0:00
These are not the tokens you're going to
0:01
find online. Like you can't crawl Reddit
0:03
and find out about what happened on a
0:05
construction site. The Samsara system in
0:07
a given day were driving 99% of the US
0:09
roads usually multiple times a day. I
0:12
was just in the field last week with a
0:14
large energy utility. And uh they shared
0:16
with me a really interesting stat. They
0:17
said over the last 125 years we built a
0:20
certain amount of grid capacity. In the
0:21
next 5 years, we're going to triple
0:23
that. We're talking about millions and
0:25
millions of vehicles. We believe we
0:26
helped prevent about 380,000 car
0:29
crashes, road accidents in the last
0:31
>> Hi, I'm Matt Turk. Welcome to the Matt
0:32
podcast. My guest today is Sanjit
0:34
Biswas, co-founder and CEO of Sanssara,
0:38
the 20 billion company running what
0:39
might be the largest AI deployment in
0:42
the physical world. Millions of
0:43
vehicles, 25 trillion data points a
0:46
year, driving 99% of US roads every
0:48
single day. We talked about physical AI,
0:51
agents for truckers and frontline
0:53
workers, humanoids, autonomous trucks,
0:56
and why the AI boom is really an
0:58
infrastructure construction project. Oh,
1:00
and if you're enjoying this episode or
1:03
if you've liked others in the past,
1:04
please do us a favor and hit that
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and it really helps the podcast. Now,
1:16
All right, Sanjit. On this podcast,
1:18
we've talked a lot about AI models and
1:21
software agents, but we have spoken a
1:24
little less about physical AI. So, this
1:26
feels like the episode where we're going
1:27
to talk about how uh AI is confronting
1:30
the physical reality of transportation
1:33
and construction and plants and
1:34
utilities. So, maybe let's start with
1:36
physical AI. That's a term that uh we
1:39
hear about more and more often these
1:42
days, typically in the context of like
1:43
humanoids and robot taxes. from your
1:46
perspective, what is physical AI?
1:48
>> Yeah, absolutely. Well, first Matt,
1:50
thanks for having me on your show. Um, I
1:52
would say physical AI is really the
1:53
application of AI to the physical world.
1:55
So, if you think about the
1:56
infrastructure of our planet, it's way
1:58
more than just the roads where you might
1:59
see a Whimo robo taxi. Uh, it's the
2:01
construction sites, it's the electrical
2:03
grid, it's really kind of like all the
2:05
plumbing that's under the street. It's
2:06
it's it's everything out there. The
2:09
interesting challenge, I think, with
2:10
physical AI is that it's not digitized.
2:13
Uh, right? like this is the frontier
2:15
where you don't have decades of bits
2:17
that you can reason over and tokenize
2:19
and and quickly ingest and that makes it
2:21
really fascinating because the amount of
2:23
value is is kind of that's trapped is
2:25
really significant. Um so we think about
2:27
it in a few different ways. We think
2:29
about um you know digitizing things like
2:31
location from GPS tracking. Of course we
2:34
think about using cameras as sensors. So
2:36
you can use that to understand the
2:38
physical world in a pretty rich way
2:39
especially when you ingest lots and lots
2:41
of basically video footage. Uh if you
2:43
think about how many frames you get from
2:45
that it's really significant. And then
2:47
there's a lot of other uh kind of data
2:49
sources uh whether it's like weather
2:52
sources of like what happened with
2:53
precipitation on all the roads. um you
2:56
can think about speed limit data like
2:57
there's lots and lots of physical
2:59
aspects of the world that uh when you
3:01
put them together when you fuse them
3:03
together uh there's a huge value unlock
3:05
>> and um maybe walk us through how AI
3:09
changes that whole discussion so uh you
3:11
know there was industrial automation
3:13
obviously that's been going on for
3:14
decades and perhaps centuries then there
3:16
was a whole wave of IoT and famously
3:20
your ticker as a public company is IoT
3:23
and Navas AI I um how how different is
3:28
>> Yeah. Well, it's interesting you
3:30
mentioned centuries because that is like
3:31
the right time scale to think about
3:33
physical infrastructure, right? All the
3:34
way back to like the Roman era, like
3:36
there's pretty significant
3:37
infrastructure out there. So many of
3:39
these processes of like how do you
3:41
maintain a roadway have been in place
3:43
for a very very long time. A lot of that
3:45
process was manual, right? Like let's go
3:47
inspect the condition of the road. let's
3:49
understand when it was last worked on,
3:51
you know, let let's kind of dig it up
3:52
and see what we find. If you think about
3:55
the ability to digitize that and then
3:56
use sensor data, it's a huge unlock. So
3:58
the question becomes how do you get the
4:00
data? Then how do you process it? And
4:02
then how do you come up with a
4:03
meaningful insight or really an action
4:05
like what should we do about it? Uh and
4:07
that's that's I think now possible. The
4:09
last call it two decades was around
4:11
reporting like how do we ingest the data
4:13
and give you a really cool like table so
4:15
you can look at it and reason about it,
4:17
figure it out. Now what's awesome really
4:19
in the last two three years is the AIS
4:21
are able to reason about this kind of
4:23
information. They can look for other
4:25
context clues and then give you the
4:27
insight and now we're actually seeing a
4:29
Gentic AI of course which is it can take
4:31
an action for you can maybe schedule the
4:34
work to be done or or start performing
4:35
some of the work itself.
4:36
>> Why hasn't um Silicon Valley been all
4:39
over that problem space? I mean it feels
4:43
like we've been talking about chatbots
4:45
and then agent more in the kind of
4:46
digital and software realm. Uh I mean
4:49
obviously there's Tesla there's there's
4:52
you know humanoids being being built. Um
4:54
but is that is that did all of that need
4:57
to happen before this could be applied
4:59
to the physical world or is or is the
5:01
physical world just like a different set
5:02
of challenges altogether? You know, I
5:04
think it makes complete sense where all
5:06
of this AI wave has started, which is in
5:08
the digital word world. We had all the
5:10
bits. We had, you know, you know,
5:12
pabytes of data to reason over and
5:14
there's a great training set. So, you
5:16
think about all the trillions of tokens
5:17
that were needed to get these models
5:19
bootstrapped. The physical world is much
5:21
messier and there's also a hardware
5:23
component to it. And there's kind of
5:24
this saying of like hardware is hard,
5:26
right? Like this stuff has to like hold
5:27
up in the environment. It's got to relay
5:29
the data over like unreliable networks.
5:32
uh it has to be deployed to the front
5:34
lines and that requires a lot of sort of
5:37
messy work, right? Um physical hardware
5:39
installations, getting millions of
5:41
frontline workers to adopt new
5:42
technologies like integrate it into
5:44
their day-to-day work and it's basically
5:46
not as much lowhanging fruit as what
5:48
we've seen kind of in the digital world.
5:50
All that being said, it's a massive part
5:52
of the global economy, right? All these
5:54
industries, they make up about 40 50% of
5:56
world GDP. And so it's an area where you
5:59
can have tremendous impact, but you have
6:00
to really roll up your sleeves and get
6:02
much more involved than uh kind of
6:04
connecting to a large database that may
6:06
have already existed.
