Emerge CEO says AI cuts freight bid cycles from months to two‑to‑three weeks
In a recent FreightWaves Today interview, Emerge CEO Mark McEntire said AI can shrink freight bid cycles from months to two‑to‑three weeks. He argued that procurement must move from an annual ‘set it and forget it’ event to a continuous process, with carrier capacity reliability now as important as price.
AI’s concrete near‑term impact is speed, compressing the data‑gathering phase of a bid event that can take two months down to a two‑to‑three‑week window by spotting patterns and anomalies humans miss. Emerge recently added LTL procurement through its ProcureOS platform, bringing truckload, LTL, intermodal, and rail sourcing under a single pane of glass so shippers can manage all modes together. The CEO highlighted a 16‑member customer advisory board from his earlier tenure that continues to feed shipper feedback into product decisions, alongside priorities of daily leader‑customer contact, growth via new logos and expanded wallet share, and organizational urgency. He said his first‑year priorities are getting leaders to talk to customers daily, growing through new logos and expanded wallet share, and instilling organizational urgency.
“AI in freight procurement could cut bid events from months to just 2-3 weeks,” Mark McEntire, CEO of Emerge said.
“I don’t think price alone is enough anymore. If you get a rate in a bid, but it doesn’t come with reliable capacity, it isn’t really a rate,” Mark McEntire, CEO of Emerge said.
Before this shift, shippers typically ran a single annual RFP, then moved to two per year, then quarterly events, and finally continuous mini‑bids as technology accelerated the trend. Emerge had previously added LTL procurement through ProcureOS to combine truckload, LTL, intermodal, and rail sourcing on one platform.
What we know
AI in freight procurement could cut bid events from months to just 2-3 weeks.
Emerge recently added LTL procurement capability through ProcureOS, bringing truckload, LTL, intermodal, and rail procurement under a single platform.
Emerge has installed a new CEO with more than three decades of experience on the shipper side of freight, signaling a strategic pivot toward closer customer alignment and product development rooted in operational reality.
The executive, who previously held a role at Emerge before returning, said he reintroduced himself to the organization roughly two weeks before the interview, describing himself as being on “day 15” with what he called “day one energy.”
He also pointed to a 16-member customer advisory board created during his previous tenure at Emerge as a key mechanism for distilling customer feedback into product decisions, noting that the strategic account management team he built then remains in place.