The short answer
A Surrey trucking or logistics company can hand five repetitive jobs to AI today: answering broker and shipper calls, logging loads from rate confirmations into your TMS or load sheet, matching signed BOLs and PODs to loads before invoicing, calling drivers for ETA check-ins in Punjabi, Hindi or English, and drafting quotes from your rate sheet. Start with one, usually POD matching or after-hours calls. Keep rate negotiation, claims, safety and anything that commits money with your people.
For the wider picture across BC, including freight brokers and warehouses, see AI for trucking and logistics companies.
Why this fits Surrey
Surrey moves freight. The City calls Campbell Heights "one of Metro Vancouver's leading industrial and business parks", and in July 2026 council approved moving ahead on a proposed lease of 36 acres there to Prologis, which is considering about 721,000 square feet of logistics and warehouse space (City of Surrey, July 28, 2026). Surrey also has a higher share of trades, transport and equipment operator jobs than Metro Vancouver as a whole (City of Surrey 2021 census profile).
Language matters as much as freight. In the 2021 census, 20% of Surrey residents spoke Punjabi most often at home, and another 2% spoke Hindi (same census profile). In trucking, a Canadian Press report found that more than half of all truckers in the Vancouver and Toronto areas were born in South Asia, and that the vast majority speak Punjabi (CTV News, 2018). Those figures are dated, but if you dispatch in Surrey you already know how many of your driver calls happen in Punjabi.
Most fleets also have more data than they use. Provincially regulated carriers in BC have had to run electronic logging devices since August 1, 2023, after federal enforcement started on January 1, 2023 (BC Gov News). Yet the work between the trucks and the invoice still runs on phone calls, emails and photos of paper. That in-between work is what AI does well: reading, matching, calling and logging.
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Book a callFive jobs AI can do for a carrier or broker
1. Broker and shipper calls
What the AI does: answers your main line after hours or when dispatch is busy, takes load requests, answers "where is my load" from your load status, and passes anything new or urgent to a dispatcher by text with a short summary.
What it needs: call forwarding to the AI line when nobody picks up, read access to load status (your TMS, or even a shared sheet), and a short list of rules: which customers get a callback within 15 minutes, and who gets woken up at night.
Keep human: rates, credit for new customers, and any promise about a pickup time you have not confirmed.
2. Load logging
What the AI does: reads rate confirmations and load tenders that arrive by email, pulls out shipper, consignee, pickup and delivery windows, rate, reference numbers and equipment type, and creates the load. Anything it is unsure about goes on a "check me" list instead of being guessed.
What it needs: read access to the dispatch inbox, and permission to create loads (not edit rates, not delete) in your TMS. If your TMS has no way in, a shared spreadsheet works to start.
Keep human: a final look at rates and accessorials until the AI has earned your trust.
3. BOL and POD paperwork matching
This is the job I would look at first in most fleets. Drivers send photos of signed bills of lading and proofs of delivery by text or a messaging app, often blurry and often late. The AI matches each photo to the right load, checks signature, date, piece count and seal number against the load, flags shortages or damage notes, and attaches the clean POD to the invoice so billing does not wait.
What it needs: the number or inbox where drivers send photos, your load list, and your invoicing system or the folder billing works from.
Keep human: every exception (shortage, damage, refused freight, a disputed count) and every claim.
4. Driver ETA check-ins
What the AI does: calls or texts drivers at set points, for example two hours before an appointment, in Punjabi, Hindi or English. It asks for an ETA, logs the answer in English for dispatch, and tells the customer if a load is running late. Where your ELD or tracking data already shows the truck's position, it uses that and only calls when something looks off.
What it needs: driver phone numbers and language preference, appointment times, and (optional) read access to ELD or tracking data.
Keep human: breakdowns, accidents, weather calls and every safety question. The AI never asks a driver to push past hours of service, and it hands any safety issue to a dispatcher straight away.
5. Quotes
What the AI does: reads quote requests from email or calls, prices them from your rate sheet, lane history and fuel surcharge table, and drafts the reply. A person approves before anything is sent.
What it needs: your rate sheet and surcharge rules in a form it can read, plus past quotes if you have them.
Keep human: the final price, every time, until you decide otherwise.
The five jobs side by side
| Job | What the AI does | What it needs from you | Keep human |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broker and shipper calls | Answers, gives load status, takes requests | Call forwarding, read access to load status | Rates, credit, new promises |
| Load logging | Turns rate confirmations into loads | Dispatch inbox (read), create-only access to TMS or sheet | Rate and accessorial check |
| BOL and POD matching | Matches photos to loads, flags gaps, attaches to invoices | Driver photo inbox, load list, billing folder | Exceptions and claims |
| Driver ETA check-ins | Calls or texts drivers, updates customers | Driver numbers, appointment times, optional ELD data | Safety and breakdowns |
| Quotes | Drafts quotes from your rates | Rate sheet, surcharge table, past quotes | Final price |
Where to start
Pick the job with the most repeat volume and the clearest right answer. For most small fleets that is POD matching, because it speeds up getting paid, or after-hours calls, because it stops loads going to someone else. For example, a fleet doing 15 deliveries a day handles about 300 PODs a month; if each one takes a few minutes to find, check and attach, that is a real share of someone's week. Your numbers will be different, so count them for a week first.
Then run the AI alongside your people for two weeks. It does the work, a person checks every result, and you fix the rules wherever it gets something wrong. When the corrections stop, let it handle the easy cases on its own and keep the exceptions with your team. Only then add the next job.
Punjabi and Hindi on the phone
The real-time voice models we build with officially support Punjabi and Hindi, along with English, Mandarin, Korean, French and Filipino. In practice that means a driver can answer an ETA call in Punjabi while a shipper calls the same system in English, and dispatch reads both logs in English. Two honest notes. Drivers often switch between Punjabi and English mid-sentence, and a truck cab is a noisy place, so test it with your own drivers before you depend on it. And if a caller needs a language the system does not support well, it should offer a text or a person instead of guessing.
Rules that keep it safe
- Limited access. Start read-only. The AI that reads PODs has no reason to change rates.
- Approvals. A person approves quotes, anything that commits money, and messages to new customers, until you decide to change that rule.
- Logs. Every call, message and change is recorded, so you can see what happened and why.
- Tell people. Callers and drivers should know they are talking to an AI, and how to reach a person.
These are the rules we run our own company on. We have about 35 AI employees, and people approve anything outward-facing or paid.
How we would do this with you
Aitoflo is based in Vancouver, and we work in person in Surrey, including Campbell Heights, Port Kells and Newton. We start at your dispatch desk: watch how loads, paperwork and calls actually move for a morning, pick the one job worth doing first, and build it around your TMS, inbox and phones. Then we run it with you and teach your dispatchers to manage it.
The pieces involved: AI voice agents for broker, shipper and driver calls; AI agents that do whole jobs for load logging, POD matching and quotes; and custom dashboards when you want one screen for loads, PODs and late shipments. If you want your dispatch team to learn this hands-on first, see our AI workshops. More on how we work locally is on our Surrey AI consultant page, or book a free 30-minute call and we will send you a written plan.