6:07
>> Is it fair to say that it's also a much
6:09
more unforgiving environment where
6:12
mistakes are potentially much much more
6:17
>> Absolutely. So of course you're dealing
6:19
with human life in a lot of physical
6:20
operations and that's an area for
6:22
tremendous impact. So if you can build
6:24
safety systems that keep workers safe,
6:26
that's a great thing. But you also have
6:28
to be careful that you don't somehow
6:29
introduce risk into the into the
6:31
picture. Um there are other sides of
6:33
that too which is like these are digital
6:35
technologies so we want to make sure
6:36
they're hardened from a cyber
6:38
perspective like they're not introducing
6:39
cyber security risk but really
6:41
practically um the physical world is a
6:44
pretty dangerous place. Think about a
6:45
construction job site, right? There's a
6:48
lot of like earthmoving equipment
6:50
multi-tonon, right? Like really
6:51
dangerous stuff. It's kind of low
6:53
visibility. Um and so you know the
6:55
operators that are are operating that
6:57
equipment are taking some risk. The
6:59
people on the site are taking a lot of
7:00
risk. So it's inherently a risky
7:03
environment and our question has been
7:05
can we find ways to make it less risky
7:07
using data. So we see that the risk as
7:10
the opportunity as opposed to the
7:12
>> All right. So you alluded to to some of
7:13
this but um for contextual awareness
7:16
early in this conversation uh maybe give
7:18
us a 60cond on on on what sensor does.
7:22
>> Yeah. So Samsara is a technology company
7:25
serving the world of physical
7:27
operations. So think about those
7:28
construction companies, the energy
7:30
utilities, the supply chain and
7:31
logistics companies that power the
7:33
planet. Uh we help digitize their
7:35
operation. So that's a combination of
7:37
hardware. So think uh GPS trackers, dash
7:40
cameras, asset trackers, all kinds of
7:42
different devices. Uh cloud services to
7:45
ingest all the data and then now AI and
7:48
applications to really close the loop,
7:50
right? to help people take some kind of
7:52
action or ideally automate the action
7:54
that's needed. Um what we found is it's
7:57
helpful to start with just tangible real
7:59
world problems and then expand over
8:01
time. So where we started was around
8:03
fleets of vehicles almost all of these
8:05
industries that have you know tens of
8:07
thousands of vehicles that they need to
8:09
perform their work but uh over time
8:11
we've expanded now into those frontline
8:13
operations and we're able to fuse all
8:15
this data together from different
8:16
sources on our platform third party
8:18
sources and and unlock tremendous
8:21
amounts of value for the customer.
8:22
>> Okay. And uh you just crossed two
8:24
billion in AR is that is that correct?
8:27
>> That's right. with uh you're a
8:29
profitable company growing at 30%. Is
8:32
that that's correct the right metrics?
8:34
Okay. Just a beautiful beautiful
8:36
company. Any other metrics you can share
8:38
about the the kind of the volume of uh
8:40
data points you're seeing or just to
8:42
give people a sense for the scale of the
8:46
>> Yeah. Um so on the data points side of
8:48
things, these are numbers that feel
8:50
abstract even to me and I live them
8:51
every day. But we're talking about 25
8:53
trillion data points. GPS, video,
8:56
thirdparty API integrations, all kinds
8:58
of data flowing into the system.
9:00
Millions and millions of vehicles, for
9:01
example. Uh we're talking about, you
9:03
know, millions of frontline workers that
9:05
are using our apps every day. Um and in
9:08
terms of impact, that's the other sort
9:10
of set of data points we look at, which
9:11
is like, well, how is all this
9:13
technology having impact in the world?
9:14
Uh we believe we helped prevent about
9:17
380,000 car crashes, uh you know, road
9:19
accidents in the last year. That's
9:21
meaningful to us because as engineers
9:23
and product builders, we are able to
9:25
have like significant impact in the
9:26
world this way. Uh we've helped uh avoid
9:29
the emission of billions of pounds of
9:31
CO2 by helping do things like optimize
9:33
routes and reducing you know engine
9:35
idling things that seem simple but uh
9:38
you technologically simple perhaps but
9:40
the execution matters a lot. What's cool
9:42
is you see that real world impact. Yeah,
9:44
that that's a crazy number. 380,000 and
9:47
that's because uh you're able to detect
9:50
uh whether uh a driver can get sleepy or
9:55
>> You got it. Yeah. So there's so many
9:56
different factors that produce risk. And
9:59
you know, we're very excited about
10:00
autonomy and robo taxis and everything
10:02
that we're seeing sort of on the
10:03
frontiers, but there are a lot of these
10:05
industries like um in heavy duty
10:07
trucking or construction, people work
10:09
very long shift. Um you know, maybe
10:11
they've been out in the field for 10 12
10:14
hours, it's been hot and so they're
10:15
exhausted. So you know, fatigue is
10:17
definitely one of them. U you also tend
10:19
to see more accidents in general at
10:21
night, right? Because the roads are less
10:23
visible. you see accidents in foggy
10:25
conditions after it snows or rains,
10:27
things like that. So, we're able to help
10:29
prevent a lot of risk by warning the
10:31
driver of when we see, you know, kind of
10:33
the risk increasing. We can provide some
10:35
real-time feedback and that helps them
10:38
be much more alert, much more aware. And
10:40
we can also coach away some of the bad
10:42
habits that people develop. Um, this is
10:44
an interesting stat, but in the US,
10:46
approximately 10% of people don't
10:48
regularly wear their seatelt. And that,
10:50
uh, varies by state, it varies by
10:51
industry, but that's like one of the
10:53
biggest things you can do to improve
10:55
your risk outcome is just simply put on
10:57
the seat belt. And it makes sense
10:59
because sometimes people are doing a
11:00
quick trip or that, you know, they're
11:02
distracted. But that little reminder
11:04
helps save lives, right? So that's one
11:06
simple one. Putting down your mobile
11:07
phone is the other one, right? When you
11:09
take a look at your mobile phone, like
11:11
lots of people have this habit. um your
11:13
your car if you're driving can move the
11:15
length of a football field and that is
11:18
hard to think because you're like I'm
11:19
just taking a quick look to see what
11:20
that message was about but then you look
11:22
up and you've moved 100 yards, right?
11:24
That's the kind of risk avoidance that
11:26
we can create with real-time alerting.
11:28
>> Okay, great. I'd love to spend a few
11:30
minutes on on your entrepreneurial story
11:32
uh leading to the creation of the
11:33
company which I believe was Stanford to
11:36
MIT to Merke uh Moroi.
11:40
>> Yeah. This is like walk us through like
11:41
how it all came about. You started the
11:44
first company as a student or right
11:47
>> That that's correct. Um actually during
11:49
our PhD. So my co-founder John and I we
11:51
met at MIT as PhD students uh over 20
11:53
years ago. I I now cap it because we're
11:55
just old. Uh but it was it was a fun
11:58
sort of research project that we worked
11:59
on which was um this was around the time
12:01
that Wi-Fi was emerging as a new
12:03
technology. We built a uh research
12:05
project called roofnet. We covered
12:07
essentially the city of Cambridge, the
12:09
area between MIT and Harvard with free
12:11
Wi-Fi in the early 2000s. So that was
12:13
really exciting. It's like a hands-on
12:15
kind of very practical research project.
12:17
We did a bunch of academic research on
12:19
routing protocols and you know how to
12:20
build the network. Um but the first
12:22
company Moroi came out of that project
12:25
which was we thought it was tremendously
12:27
cool this idea that Wi-Fi could connect
12:29
so many people just incredibly useful.
12:31
We wanted to help other people build big
12:33
networks. And so we essentially took
12:36
that research um and and now I would use
12:38
the word distill like we condensed it
12:40
down to uh you know run in a box that
12:43
other people could build networks out of
12:44
and then we started essentially making
12:46
that product available. So that was
12:48
Moroi. Um to be honest we kind of
12:50
thought of it as a project like we
12:52
weren't even thinking of it as a
12:53
company. Uh we kind of bootstrapped the
12:56
business in Boston. We ended up moving
12:57
to California. Um and it was fascinating
13:01
because this is 2006 like 20 years ago.
13:03
Wi-Fi was a brand new kind of naent
13:05
technology and there were some real
13:08
challenges, right? How do you do guest
13:09
access? How do you do networks at scale?
