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Proprietary Platform Designed to Improve Over Time Through Ongoing Model Training and Real-World Visual Data

The multi-trillion-dollar logistics industry runs on trucks and trains, ships and planes. It also runs on calls, texts, and email. “We get hundreds of thousands of emails saying, ‘Hey, I have this freight that needs to move from X to Y—how much would it cost?’” says Mike Neill, chief technology officer at logistics provider C.H. Robinson . The details vary from load to load and mode to mode, but generally a company that wants to ship a load of goods reaches out to freight brokers, who in turn connect with carriers who actually haul the goods from place to place. Getting the details right, like whether the shipper has a full truckload, specific insurance requirements, or cargo needing special handling, and when and where the carrier must send a truck, can mean a lot of back and forth that’s traditionally been handled by people sitting at phones or computers. Now, it’s increasingly being handled by artificial intelligence , which can help all parties in the equation respond to emails, communicate availability, and even solicit bids and issue quotes, often much faster than humans feasibly can. “We determined that the humans weren’t getting to all the opportunities,” says Neill. “They weren’t getting to it in a timely manner.” As a result, C.H. Robinson gradually rolled out a suite of AI agents, starting with bots that simply detected whether incoming emails were asking for shipping quotes. Over time, those advanced to pull out more information from quote requests and ultimately respond to many requests automatically. That means many shippers can now get a response within seconds, helping the company win more business, increase the number of shipments processed by each employee, and boost its margins per transaction. C.H. Robinson, considered the largest freight broker in North America in managing 37 million shipments per year, rolled out much of its AI infrastructure in-house. And other logistics companies have turned to tech companies focused specifically on applying AI to the sprawling sector, where they say it can help cut costs and boost efficiencies. That, they say, lets humans focus on the most complex problems and building relationships key to repeat business rather than spending their days playing phone tag and scurrying to answer emails. While much of the public’s attention on transportation automation has focused on self-driving trucks and drone deliveries, AI has quietly made inroads in the offices (and semi-truck cabs) where deals are done and plans are made. Harish Abbott, cofounder and CEO of supply chain AI company Augment, describes the pre-AI system of calls and emails as imposing a “coordination tax” that leads to waste and unnecessary delays in transporting goods. “Trucks have to wait, they go empty miles, warehouses have to have underutilized labor, or businesses have to carry more inventory,” he says. Augment’s AI system, called Augie, can sift through brokers’ incoming email to spot shippers looking for a quote or the status of a delivery or detect when a carrier is looking to get paid or seeking more cargo to transport. The AI can generate quotes based on rules provided to Augie or by integration with an existing quoting engine, understanding when more information is needed and routing requests to a human if necessary. The system can also run automated security checks, making sure that a potential counterparty is actually someone a business wants to deal with. Since the AI logs its work, it also makes it easier to track win rates and identify patterns in winning and losing bids, Abbott says. Augie can even place calls or emails to carriers, speaking in a variety of languages as needed, and extract data from emailed updates in a variety of formats. The company also offers its technology to carriers themselves, where it can also respond to incoming quote requests, pull important data about shipments, and communicate with drivers about their status. In some cases, Augie may even be participating on both sides of a conversation, though Abbott emphasizes that each instance of the software is acting on behalf of the appropriate client’s best interests. “Literally every month, the number of incidences where AI is talking to AI, Augie is talking to Augie, is going up,” he says. But Abbott and others in the industry say AI is unlikely to completely replace humans any time soon. Instead, says Robert Nathan, founder and CEO of logistics AI company Envoy AI , the technology can help shift people away from busywork like answering emails, tracking shipments, and transcribing updates from carrier to shipper. “These are college-educated individuals doing low-level tasks, and I think that this next generation of operators deserves better,” says Nathan. Envoy’s AI, known as Ellie, can help carrier reps, the people at freight brokers tasked with connecting with shipping carriers, negotiate pricing, communicating with carriers via email, phone, or text as appropriate. “You really try to communicate and meet the trucker or the dispatcher where they are,” says Nathan. Like other AI providers in the industry, Envoy’s system can be configured to negotiate within existing guardrails and get human pre-approval before deals are done to minimize the effects of AI hallucinations, so businesses shouldn’t have to worry about AI proposing or accepting money-losing bids. And as Nathan points out, the AI can answer emails around the clock and doesn’t experience hunger or fatigue, factors that can impact humans in their negotiations. In turn, human employees can spend more time building relationships with business associates, which can help establish longer term arrangements for regularly recurring shipments or make it easier to address any problems so they don’t happen again. “Spending less time on this very tactical stuff, but now spending more time on saying, how do I strategically build a repeat business,” says Abbott. “That’s where the relationships matter, and that’s where the real majority of the business is.” While logistics is for good reason often called a “people business,” it’s also one in which numbers, speed, accuracy, and volume matter, says Simson Demmer, chief customer officer at Cargo.one . The company provides AI focused on air and sea transport for both carriers and freight forwarders, capable of generating quotes based on its customers’ parameters. Those can include everything from bidding policies to email tone of voice. Cargo.one also has an extensive database of air and sea transport rates. And though it’s only been in recent times that AI models have been powerful enough for automated pricing and communication, Demmer says the integrations with customer records, which are also used to test the AI against historic quotes before launch, and with its own trove of industry data are at least as vital. “If you don’t have the price for tomorrow’s flight or tomorrow’s ocean line crossing, the best AI doesn’t close that gap for you,” he says. Carriers, too, can benefit from AI communication tools, especially since many are mom-and-pop trucking operations where dispatchers or drivers themselves must regularly reach out to brokers seeking loads to transport. “There are hundreds of thousands of small trucking companies across the United States,” says Paul Singer, cofounder and CEO of FleetWorks . “Most of them are getting most of their freight through a phone call, an email, a text message.” FleetWorks’ AI can proactively call brokers on carriers’ behalf and help brokers find vetted carriers able to transport goods. The Y Combinator-backed company’s network of carriers and brokers is growing rapidly, now including 40 of the top 100 freight brokers and nearly 29,000 carriers, Singer says. It’s already helped brokers’ carrier reps work significantly more efficiently. One customer recently reported a single carrier rep moved from booking roughly 150 loads per month to more than 300, he says. “We doubled the productivity of this carrier rep by bringing that carrier rep a lot more options, and handling most of the communication for them,” he says. “They’re also spending a lot more time building relationships, because they’re not handling transactional bookings.” Exactly how much AI will ultimately transform the transportation world remains to be determined, though companies in the industry are already pointing to those kinds of visible gains from automated price quoting and negotiation. Logistics companies are also increasingly using AI for parsing and generating the often-voluminous sets of documents related to shipments, as well as tracking the locations of goods, handling invoices and payments, and helping carriers resolve any issues along the way. To AI enthusiasts in the industry, the sheer volume of verbal communication and written documents—which until recent years were seen as an impediment to automation—are a clear sign the field is ripe for efficiency gains from large-language models. “There’s just so much unstructured data and so much opportunity within these businesses,” Singer says, “because all this data has been sitting in siloed systems of record for a very long time.”

