requests quotes from some of them, by email, web form or portal.
- The fastest credible quote wins a test load.
- Good service turns the test into a lane award, often in the next bid.
Step four is where many freight companies lose the value of visibility. C.H. Robinson’s finance chief told FreightWaves the firm historically answered only about 60% to 65% of its quote requests; its AI tool now answers 100%. After it added less-than-truckload freight to its AI quoting, monthly LTL quote volumes jumped by at least 30%, FreightWaves reported (opens in a new tab). A smaller broker or carrier cannot match that engineering, but it can make sure every page an assistant might cite leads to a quote path that answers the same day.
What decides whether an AI assistant names a freight company?
The platforms document only the basics; studies point to rankings and review platforms. We label each type of evidence.
Documented by the platforms:
- Google says a page needs to be indexed and eligible for a snippet to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, with no special optimization required, and that both may run several related searches to answer one question (Google Search Central (opens in a new tab)).
- OpenAI says ChatGPT search may send rewritten, targeted queries to partner search providers (OpenAI Help Center (opens in a new tab)).
Observed in our studies:
- When answering buyer questions, ChatGPT ran a search aimed at a named publication, ranking or award in 43.8% of its answers (hidden searches study). In freight, the Mastio rankings, Logistics Management’s Top 25 lists and trade press are such sources.
- Asked whether a brand was legitimate, 88.0% of AI answers cited a review or complaint platform (reputation study). For brokers facing double-brokering fears, what review platforms say is likely to shape that answer.
Our inference: assistants answering lane questions need facts they can match to the question, such as lanes served, equipment, terminals, service area, transit times and authority details. Providers who state those facts plainly, consistently and in more than one place give an assistant something to cite. Our article on whether small websites can get cited by AI is relevant here, since most carriers are small.
What does it cost a freight company to be missing?
Mostly invisible losses: quote requests that never arrive. No study measures them in freight yet.
We have no figure for freight demand lost to AI answers, and we will not estimate one. What the evidence does show is where the risk sits. Shippers buy on reliability and trust, trust in brokers is low, and verification is becoming routine. If an assistant cannot find clear, consistent facts about a provider, it can leave the provider out or describe it vaguely; if review platforms carry complaints, those may surface when a shipper asks whether the company is legitimate. Either way, a shipper may never send the quote request. Our guide on fake reviews and fake brands in AI recommendations covers why verification matters in categories with fraud.
How does generative engine optimization work for a freight company?
It makes a carrier, broker or forwarder easy to match to a lane and easy to verify. It cannot promise that an assistant will name the company.
For freight, the work looks like this:
- Lane, mode and equipment pages. One page per major lane or region and per mode (FTL, LTL, intermodal, ocean, air), stating equipment, transit times, accessorials and terminals. Generic “nationwide coverage” pages give an assistant nothing to match.
- Verification facts in one place. Operating authority, insurance coverage, safety and compliance information, years in business and how the company vets carriers. For brokers, a clear page on fraud prevention answers the “is this broker legit” question directly.
- Service proof. Published on-time and claims figures where a company can stand behind them, customer case studies by lane and mode, and participation in independent surveys such as Mastio’s.
- Third-party presence. Reviews on independent platforms, listings in industry rankings and directories, and expert commentary in FreightWaves, Logistics Management or the Journal of Commerce.
- A fast quote path. Every page an assistant might cite should lead to a quote form or email that is answered within hours.
- Monitoring by question. Track a fixed set of lane, mode and trust questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity and Copilot, and record which providers and sources appear.
Freight technology vendors face a different problem, covered in our guides on logistics software in AI search and supply chain software on the RFP longlist. For more on the role of third-party lists, see best-of lists and AI recommendations.
Which questions remain open for freight?
Several, and they should shape how much a freight company invests and how it measures results.
- How many shippers ask AI assistants to find carriers, brokers or forwarders. The 35th Annual Study measures AI use at work, not provider search.
- Whether assistants favor large brokers over small carriers for lane questions. Studies of other industries suggest brand prominence matters, but freight has not been tested.
- How assistants handle rate questions when prices change daily.
- How stable answers are from one week to the next for the same lane question.
Where should a freight company start?
With its top lanes and its trust story. Check what AI answers say about both, then fix the gaps.
List the five lanes or trade routes that matter most to revenue and the modes you sell on them. Ask the main assistants the questions a shipper would ask about each, plus “is [your company] legit?”, and record who is named and which sources are cited. Then compare that with your lane pages, review profiles and rankings. If you would rather hand that work off, ask us to run the lane-by-lane check for you, starting with the lanes where you want more quote requests. Beyond that check, our generative engine optimization service page describes the ongoing lane pages, verification facts and quote paths a carrier, broker or forwarder keeps current.
Frequently asked questions
Do shippers really use ChatGPT to find carriers or brokers?
Some likely do, but no public study measures it. Logistics workers’ AI use rose to 65% in 2026, while trust in AI outputs stayed low.
Can a small carrier be named next to big brokers?
For narrow lane and equipment questions, plausibly yes, if its facts are clear and repeated elsewhere. Broad questions likely favor well-known brands.
Should we publish freight rates on our website?
Rates change too fast for fixed lists. Publish how pricing works, what drives cost and how to get a quote quickly.
Do LTL rankings like Mastio’s matter for AI answers?
Plausibly. Assistants often search for named rankings, and Mastio’s survey rated 147 carriers, but no study has tested its effect on AI answers.
How can a freight broker counter fraud fears in AI answers?
Publish verification facts and carrier-vetting steps plainly, keep review profiles current and answer complaints in public.
Sources
- American Trucking Associations (2026), Economics and Industry Data (opens in a new tab)
- Logistics Management, Boone, Manrodt, Voss and colleagues (2026-09-01), 35th Annual Study of Logistics and Transportation Trends: Trust, but Verify (opens in a new tab)
- Logistics Management (2026-09), Top 25 Freight Forwarders: Navigating a new era (opens in a new tab)
- Logistics Management (2026), TIA Q2 report signals potential freight market rebound (opens in a new tab)
- Denim and Peerless Research Group (2025-06-17), Freight survey reveals what shippers really want from brokers and carriers (opens in a new tab)
- FreightWaves (2025), Survey reveals top LTL carriers for 2025 (opens in a new tab)
- FreightWaves (2026-01), How is C.H. Robinson using AI? Its CFO has a story to tell (opens in a new tab)
- FreightWaves (2025-04), C.H. Robinson delivers on AI, but investors still skeptical (opens in a new tab)
- Air Freight News (2025-09-15), CarrierSource launches AI-powered research agents to turn shipper intent data into revenue (opens in a new tab)
- Freightos, via PR Newswire (2026-08-17), Freightos Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results (opens in a new tab)
- Google Search Central (2025), AI features and your website (opens in a new tab)
- OpenAI Help Center (2025), ChatGPT search (opens in a new tab)
- Underneath (2026), The hidden searches AI assistants run before they answer
- Underneath (2026), “Is this brand legit?” How AI assistants build a reputation