13:12
How do you deal with people starting to
13:13
use YouTube which was brand new back
13:15
then? Like hard to imagine, right? Um
13:17
but that kind of exposed us to how fun
13:19
it was to solve real problems. And um we
13:22
had a huge, you know, kind of deep
13:24
background in networking. We had a lot
13:26
of friends from grad school that we
13:27
recruited to start that company. And so
13:29
we got off the ground quickly. we
13:30
started seeing these devices get out in
13:32
the world and Moroi ended up kind of
13:34
just growing and growing and growing. It
13:36
was doubling in revenue every year. Um
13:38
so that was the beginning of our
13:39
entrepreneurial journey. It was a little
13:40
bit of an accidental start.
13:42
>> And when you started Samsara, you know,
13:43
as opposed to to what you did in Moro,
13:45
that was a brand new area where u as far
13:49
as could tell from what I read like you
13:51
guys didn't have a prior background in
13:53
that. So like how does one become an
13:55
expert as an entrepreneur in a domain
13:58
that they don't have a background in?
14:00
>> Yeah, you're you're very right. We had
14:01
never spent time like in a loading dock
14:03
or warehouse or like in a construction
14:05
yard. Um but we were always fascinated
14:07
by them and I think that was really the
14:09
key is uh this is just like nerdy
14:10
curiosity of like well how does
14:12
electrical grid really work? Right? I
14:14
have an electrical engineering
14:15
background. I was just always kind of
14:16
like fascinated by this. um or like
14:19
supply chain if you're just curious
14:21
about like well that Amazon package like
14:23
how how far did it travel like you know
14:25
where where were the goods stored like
14:26
all of those kinds of questions were
14:28
fascinating to us and um similar to Maro
14:32
we weren't intending to start this
14:33
company right out of Cisco like we had
14:35
been kind of on this pretty intense run
14:38
uh but the curiosity kind of got the
14:39
better of us and we started reading lots
14:41
of books about this and you know like
14:44
just trying to learn about the world um
14:46
the challenge with physical operation
14:48
though is you can't learn about it in a
14:50
book like you actually need to go on
14:51
site and to do that you need a reason
14:54
you need an excuse essentially and so we
14:56
said well maybe we can be helpful to
14:58
these industries right because um like I
15:01
was saying earlier it's the
15:02
infrastructure of our plan so massive
15:04
there have to be interesting problems to
15:06
solve there so we kind of started this
15:08
company market first very steep learning
15:10
curve and I have to say as a second time
15:12
through entrepreneur I'm really glad we
15:15
had that experience because had we gone
15:17
back and it we probably would have
15:19
overweighted our prior experience and
15:21
said, "Hey, this is how it's done or
15:23
this is how we did it at Moroi." Uh,
15:25
with Samsara, it's a different customer.
15:27
We serve the world of operations much
15:29
more than the kind of technical buyer.
15:31
Um, we sell direct, so we interact
15:34
directly with our customers versus via
15:35
channel. And that reset was enough for
15:38
us to kind of go back to beginner's
15:40
mind, which I think is also very
15:41
important for most companies.
15:43
>> Okay. All right. Thank you for all of
15:45
uh let's deep dive uh into the product
15:50
itself. So uh based on what we've said
15:53
so far um you have a hardware layer
15:57
which is the sensors. So uh just to use
16:00
an analogy and and and stop me if that
16:03
doesn't seem right but that would be the
16:04
the sensors so the ears and the eyes.
16:07
>> Then you have a software layer
16:10
>> I guess now with AI which would be the
16:14
>> And you just added recently and we're
16:17
going to talk a bunch about that you
16:19
added an energetic layer which would be
16:22
uh the the arms for the action. Is that
16:24
is that directionally uh how you think
16:27
>> Yeah. And I would say um you know every
16:30
single one of those layers has some
16:32
connective tissue attached to it. So if
16:34
you think about the hardware, I've got
16:35
hardware on my desk of course and so
16:37
this would be an example of one of our
16:39
>> So what is this? What is this?
16:40
>> Uh this is what we call an asset tag.
16:42
So, you could put this on a piece of
16:44
construction equipment, right? Um, it's
16:46
got an accelerometer in there, so it can
16:48
tell, you know, how much it's been
16:49
moving. It's got a Bluetooth radio
16:51
that's a little bit more powerful than
16:53
what you've probably used on the
16:54
consumer side. So, you know, your
16:56
AirPods have Bluetooth. This is a
16:57
industrial-grade Bluetooth. Um, it's got
16:59
a battery inside and then it's built to
17:01
be super tough. So, you can like beat
17:03
this thing up. You can drive over it
17:04
with the truck and u, you know, it'll
17:06
it'll continue to operate that layer. It
17:09
has hardware, but also has firmware
17:11
that's running it on it on it. It's got
17:13
network connectivity. I mentioned
17:15
Bluetooth. So, this connects to the
17:16
millions of Samsara gateways, tens of
17:19
millions of phones and handsets that can
17:21
act as kind of a relay point for us. And
17:23
then we we're able to get that to the
17:25
cloud in a secure way. So, that's the
17:26
data capture side, right? Going from
17:29
motion like the accelerometer into the
17:31
Bluetooth layer into the cloud. Um, but
17:34
from there, you need to organize it
17:36
because like you got signals coming from
17:38
all over. uh you need to be able to like
17:40
operate on it in a pretty methodical way
17:43
and that's what's going to feed the AI
17:44
because if you give the AI pretty noisy
17:46
data you'll get you know it's like less
17:48
signal noise ratio so we need to get get
17:50
clean data in um and then to use your
17:52
analogy that's the brain right like
17:54
that's where we we store it we operate
17:56
on it um you can surface those insights
17:59
to the end user or the agentic piece is
18:02
you can just take an action right um
18:04
maybe change a safety setting right like
18:06
say hey we're gonna ask our entire fleet
18:08
in uh New York because it's raining to
18:11
increase the following distance versus
18:13
on a bright sunny day, right? Um that
18:16
kind of change would have normally
18:18
required a human in the loop. We're now
18:20
finding that the AI can do it very
18:22
consistently and uh can do it at scale
18:25
that people wouldn't be able to get to
18:26
because you'd need someone just sitting
18:28
there monitoring all the settings for
18:29
thousands of vehicles. Not very
18:31
practical. So, it just doesn't get done.
18:32
And that's the maybe the arms the kind
18:34
of action side of things.
18:36
>> Okay, great. All right. So that's the
18:37
overall architecture. Um, so going back
18:40
to that hardware layer. So you showed us
18:43
an asset tracker. Uh, you said it
18:45
connects via Bluetooth. That's
18:49
Bluetooth. Uh, it's been a while since I
18:51
looked at at at all the things, but like
18:53
it's not like Laura one and that that
18:55
kind of uh frameworks and
18:58
>> Yes, this is it's Bluetooth low energy.
19:01
uh if you're familiar with the BLE that
19:03
you you know would see on your uh
19:05
fitness device or your AirPods, that
19:07
kind of thing. So, uh Bluetooth has come
19:09
a long way over the years, it's it's
19:11
kind of gotten added on to and it's it's
19:13
picked up a lot of the great
19:15
characteristics that many of these other
19:16
standards had. So, we can get a lot of
19:18
range out of these trackers. And then we
19:20
add a layer on top of that of security.
19:22
How do we make sure that uh we preserve
19:24
the privacy and the security of the the
19:26
the tag that it's being applied to?
19:28
>> And it's powered by battery. You said
19:30
like how much autonomy would a tracker
19:32
have? Like how long does it last?
19:34
>> Uh this specific one would last about uh
19:37
3 years. We have others that last 6 plus
19:40
years. Uh we even have a really small
19:42
form factor one. I've got these on my
19:44
desk as well. And I don't know if you
19:45
can see them, but this is like a
19:46
tracking label. So we're talking about a
19:49
>> That's the one you just launched in
19:50
Vegas a few weeks ago. Okay.