Over the past two years, AI companion technology has undergone a quiet revolution that most casual users have failed to fully recognize. While mainstream tech headlines fixate on large language model upgrades and generic AI video tools, the virtual companions people invite into their daily lives have evolved far beyond basic text banter and static character portraits. Anyone who regularly chats with an AI friend, builds custom virtual characters, or explores casual AI roleplay has felt the

Proprietary Platform Designed to Improve Over Time Through Ongoing Model Training and Real-World Visual Data MESA, AZ / ACCESS Newswire / August 24, 2026 / Medical Care Technologies Inc. (OTC PINK:...

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Revenue Management Solutions (RMS), a leading provider of healthcare remittance and revenue cycle automation solutions, announced enhancements to its proprietary technology platform. The updates improve how RMS extracts, interprets and routes information from complex healthcare documents, enabling greater accuracy, speed and scalability for healthcare providers and financial partners.

Google’s Gemini 4 represents the next step in the company’s AI development, with its pre-training phase confirmed to have started. Announced during Alphabet’s Q2 earnings call, this model is expected to expand on prior advancements, such as incorporating multimodal capabilities or increasing context window sizes. While specific details about its architecture remain undisclosed, AI Master [...] The post Gemini 4 Could Feature a 10-Million-Token Context Window appeared first on Geeky Gadgets .

AllPaid announced the launch of AllPaid Assistant on the Snowflake AI Data Cloud, advancing the company’s commitment to delivering a simpler, more intuitive consumer experience across government payments. Also Read: AiThority Interview with Gou Rao, co-founder and CEO at NeuBird AI “The way consumers expect to interact with technology has fundamentally changed, and government payments shouldn’t [...] The post AllPaid Launches AllPaid Assistant on Snowflake AI Data Cloud appeared first on AiThority .

