“We’ve always done it like this.”

In the traditional backdrop, if all contracted carriers in a routing guide reject a load, many shippers then go to the spot freight market and ‘dial for diesels’ – that is, they call (or email) a bunch of carriers to see who can pick up the load. Others manually post their loads on load boards and wait to see if a match occurs. Needless to say, these approaches are highly inefficient and costly. They might have been tolerable when spot moves were a small percentage of total shipments, but as the percentage of spot moves has spiked over the past couple of years, so has the need to find a better way. Finding ad-hoc capacity is a very time-consuming process for shippers and carriers, creating the need for more intelligent, optimized, and automated approaches to transportation procurement.

“We’ve always done it like this.”

In the traditional backdrop, if all contracted carriers in a routing guide reject a load, many shippers then go to the spot freight market and ‘dial for diesels’ – that is, they call (or email) a bunch of carriers to see who can pick up the load. Others manually post their loads on load boards and wait to see if a match occurs. Needless to say, these approaches are highly inefficient and costly. They might have been tolerable when spot moves were a small percentage of total shipments, but as the percentage of spot moves has spiked over the past couple of years, so has the need to find a better way. Finding ad-hoc capacity is a very time-consuming process for shippers and carriers, creating the need for more intelligent, optimized, and automated approaches to transportation procurement.

Autonomous vs Automated

Understanding the Difference

Technology is evolving—and autonomy is the next frontier. Unlike simple automation, autonomy means software can make decisions on its own, within the goals and limits you define. What separates autonomy from automation? It comes down to one critical question:

"Who’s really making the decisions—your team, or the tech itself?"

Think of a self-driving car. It doesn’t follow pre-written instructions like a GPS robot—it navigates, balancing hard constraints like avoiding collisions with softer goals like smooth cornering and speed. It adapts, reacts, and optimizes on the fly.

There are also other goals it aims to achieve, such as arriving at the required destination as quickly as possible or cornering slowly because to do so too fast would be uncomfortable for the passengers (and potentially dangerous). Now apply that logic to freight. Instead of micromanaging every lane or load, you set the strategy—and let intelligent software decide how to win, in real time. You define the rules: budget, lead times, preferred carriers. From there, the system takes over—learning, adapting, and executing strategies that deliver results. Success isn’t about following instructions—it’s about achieving outcomes. Autonomous Procurement is judged by the goals it hits, not the rules it obeys. This is the new era of freight procurement—where your rules define the game, but smart software plays to win.