19:52
>> Exactly. So these last about uh 45 days
19:55
or so. Um so long enough for shipments
19:57
to kind of go one way. And then these
19:59
are disposable. So, um, they don't have
20:01
lithium-ion batteries in them, for
20:02
example. So, you can just, uh, peel
20:04
them, stick them, track them, and then
20:07
>> But, show them again on camera if if you
20:11
>> So, this So, this is literally a
20:13
sticker. So, what's what's in it?
20:16
>> What's in it? Um, it's hard to make out
20:18
on camera, but there's basically some
20:20
batteries and then, of course, the
20:22
Bluetooth chip, right, as running our
20:24
firmware. Um and that is how it it
20:26
beakens up essentially its signal of
20:29
>> How are you able to get such a flat and
20:32
small um like form factor? Is that is
20:34
that where the innovation is like just
20:36
miniaturization or like what what's the
20:38
>> I would say for us it's systems
20:40
innovation. We did not build the
20:42
battery. We don't make the silicon or
20:43
the chip but we work with partners to
20:46
integrate all this together. And then we
20:48
have the network which is essentially
20:50
think about um you know the millions of
20:52
vehicles on the road all the people
20:54
running the Samsara stack they form a
20:56
community and relay signals for each
20:58
other. Um and you've actually probably
21:00
seen this in the consumer side with the
21:02
Apple Air Tag kind of that concept of an
21:04
ecosystem. We apply basically the
21:06
industrial strength version of that.
21:08
>> Okay. Very cool stuff. So what else do
21:10
you have at the hardware layer? Uh I
21:12
read some more vehicle gateways.
21:14
What what what does this what do those
21:16
>> Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't have all
21:18
the hardware that we make on my desk,
21:19
but the vehicle gateway, think of it as
21:21
a black box that goes on a truck or a
21:23
piece of construction equipment or
21:24
basically any kind of moving asset. Um,
21:27
that is a a different type of collector,
21:29
right? So, it collects diagnostic
21:31
information from the engine computers
21:34
and that's everything from uh you know,
21:36
how much fuel is it consuming to does it
21:38
have fault codes to uh was the driver's
21:41
foot on the accelerator or the brake.
21:43
That's all there on the diagnostic port.
21:45
So we're able to ingest that
21:47
>> It's like a long time series of some
21:49
>> Yes. Uh well it's we have to collect it
21:51
and organize it but it forms a long time
21:53
series of many many different signals.
21:55
And even something that sounds as simple
21:57
as a fault code really there's a lot of
21:59
depth and richness to that too because
22:01
if you read the fault codes very
22:03
carefully you can understand very
22:05
specific dynamics about different kinds
22:07
of engines and fuel types and you know
22:10
air pressures and so on. So we we take
22:12
all of that in. Um we have
22:16
>> uh and then you have uh AI dash cams.
22:20
>> That's right. So I think you're familiar
22:22
with dash cams. You've seen them in
22:23
Ubers, right? Like um and super
22:25
valuable, useful for drivers because if
22:27
something happens on the road, you can
22:29
exonerate yourself very quickly. Um so
22:31
we have a connected version of that. So
22:33
it records HD video, it has some
22:34
storage, it's got the ability to send
22:36
that to the cloud. Um and we run AI
22:38
models at the edge. So we can do things
22:41
like um provide you feedback to increase
22:43
your following distance like I said
22:44
based on the weather condition. Um now
22:47
we're also seeing the driver side of
22:49
that camera. So it's like you know
22:50
outward and inward facing. The driver
22:53
side of the camera can do things like
22:54
detect fatigue or mobile phone usage
22:56
provide real-time feedback to the
22:58
driver. And the idea is they can
23:00
self-correct uh self coach and that is
23:03
like the aha is it breaks the the cycle
23:05
or the bad feedback loop of I'm going to
23:07
look at my phone. If you get a sort of
23:09
like audio alert in the moment and it
23:12
happens many many times you tend to
23:14
break the habit because it's sort of
23:15
negative reinforcement. Um that was a
23:18
huge breakthrough for us um six seven
23:20
years ago uh as we introduced AI at the
23:22
edge and now we're kind of going further
23:24
with that concept finding other forms of
23:28
>> right because it used to be a safety
23:29
device and now it's an interface uh that
23:33
the driver can can communicate with the
23:36
>> Exactly. Because now that you've got the
23:37
technology in the cab, what else could
23:39
you do with it? Could you give the
23:41
driver uh driver a briefing in the
23:43
morning as they start their shift about
23:44
where all they're going to go and
23:46
traffic conditions and weather? Um, we
23:48
have a little button. They can use that
23:50
to uh, you know, call dispatch, for
23:52
example, and say, "Hey, I'm going to be
23:53
late because I need to uh go pick up
23:56
some tools or something like that." So,
23:57
the that connectivity layer just got
23:59
enhanced with the presence of all this
24:02
>> and all of this. And I know you have
24:03
other sensors for like temperature and
24:05
that kind of stuff. uh all of this is is
24:07
built by you. So you mentioned not all
24:09
the components but like all of this is
24:14
the system and it's designed as an open
24:16
system by the way because a lot of these
24:18
newer assets they have uh APIs
24:21
effectively right so a lot of newer
24:22
trucks for example we can do a
24:24
cloud-tocloud connection so you don't
24:25
necessarily need the black box but you
24:27
want the data and you want it like
24:29
organized and and seamless with all of
24:31
your other assets uh because typically
24:33
in operations you'll have Ford trucks
24:36
and GM trucks and Caterpillar and
24:37
Freightlininer and all kinds of other
24:38
equipment coming together. Um, so we act
24:41
as that orchestration layer. Uh, so the
24:43
hardware is very much part of the story,
24:45
but we also have software in interfaces
24:48
coming into the system.
24:49
>> All right. So you got all of this and
24:51
then uh you move it to the cloud and
24:54
then uh what do you have there? Like you
24:56
have a gigantic data warehouse and like
25:00
ETL kind of data transformation. Uh is
25:05
>> Um that's right. From an ingestion
25:06
perspective, I think you got it. Um, so
25:09
just massive amounts of data storage.
25:11
Uh, this is all kind of sitting in
25:12
modern hyperscaler cloud. So it's not
25:14
that we have like one big warehouse/data
25:16
center, but um, you know, pretty large
25:19
system. Um, so we ingest the data, we're
25:22
storing it and organizing it, and then
25:24
we like basically have a bunch of
25:26
processes that are that are um
25:28
automating like sort of automatically
25:30
working on top of that data as well. And
25:32
then you have the UIUX collaboration
25:35
interface where you're a customer
25:37
whether you're a dispatcher or a truck
25:39
driver or uh the business owner like
25:41
everybody has access.
25:43
>> That's right. And and there many
25:44
different personas. So you named a few
25:46
of the the key ones. Um the drivers in
25:48
the front line are are very much like
25:50
just regular users of the system. Um you
25:52
do have the dispatchers. You'll have
25:54
other people who'd be like safety
25:55
managers or uh in certain cases if they
25:58
have to do paperwork like uh essentially
26:00
compliance managers and but you also
26:02
have people that do maintenance for
26:04
example and so they want to know what is
26:06
the health of all these assets in the
26:07
field which truck will I need to
26:09
maintain at the end of the day when it
26:10
comes back to the yard. Um and then you
26:13
do have the executives and all these
26:14
other business uh minded people who want
26:16
to know well did we show up on time
26:18
right like what is the efficiency of our
26:20
fleet and how do we do this at scale
26:22
many of our customers actually most of
26:24
our customers are large enterprises so
26:26
think operations have thousands tens of
26:28
thousands of people and tens of
26:30
thousands of assets and so on
26:32
>> as a thought uh so selling to a bunch of
26:34
different personas especially in like
26:35
more traditional industries uh
26:37
especially as you've added this AI layer
26:40
recently how do you go about it like how
26:42
do you convince people in you know
26:45
typically non technology industry to to
26:48
>> Well, you know, I think the the great
26:50
part about this technology is very
26:51
tangible and um it's the kind of thing
26:54
that when you see it, you get it very
26:55
quickly. So, what we do is we tend to go
26:57
on site, we will demo the technology and
26:59
do trials. So, you can easily these are
27:01
plug-and-play so you can easily try it
27:03
out in your environment, in your
27:04
industry. And um like I said, there's so
27:07
many challenges in physical operations.