Amazon has hiked prices across its Fire TV Sticks in the UK. These small plug-and-play streaming devices have always been an affordable way to add thousands of streaming services, games, and apps to any television by plugging them into the HDMI port. But Fire TV Sticks are now a little less affordable, with price rises of up to £30 on these bestselling streamers. The new prices are as follows: Device Old RRP New RRP Increase Fire TV Stick HD £39.99 £59.99 +£20.00 Fire TV Stick 4K Select £49.99 £64.99 +£15.00 Fire TV Stick 4K Plus £59.99 £79.99 +£20.00 Fire TV Stick 4K Max £69.99 £99.99 +£30.00 These hikes are due to the global memory chip shortage, driven largely by the massive demand from artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure consuming vast quantities of the same components found in your everyday gadgets. For instance, Roku's own streaming sticks recently underwent an increase . Apple's iPad and Apple TV 4K set-top box haven't been immune from these price hikes either. While Amazon's price hikes might seem pretty steep, they're actually on par with Roku's new costs — where they've raised their devices by as much as 50%. And compared to other streamers out there, the Fire TV Stick could still be one of the most wallet-friendly choices. Apple's streamers start from £199, and Google's streamer starts from £99. An Amazon spokesperson told GB News: “The consumer electronics industry is facing significant increases in memory and storage component costs. After absorbing these increases for as long as we could, we recently adjusted pricing across our product lines. "Our approach has always been to offer great products at accessible prices, and that commitment hasn't changed.” The hikes are set to take effect on Amazon on September 3, according to Cordbusters . However, there is a way to add these streaming sticks to your basket for a fraction of the new price now. Avoid the price hike and secure 72% off a Fire TV Stick for a VERY limited time You can save up to 72% on the Fire TV Stick 4K Max when you trade in your old device. The 4K Max has support for the latest Wi-Fi 6E wireless standard, 40% more processing power than the standard Fire TV Stick 4K, and twice as much storage, too. Like the standard Fire TV 4K, that processing grunt means it's able to stream the latest blockbuster console games from Xbox Game Pass — with nothing but a wireless controller paired over Bluetooth, to recreate an Xbox-like experience. With Amazon's latest promotion, you can also get the Fire TV Stick HD for as low as £19.19 — was £59.99 , the Fire TV Stick 4K Select for £21.52 — was £64.99 , and the Fire TV Stick 4K Plus for £29.59 — was £79.99 . To soften the blow, the company has launched a limited-time sale alongside the increases across its entire range. For instance, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is currently discounted to £47.99, representing 52% off its new price. Plus, you can get a further 20% off the price and trade in one of your Fire TV Sticks that could be lying around the house. The sale prices for the devices are as follows: Fire TV Stick HD: £23.99 (£19.19 with trade-in) Fire TV Stick 4K Select: £26.99 (£21.52 with trade-in) Fire TV Stick 4K Plus: £36.99 (£29.59 with trade-in) Fire TV Stick 4K Max: £47.99 (£38.29 with trade-in) If Amazon keeps to its usual promotion pattern, there could be other sales similar to this one throughout the year. However, the sale prices may not be as low as this time around given the price hikes. LATEST DEVELOPMENTS Latest Windows 11 update is causing PCs to crash while playing games Microsoft in race against time with scammers to fix 2 critical flaws in Windows EE, Three, and O2 get a new mobile network rival Google unveils trio of new Pixel 11 phones with faster chips, better cameras And these aren't the only popular devices expected to be hit by the hikes, either. Amazon has raised prices across its entire range of Echo smart speakers, Kindle e-readers, and Eero Wi-Fi systems by as much as 60% in the US. The company's most affordable products bore the brunt of the increases. For instance, the Echo Dot smart speaker suffered the steepest rise, climbing from $49.99 to $79.99. Amazon's entry-level 16GB Kindle surged nearly 37% to $149.99. Elsewhere, the Kindle Paperwhite climbed $40 to $199.99, and the Eero Pro 7 three-pack now commands $799.99 — a full $100 more than before. These same devices are expected to undergo the same increase in the UK soon, but there is no set date yet. The new UK prices also haven't been confirmed yet, but they're likely to follow the same percentage increase as the US. Ring cameras, video doorbells, and the higher-end Echo Studio — priced at $219.99 — were the only Amazon hardware lines to escape unscathed. Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter

