AI Meets Drayage: Real Workflows, Real Results

Last week, we went live with a no-fluff webinar that gave a behind-the-scenes look at how AI is changing the game for drayage operations. If you missed it, no worries — we’ve got the full breakdown right here.

Hosted by PortPro CEO Mike Mecca and CGO Corey Abbott, the session covered why we’re building AI, what it can do today, and where it’s headed next.

Watch the recording here:

Let’s get into it.

Why AI in Drayage?

Dispatchers are buried in busywork. Drivers are hard to reach. Invoices take days. And yet shippers expect Amazon-level speed and updates.

As Mike put it early on: “We’re not here to bolt AI onto the side of the platform. It’s going to live inside the workflows our customers already use.”

This isn’t about hype — it’s about helping operations teams move faster, with less effort, and way more visibility.

Building the Foundation (Brick by Brick 🧱)

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was PortPro TMS. We’ve been building up to this for years.

• A powerful TMS core (dispatching, docs, invoicing, compliance)

• Full visibility into container tracking, per diem, and terminal scheduling

• Communication tools built into the TMS (not scattered across Gmail threads)

• Structured EDI & API layers

• And finally — the automations that make AI worth adding

Let’s Talk Agents: What PortPro AI Can Do Today

The core of this launch is PortPro’s new AI agents — built to take real tasks off your team’s plate, without changing the way they work.

These agents operate inside the system. They’re trained to do specific jobs — dispatch, billing, compliance, integrations. And they’re powered by your first-party data.

That means no extra dashboards, no browser tabs, no retraining the team.

Some of the pre-built agents we walked through live:

• Google/Excel Sheets Sync
  Automatically updates spreadsheets based on data in your TMS.
  
  

• Empty Container Monitor
  Tracks when containers are ready to return and flags delays automatically.
  
  

• Document Validator
  Uses OCR to extract data from customs and bonded warehouse docs, then checks for accuracy.
  
  

• Custom Reports & Dashboards
  Lets teams generate tailored summaries and analytics — powered by AI agents, not manual exports.

The workflows are real-time, fully embedded, and built for operations — not just show-and-tell.

What’s Next for PortPro AI?

We’re not stopping at syncing spreadsheets.

Anything you can do in PortPro today — batch updating routing templates, notes, sending emails — you'll be able to do that with AI inside a chat interface.

Starting in June, users will start seeing update options directly in the agent UI. By the end of the month? You’ll be able to push real actions live — not just surface info.

And longer term?

1. You’ll be able to create your agents and build workflows

Basically, you’ll be able to drag-and-drop workflows custom to the specific way you’re doing business, replicating the way your dispatchers are currently operating.

2. You’ll be able to create custom reports using natural language

Rather than clicking through to build out custom reports, you can ask PortPro AI Chat to build one for you using common English.

And we’re only just getting started

This isn’t AI for the sake of AI. This is about solving actual problems:

• No more waiting days for PODs or invoices

• No more copy-paste grind across spreadsheets

• No more “let me call the driver and get back to you”

As Mike summed it up: “AI should help operations people win the day — not give them one more tool to manage.”

To see PortPro AI in action, schedule a demo or reach out to your CSM.