27:09
It tends to never just be one thing. So
27:11
yes, we want to reduce the number of
27:12
accidents we get into, but I think we're
27:15
also like leaving our trucks idling a
27:16
lot because it's just a bad habit or
27:18
we're leaving tools behind at the job
27:20
site and we'd like to get those back cuz
27:22
we spend millions of dollars replacing
27:23
them. So we will often find multiple
27:26
challenges like that. Then we
27:27
demonstrate to them at small scale like
27:29
maybe a team or you know a region or or
27:31
something like that that this works and
27:33
when they see it they get it
27:34
immediately. These are people who are
27:36
experts in their industry. So they would
27:38
say, "I immediately see the value or the
27:40
ROI." Uh, but they have to see it in
27:42
that kind of tangible way. They're not
27:43
just buying it because it's AI or big
27:46
data or something like that. They're
27:47
like, "No, if this solves problems for
27:49
us in our construction business, great.
27:52
>> And when you think about the long-term
27:53
defensibility of the the business, uh,
27:56
especially in a world where models may
27:59
or may not commoditize, I think most
28:02
people would say they are commoditizing.
28:04
>> Is it the data layer that you that you
28:07
feel protects sensara or how do you
28:12
>> Yeah, there are a few things. Um, we see
28:14
whether it commoditizes or not, these
28:16
models are incredible, right? And uh the
28:18
amount of value they can unlock with
28:20
their ability to ingest the data and
28:21
reason is is awesome. Um, so we're very
28:24
excited about what we're seeing on that
28:26
front. Um, the operational data that I
28:28
was talking about, the physical world
28:30
kind of digitization side of thing is
28:32
where we come in, right? These are not
28:34
the tokens you're going to find online.
28:35
Like you can't crawl Reddit and find out
28:37
about what happened on a construction
28:38
site, right? Nor can you do, you know,
28:41
test time reasoning about it. You can't
28:43
just you you can simulate all kinds of
28:45
environments, but really what our
28:46
customers need to know is like what was
28:48
going on in that specific environment at
28:50
that time, right? Um that requires this
28:54
interplay of hardware and software, but
28:55
also the change management. How do you
28:57
get this out into the field and that
28:59
partnership? So that's a unique area for
29:02
us that we focus on. Um this is what
29:04
we've been doing for the last decade
29:05
plus and it takes a lot of work. I have
29:07
to I have to emphasize that too is like
29:09
we get out in the field with our
29:11
customers, understand their business and
29:13
work backwards. So it's not something
29:15
that can purely be like just you know uh
29:18
one click uh deployed. It really
29:20
requires a kind of a nuanced approach.
29:22
>> Do you have a concept of a data network
29:25
effect or data flywheel across
29:28
customers? So does something that you
29:31
learn in the context of a dash cam with
29:33
uh customer X in geography Y also apply
29:37
to customer Z in a different geography
29:39
like in terms of learnings. uh very
29:42
much. So, you know, on the dash cam side
29:44
of things, the key insight there is, um,
29:46
while these may be all different
29:47
companies, we're all driving on the same
29:49
roads, right? Um, the Samsara system,
29:52
uh, in a given day, we're driving 99% of
29:55
the US roads, usually multiple times a
29:57
day. So, you can use that of course on
29:59
the risk side. So, we can understand
30:01
where are the risky intersections or
30:03
where weather conditions bad and and how
30:05
do we warn other drivers. So, there's a
30:06
network effect there. Um, but there are
30:09
other sort of uh side effects, right? Um
30:11
because we drive all the roads and we
30:13
have cameras, we can tell you where all
30:14
the potholes are, right? And that is
30:16
super useful for the city. So like this,
30:19
you know, city of Chicago for example,
30:21
they want to know which potholes are,
30:23
you know, happen after the winter
30:25
weather season. What order should we go
30:26
after the men in terms of severity? You
30:29
can use the camera data for that, the
30:31
accelerometer data from the GPS tracker
30:33
that I mentioned. So every time you see
30:35
that big bump in the road, um you look
30:37
at the video. And the cool part about
30:39
that is not only do you know where the
30:41
pothole is, but we can see what's
30:42
happening to it over time. Is it getting
30:44
bigger? Is it, you know, cracking? All
30:46
that kind of stuff. So that is another
30:48
sort of data network effect that we get.
30:50
And then maybe the third, since we
30:52
talked about asset trackers early, you
30:54
have these millions of vehicles driving
30:55
around. A Bluetooth tracker on its own
30:58
probably doesn't get picked up, right?
31:00
Because think about a construction site.
31:02
It could be acres and acres of land. But
31:05
if you have, you know, one company
31:07
delivering building materials, another
31:08
company performing construction, the
31:10
electrical contractor, one of those guys
31:13
may pick it up and that is another
31:14
network effect that you get with
31:16
millions of these vehicles and then tens
31:17
of millions of handsets like the mobile
31:19
devices. Uh it's a incredible kind of
31:22
mesh network that forms.
31:23
>> All right. So going back to the the
31:25
product and and the eye stuff. So you
31:27
mentioned uh edge and cloud. Where do
31:30
you guys do what in what proportion? We
31:34
could spend an hour just talking about
31:35
where where what is going on. Um if I
31:38
had to generalize, I would say at the
31:39
edge we're typically running inference
31:41
and data collection. So the data
31:43
collection of course gets us the
31:44
training data. The inference is
31:45
essentially running models where we have
31:47
the weights and we send them down from
31:49
the cloud and they're running at many
31:50
frames per second at the edge. And this
31:53
is how we do the the kind of real-time
31:55
or the low latency detections and closed
31:57
loop alerting to the driver. Um the
32:00
reason we do it at the edge is is
32:02
practical, right? So sometimes you don't
32:04
have a great sell signal. Uh many of our
32:06
customers are operating in the middle of
32:07
nowhere. Um and then also the latency
32:10
matters. If you can get uh feedback to
32:12
the driver, you know, really very soon
32:15
after something happened, it's much more
32:17
likely they'll they'll change that
32:19
behavior. So uh again very kind of
32:21
practical architecture for us. It's
32:23
worked really well um in terms of how
32:25
robust it is and how it holds up. Um but
32:27
that being said, it's not fixed. So if
32:29
that means we need to do some inference
32:31
in the cloud, we are set up to do that.
32:33
We have real-time tunnels that that
32:34
connect these devices.
32:35
>> Presumably what you run at the edge
32:38
would be smaller models. Are those um
32:43
traditional quote unquote uh
32:46
convolutional neural networks that are
32:49
trained for images like a very specific
32:51
tasks versus um you know other forms of
32:55
like more modern generative AI. There
32:58
are lots of different model types. So,
33:00
uh, convolutional neural networks are
33:02
very much where we started. That's
33:03
basically from the imageet era of like,
33:06
okay, can we detect a mobile phone,
33:08
right? Um, from there these models have
33:10
become more sophisticated. So, we run
33:12
basically a model backbone with many
33:14
different classifiers and and heads or
33:17
attention heads. So, um, basically once
33:19
we see a device in somebody's hand, what
33:21
is it? Is it a phone? Is it a vape pen?
33:23
Is it a sandwich? um you know what is
33:26
the activity that's going on with it.