Xiaomi has unveiled a new generation of its proprietary smartphone processor as the Chinese electronics giant steps up efforts to develop key technologies in-house and reduce its dependence on external chip suppliers. The company announced the Xring O3 on Monday, roughly a year after introducing its first in-house smartphone processor, the Xring O1. The move places Xiaomi among a growing group of major smartphone manufacturers—including Apple, Samsung Electronics and Huawei—that design their own chips to gain greater control over the technology powering their devices. Smartphone processors, commonly known as systems-on-chip, integrate several critical functions, including computing, graphics, artificial intelligence processing and image handling, into a single component. Two people familiar with Xiaomi's plans said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) will manufacture the Xring O3 using its advanced 3-nanometre process. The sources asked not to be identified because the information has not been made public. Xiaomi and TSMC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the chip's manufacturer, production technology or shipment plans. One source said the O3 is expected to power Xiaomi's next flagship foldable smartphone, with the company targeting shipments of between 200,000 and 300,000 units. The move into the premium foldable-phone market could sharpen Xiaomi's competition with Huawei, which has established a dominant position in China's rapidly developing foldable segment. Huawei shipped about 1.6 million foldable smartphones in China during the second quarter, accounting for 68% of the market, according to research firm Smart Analytics Global. Honor held 13.7% of the market, while Oppo accounted for 8.5%. Xiaomi Bets on Its Own Silicon Xiaomi's chip strategy reflects a wider shift among major device manufacturers, which are increasingly designing their own semiconductors as competition in the premium smartphone market intensifies. Developing processors internally can give manufacturers greater control over product features, allow closer integration between hardware and software and potentially strengthen their negotiating position with suppliers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek. Beijing-based Xiaomi restarted development of large-scale proprietary chips in 2021. The company has said it intends to invest at least 50 billion yuan ($7 billion) in the effort over a decade. The company said on an earnings call last week that cumulative shipments of smartphones, tablets and watches powered by the Xring O1 had exceeded 1 million units since its launch. According to the sources, about 150,000 smartphones using the O1 have been sold since its introduction in May 2025. The O3 represents the latest attempt by Xiaomi to build a broader semiconductor capability that can support its growing ecosystem of consumer electronics and vehicles. Rising Component Costs Add Pressure The investment comes as smartphone manufacturers face a difficult global market, with higher memory and component costs threatening to push up retail prices and weaken consumer demand. Data from Visible Alpha by S&P Global showed that Xiaomi sold about 65 million smartphones during the first half of 2026, at an average selling price of 1,329 yuan ($197.74). That compared with 84 million units at an average price of 1,141 yuan during the first half of 2025 and 83 million units at 1,123 yuan during the same period of 2024. Global smartphone shipments are forecast to fall 14% in 2026, according to research firm International Data Corporation, adding pressure on manufacturers to differentiate their products while managing increasingly expensive components. For Xiaomi, proprietary chips could offer a way to exercise more control over costs, performance and product design as the company competes across increasingly diverse hardware categories. Xring Expansion Beyond Smartphones Xiaomi's semiconductor ambitions extend beyond smartphone processors. A third source said the company had also contracted TSMC to manufacture two additional Xring chips: the Xring O100 , a 6-nanometre neural-processing unit designed to support Xiaomi's MiMo large language model on consumer devices, and the Xring D100 , a 3-nanometre processor intended for autonomous-driving applications. Xiaomi has invested more than 20 billion yuan ($3 billion) in Xring chip development so far, the source said. Its semiconductor design workforce has also expanded to more than 3,000 employees, from about 2,500 a year earlier. According to Xiaomi, the Xring O3 has already entered mass production, while development of the O100 and D100 has been completed, with both expected to be deployed next year. The semiconductor push is part of a broader transformation at Xiaomi, which has expanded beyond smartphones into electric vehicles and other connected products. Its electric-vehicle business generated 23.9 billion yuan in revenue in the second quarter and delivered 104,199 vehicles, highlighting the growing range of products that could eventually benefit from the company's expanding in-house chip capabilities. As Xiaomi moves deeper into premium smartphones, artificial intelligence and electric vehicles, the development of its own processors could become increasingly important—not only as a technology strategy, but also as a means of securing critical components in an industry where supply-chain control has become a major competitive advantage.

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Saigon Technology, an AI-native software engineering partner with more than 14 years of experience, is addressing a growing challenge as businesses build production-ready software with AI: software can be created faster than it can be evolved. AI has changed the economics of software development. Teams can move from an idea to a working product in [...] The post Saigon Technology Tackles Velocity Debt in AI Software Development appeared first on AiThority .

Philips' 11th Future Health Index finds 88% of Indonesian clinicians report AI improved workflow efficiency, with 69% seeing increased patient capacity. Clinicians save a median of 88 hours annually, but 55% lack adequate training and 62% say monitoring processes aren't in place.

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