33:27
That's not a single shot detection. It
33:29
it tends to be a little more nuanced
33:30
than that. Same thing when we look
33:32
outward. Uh we have cameras that point
33:35
out at the road. We have some cameras
33:36
that point at the sides or or to the
33:39
back and we're trying to do things like
33:41
uh estimate depth, right? So, am I
33:43
likely to run into a lamp post or a
33:47
mailbox or something like that? That's a
33:49
different kind of model than like a what
33:51
a CNN would be able to do. And then what
33:53
has um uh generative AI fundamentally
33:56
changed for for you guys? Um is that
34:00
video reasoning? What what what do you
34:04
>> We use generative in a few different
34:06
ways. I would say if we think about the
34:08
overall class of models, yes, you can
34:10
now reason about video. So uh what would
34:12
have required a human in the loop
34:14
reviewer um or you know and that's the
34:17
kind of work that might have been done
34:18
overseas in lowerc cost geos or
34:20
something like that you can now do at
34:22
much more volume um in the cloud using
34:24
these models. So uh for example if
34:27
someone slams on the brakes right while
34:28
they're driving their truck um the the
34:31
naive thing to assume is like hey the
34:33
driver was distracted and they they kind
34:35
of woke up. The more nuanced thing is
34:37
that driver might have been avoiding a
34:39
deer or a dog or, you know, some kind of
34:41
uh defensive event. If you can watch
34:43
that as a video clip, you can now say,
34:46
"Hey, we're actually going to give the
34:47
driver some positive feedback because
34:48
they did a really good thing." The VLMs
34:50
are able to effectively do what I just
34:52
said, right? Um, similarly, like if you
34:56
want to understand, did someone run a a
34:58
red light, right? These things happen.
35:01
you need to have a pretty sophisticated
35:03
model that understands the geometry of
35:05
the road and all the conditions and and
35:07
so on. So that would be like a a JEPA
35:09
style model for example. So we're able
35:11
to use a few different model families.
35:13
On the generative side of like actually
35:15
being able to create video that's also
35:17
very interesting because from a coaching
35:19
perspective most of our customers are
35:21
bottlenecked on the number of humanto
35:23
human interactions they can have. Like
35:25
for me to sit down with you Matt and say
35:27
hey we need to talk about your driving
35:28
from last week. We could probably do
35:30
that for a small fraction, but I can't
35:32
do that for every driver. It's not
35:34
practical. Um, you may have seen like,
35:36
you know, AI generated avatars like AI
35:38
generated people. We can generate a
35:41
coach and that can resemble the VP of
35:43
safety from the company or, you know, a
35:45
celebrity or who knows, you know,
35:47
whatever the customer wants, but that
35:49
can be a very effective way to deliver
35:51
end of week coaching. So, that's a form
35:53
of generative video that frankly we
35:56
couldn't have even dreamed of five years
35:57
ago. Do you build some of your own
36:00
models or do you take stuff off the
36:02
shelf and customize it? Are you an open
36:04
source shop? Are you in OpenAI anthropic
36:06
shop, Gemini shop? Um what what do you
36:10
>> We are universally accepting of models
36:12
in the sense of there's so much
36:13
innovation happening. Um so yes, the
36:15
frontier labs are doing great work,
36:17
right? The and we'll use multiple models
36:19
from different labs uh simultaneously.
36:22
Um the open source models are are pretty
36:24
compelling. I think it's having its
36:25
moment now. But we've been seeing u and
36:28
this is really I think from the academic
36:29
communities open source and really open
36:31
weights models really give you a lot of
36:34
operational freedom. So we can do things
36:35
like distill them uh for example to
36:38
shrink them down to fit on a device. Um
36:40
so we use models like that and then
36:42
there's others that we train from
36:44
scratch. Those might be smaller models
36:46
call it tens of millions of parameters
36:47
but very specific to something we need
36:50
>> All right let's talk about agents. So
36:52
that's the that was the big launch that
36:55
you guys had at the um your Beyond 2026
36:59
conference in Las Vegas just at the end
37:02
of June. So less than a month ago now.
37:05
Uh and you launched agent studio. So
37:08
maybe walk us through this and I think
37:10
in the past you describe a progression
37:11
from uh connecting operations to
37:14
understanding them to taking action. So
37:16
how does that all fit together?
37:18
>> Yeah. Well, a few years ago, we did
37:20
introduce LLMs into our product. We
37:22
called it the Samsar Assistant. So,
37:24
think of it as like a chatbot tied to
37:25
your operational data. Um, it became
37:27
very popular. We saw customers asking
37:30
all kinds of, you know, practical
37:31
questions like who are my safest drivers
37:33
or which trucks need maintenance, things
37:35
like that. Um, those tended to be, you
37:37
know, single turn or maybe like a few
37:39
turn interactions like you just go back
37:41
and forth with the the chatbot window on
37:42
the side. The breakthrough that of
37:45
course happened last year is these
37:46
agents can operate over much longer time
37:48
horizons. So instead of an AI responding
37:50
to a question in a second, it can like
37:52
go do some work on its own, develop a
37:54
plan and go after it. We've seen the
37:57
impact of that in the coding world, but
37:58
there's also a lot of implication for
38:00
the operational world, right? So um the
38:02
one of the demos I did on stage is we
38:04
have a warranty agent. when it sees a
38:06
fault code, it can basically crack the
38:08
service manual, look at your uh specific
38:12
like OEM negotiated warranty agreements
38:14
and then correlate the two and say,
38:16
"Yes, this specific issue given the age
38:19
or you know the number of miles that
38:20
have been driven on this vehicle is
38:22
actually covered under warranty." Then
38:24
it can open a work order, put in the
38:25
steps and also tell you, hey, do any of
38:28
the other trucks have that issue? That
38:30
is a, you know, like what would have
38:32
been like an hour or two of human labor
38:34
that we've been able to automate down to
38:35
like under a minute. That is the huge
38:38
kind of breakthrough unlock. And I I
38:40
just went very deep on warranties. But
38:42
you can see how that would apply to
38:44
reporting, how it would apply to, you
38:46
know, briefing a driver at the beginning
38:47
of the day. You can use in all kinds of
38:50
>> It sounds like u for all perhaps the
38:53
obvious reasons you're starting with um
38:56
non-risky kind of use cases. Is that is
38:59
that how you guys think about it? Like
39:01
something where if you make the wrong
39:02
warranty claim, you know, it's not
39:06
>> you know, nobody dies.
39:08
>> Yeah. Um I I think of it as we're just
39:10
starting with the most practical areas
39:11
we can have impact. The the reality, by
39:13
the way, is most of those warranty
39:15
claims just are unfulfilled, right?
39:17
Nobody has the time to go do all that
39:19
work that I just mentioned and and do
39:20
the paperwork. So that's an area of of
39:23
tremendous interest for our customers is
39:25
you know hey I have all this extra work
39:27
that I know would be useful but I'm not
39:29
able to get to so how do I do that? Um
39:32
and then you know over time I think the
39:34
idea will be how do we really like
39:38
run parts of the operation for the
39:39
customer if that's like replanning the
39:41
route for example before uh every
39:44
morning shift we now have the technology
39:46
to do that and again it's not super
39:48
risky but it requires a lot of business
39:51
judgment of you know that route actually
39:53
is run by this person because they have
39:55
a relationship they've been you know
39:57
seeing that customer for 10 years you
40:00
need to have all that context So in that
40:02
sense we are starting with things where
40:04
we know we can have an impact and then
40:05
we're working with customers to figure
40:06
out what else could we do.
40:10
>> You use the word um autonomously. I'm
40:13
I'm I'm always uh fascinated for people
40:16
that that build real agents that work in
40:19
the real world just like you guys do.
40:21
What would you say is the proportion of
40:24
um sort of a gentic reasoning versus
40:26
having some good old you know code
40:29
enough code workflow and rules that's
40:32
built into it for for ultimate success
40:34
like you know ultimately who cares you
40:37
know what what does what as long as it
40:39
works but like what is the recipe to
40:41
make it work is that is a combination or
40:43
are we at a stage where just agent
40:45
reasoning can do so much so that you
40:47
don't need that much like rules built
40:49
into the overall solution
40:50
>> I I think agent reasoning was a huge
40:52
unlock like I said this ability to build
40:54
plans and work over long time horizons
40:56
but you do need to outline what is it
40:59
that I want the agent to do right and
41:00
that is in in some lightweight sense
41:03
like the workflow it's also the
41:05
guardrails like at at what point do you
41:07
say hey agent you should you know ask me
41:09
for some help or agent I don't want you
41:12
to go down that rabbit hole right like
41:13
we we have to kind of keep it on track
41:16
so it's some combination of operational
41:18
context which comes through workflow and
41:21
with also this now kind of new agentic
41:24
reasoning ability. I don't think either
41:27
really works well in sort of isolation
41:29
and the workflow side of things. By the
41:31
way, we had elements of that in our
41:32
product. Um I'll give you a very simple
41:35
example in u in most commercial
41:38
industries there's a walkound inspection
41:40
that you do at the beginning of your
41:41
shift and end of your shift. We see
41:44
about 300 350 million of those a year.
41:47
that has historically just been a
41:49
workflow on a mobile device, right? Like
41:51
you're kind of going step by step,
41:52
taking some pictures, saying something's
41:54
safe. If you combine that with the
41:56
diagnostic information, the location
41:58
information, who last did the check,
42:01
like you know, what was in the picture,
42:02
that is is a huge unlock. So that's kind
42:05
of what we mean by combining these two
42:07
>> What do you think agents are not able to
42:11
>> Oh boy, that that ceiling question, it
42:14
changes like, you know, I feel like
42:15
every week. Um, and you there's there's
42:20
some nuance to this. So, for example,
42:21
these new models like the kind of Fable
42:23
5 class and and GPD soul, it's hard to
42:27
figure out where the practical ceiling
42:29
is, but sometimes you do see them go and
42:31
get um distracted or like lost in a loop
42:34
somewhere, right? So, I think there is
42:36
some aspect of like they may find the
42:38
answer eventually, but can they find the
42:40
answer in um 10 seconds or 1 minute or
42:44
even 1 hour, right? So that's one area
42:46
where I think there is still a practical
42:48
ceiling and my guess is as these models
42:50
become more and more powerful more
42:51
sophisticated that will shrink and then
42:54
these algorithms are getting more
42:55
efficient. So maybe the compute combined
42:57
with the algorithm combined with just
42:59
like smarter model architectures will
43:02
make what would have been like a one-day
43:03
task a 1-hour task or you know even
43:06
faster than that. And if you suspend
43:08
disbelief a little bit, what do you
43:10
think you would be able to do
43:13
uh in like a year or two? You know, not
43:15
10 because obviously who knows. Um but
43:18
uh given the progress, so right now
43:20
you're able to do um uh you give the
43:23
example of warranty, you give the
43:25
example of uh sort of pre-planning a day
43:28
>> uh for for a driver. What what else do
43:31
you think you can do in the next year? I
43:34
I think a lot of our ability to predict
43:37
what happens next year or two is by
43:38
looking at what is like barely possible
43:40
now and then what will the sort of um
43:43
cost curves look like or or capability
43:45
curves look like and um something that
43:48
we talked about at our beyond conference
43:50
last month was this idea of a of a
43:53
driver ride along. So, in operations,
43:55
it's quite common to basically have a
43:57
manager sit with you over the course of
43:59
your day, like drive around with you for
44:00
8 hours. And what they're doing is
44:02
they're not looking for, you know, uh,
44:04
how fast you're going. They're looking
44:05
for your habits of like, do you check
44:07
your mirrors, like, you know, are you
44:09
alert and are you aware? That kind of
44:10
thing. That's basically a massive amount
44:12
of, uh, video computation, right? So,
44:14
you can run a tokenizer. It just turns
44:16
into like a lot of compute. You can do
44:19
that today. It's it's pretty expensive
44:21
and costly, but it it works and it's
44:23
doable. We're pretty optimistic that the
44:26
you know cost per million tokens is
44:28
dropping so fast and the capabilities
44:29
are rising that we can deliver that at
44:31
better and better cost over time to our
44:33
customer. So I think in a year or two
44:35
that will be possible and I have to say
44:37
like you know just over last weekend I
44:39
was playing um Sarah which is one of
44:41
those big like wafer scale chip
44:43
companies. they have uh an inference
44:46
model that you can run on their chip
44:47
which is basically Gemma 4 but like
44:49
hyper accelerated like that's a great
44:51
example of like that is nonlinear in
44:55
terms of jump right like what you get
44:56
out of these big models today if you run
44:58
Gemma 4 on your GP you might get like
45:00
100 tokens per second if you have a fast
45:02
card if you run it in their cloud you
45:04
get anywhere from 800 to 1500 tokens per
45:07
second so call it 10x faster um that is
45:11
the kind of thing where it unlocks these
45:13
new use cases that we couldn't get to
45:15
because it would have been too either
45:16
expensive or too slow.
45:18
>> Not to promote the podcast on the
45:20
podcast, but by the time we release this
45:22
uh the prior episode will be precisely
45:24
an episode with Andrew Feldman of Serial
45:26
Brush if anybody missed it
45:29
>> and of and of commercial. I'm I'm glad
45:31
you mentioned the the the ride along
45:33
because I think there's a fascinating
45:35
aspect to uh the whole dash cam almost
45:41
societal standpoint. uh in in that uh uh
45:46
it could be like an interesting
45:47
blueprint in terms of like how we
45:49
professionally interact with AI uh not
45:52
just when we query it through AI
45:54
chatbots but like having AI live with us
45:57
on a on a on a on a permanent basis. So,
45:59
you know, sort of the obvious question
46:01
is that this there's an element of like
46:03
arguably big brother is watching you.
46:05
You know, AI is watching every single
46:07
move that you make. Um, and you know,
46:09
for your own good, but it's also looking
46:11
at what you may not do well. I'm curious
46:14
about what you've learned from the
46:16
perspective of uh uh making everyone
46:19
happy, if there's such a thing, whether
46:21
that's the the customer, the driver, and
46:23
you know, people for people not ripping
46:26
out the the camera in rage.
46:28
>> Yeah. So, uh, you know, a couple of
46:30
thoughts there. The first is we actually
46:31
do spend a lot of time on the front line
46:33
with drivers and other, you know,
46:35
frontline workers. So, it's very
46:37
important for us to get their
46:38
perspective because they're the primary
46:39
users and and really beneficiaries of
46:41
the system. Something people don't often
46:44
think of is, you know, if you have a
46:45
dash camera, what is it used for? The
46:47
majority use case is actually
46:49
exoneration. So, what I mean by that is
46:51
helping explain what happened if there
46:53
was an accident. Because for example, if
46:55
you are the Home Depot, you're a very
46:57
well-known brand. They're a customer of
46:58
ours. Um, lots of claims, auto claims
47:01
are placed against you because they'll
47:02
say, "Hey, a Home Depot truck backed
47:04
into my car on this highway." Right? And
47:07
that is something that really upsets a
47:09
driver because they'll say, "Look, I was
47:10
doing my job great. Like, I didn't run
47:12
into that guy." Now, you can basically
47:15
produce HD video evidence of where you
47:17
were and if there was an accident, who
47:19
caused it, all that stuff. That's it.
47:22
eliminates all the ambiguity, right?
47:24
Like now you can just resolve it and
47:26
look, if there was an accident, the
47:27
company may choose to just settle it out
47:28
and and pay it out. But if there wasn't,
47:31
which is like a very common case, now
47:33
you can really fight it and say, "Look,
47:35
we we know exactly what happened."
47:37
Drivers love that because I I have to
47:39
say 90% of the time they're doing a
47:41
great job and nobody's seeing it, right?
47:43
And so that has been a huge unlock is
47:45
this positive reinforcement of we're
47:48
analyzing the whole drive. we're seeing
47:49
all these good behaviors, defensive
47:51
driving or exonerations, things like
47:52
that. That I think is what is is sort of
47:55
the counterwe to the hey what is all
47:58
this for? Like how is it being used? If
48:01
you have that in your culture, if you
48:03
are kind of doing the equivalent of
48:04
employee of the month but showcasing
48:07
really great work, I think people get
48:09
really excited about this. Also uh from
48:12
a safety perspective we should remember
48:14
in physical industries the risk uh of
48:17
injury is on the person right so in
48:20
other words like we want everyone to go
48:22
home the same way they came to work
48:24
right that is an important concept that
48:26
I think people don't don't think about
48:28
if you're working construction you're
48:29
working oil field services or something
48:31
like that you take a lot of risk when
48:33
you do your job every day so it's
48:35
actually in the what's in it for me it's
48:36
like we are trying to keep you safe uh
48:39
if you have that and you do it in a
48:41
transparent, thoughtful, you know,
48:43
respectful from a privacy perspective
48:45
way, it it goes a very long way with the
48:48
>> Very interesting. And that makes a lot
48:49
of sense. Just to push a little bit, if
48:54
um in in some ways the eye also becomes
48:56
a judge of the quality of your work.
49:01
>> I don't know if you agree or disagree.
49:03
Uh I'm curious if there's any uh kind of
49:07
like safeguards about how that happens
49:10
or should happen in the future and
49:12
perhaps it's a fact of life. You know,
49:13
we just had the World Cup and like we we
49:16
now familiar with the VAR review and it
49:19
is what it is. You were offside and
49:21
that's just what it is and technology is
49:22
here to tell everyone that you are
49:24
offside. Curious about like what what
49:26
you've learned. It seems like such an
49:27
important current topic.
49:29
>> Yeah, very much important. I think
49:30
transparency again is like the key word
49:32
here. It's not and by the way our
49:34
cameras are not hidden cameras. They're
49:36
they're quite visible. So it's not like
49:37
a secret sort of recording device. Uh
49:40
and the the whole idea is to bring the
49:43
front line along. So we call this change
49:45
management, right? Like hey, we're
49:46
introducing these things. What do they
49:48
do? What are they for? How can you use
49:49
them? How can they be useful to you? If
49:52
you have that conversation early in a
49:53
transparent way, it tends to be quite
49:55
constructive because um I mentioned Home
49:58
Depot earlier. they saw like a 65%
50:00
reduction in their claims like auto
50:02
claims. That was a huge win for that
50:04
organization both at the sort of
50:06
executive level but more importantly at
50:08
the sort of like regional level. Um
50:10
those kinds of wins are what we want to
50:12
like help create. Now could you use this
50:15
like in a bad guy kind of way? You could
50:18
but that would be like who is sitting
50:19
there watching like each driver? It's
50:21
like super boring by the way to like sit
50:23
and watch drivers, right? Um so when
50:25
when you kind of are transparent about
50:27
what the system's doing and what it's
50:29
not doing and then how the data is used
50:31
that is like how you get the buy in and
50:33
and you earn the trust uh of of that
50:36
entire organization.
50:37
>> All right. So you sit at the very
50:38
forefront of of of all of this in in
50:41
physical AI. Um I'm curious where you
50:45
see the world going as we maybe uh take
50:49
a step back. Are we going towards a
50:51
world of like mixed fleets of of just
50:54
people and just robots and is that is
50:58
that what you're seeing?
50:59
>> Yeah, this is the like if we kind of
51:00
imagine 5 10 years out like where does
51:02
this go? I I do think yes. Um we expect
51:06
there to be a lot more robots sort of
51:08
involved in physical operations. You see
51:10
this actually if you go into a warehouse
51:13
today, right? So if you go into either
51:15
manufacturing or fulfillment center,
51:17
there's actually a lot of automation
51:18
robotics going on. And the the cool part
51:21
about that is it reduces risk of injury
51:23
to a lot of the human workers like
51:24
lifting injuries were very common uh 10
51:27
20 years ago. They're way less common
51:28
these days because quite literally the
51:31
robots doing the heavy lifting. Now
51:33
there's still humans working there
51:34
because there's kind of um all the
51:36
handoffs and you know there there's some
51:38
nuance to the operation but we expect
51:41
something similar to happen out in the
51:43
field right so think about a
51:44
construction site or maybe a company
51:47
building a roadway or you know uh
51:49
modernizing the grid. There's a lot of
51:52
kind of repetitive work that has to
51:53
happen. Imagine you're grading a site
51:55
like you're making it level. Could that
51:57
happen during the third shift between
51:59
midnight and 8 am right? That could be a
52:02
really cool way to do productive work on
52:04
the side of the road where you're just
52:05
going for like five miles making it
52:07
flat, right? Um we we see robots being
52:10
able to do that in the next 5 years.
52:12
Now, all the rest of it though, it's
52:14
still pretty messy and construction has
52:16
like exception after exception. Like
52:18
you're solving problems constantly.
52:20
That's where I think the humans offer a
52:22
lot of experience and judgment of well,
52:24
how should this work? And I'm waiting on
52:26
this building material while I can
52:27
perform this other thing. Meanwhile, the
52:29
robots like making the road flat, right?
52:31
So, that's kind of what we see in the
52:33
next few years. The same thing applies,
52:34
I believe, to logistics and supply
52:36
chain. So, um now like there's a lot of
52:40
kind of last mile complication that
52:41
happens and you have to physically pick
52:43
up deliver package. Some of our
52:45
customers, they stock the shelves in the
52:47
grocery store. Maybe we get there with
52:49
humanoids and you know, never say never
52:51
like this stuff always is evolving. But
52:53
in the meantime, could you automate the
52:55
longhaul segment between Dallas and
52:57
Phoenix, right, of all of those, you
53:00
know, beverage cans coming in or
53:02
something like that? So, we see this as
53:03
an exciting like and uh in terms of what
53:06
the future looks like. And what we've
53:08
seen in operations is very diverse, lots
53:10
of different types of equipment, lots of
53:12
different types of labor. So, it's going
53:14
to be, you know, different makes and
53:16
models and different makes and models of
53:18
different kinds of robots is my guess.
53:19
And from your perspective as a business,
53:21
you would just par it all. Uh I guess
53:23
where would automated trucks and
53:26
humanoids on the construction site fit
53:28
in the overall picture at Simsar?
53:31
>> Well, practically speaking, most of our
53:33
customers would tell you they're supply
53:34
limited in terms of labor, right? So
53:36
these are uh labor intensive asset heavy
53:39
industries. So they welcome this idea of
53:42
like could I automate some of this labor
53:44
so we can basically perform more. So
53:46
that's kind of like our customers are
53:48
are going to be around. they have like a
53:49
lot of work to do. What we want to do is
53:51
provide the sort of uh single pane of
53:54
glass so they can orchestrate the whole
53:55
operation, trigger the workflow of like
53:57
okay that truck is arriving from Dallas.
54:00
Let's get queued up so the warehouse
54:02
systems ready to go and accept it. Um
54:04
let's make sure that we're notifying our
54:06
end customer and so on. And then I
54:08
showed the tracking label earlier. You
54:10
could put that on the pallet of goods.
54:11
So you can track it end to end as it's
54:13
changes hands through the supply chain
54:16
as it makes its way to a job site um as
54:18
it's installed. This is all very opaque
54:21
today. Like if you think about your, you
54:23
know, shipments that you receive as a
54:24
consumer, you might get like five five
54:27
updates, right? Like left this left the
54:29
facility, you know, out out on the road,
54:31
out for delivery, etc. We see like
54:34
hundreds and hundreds of pings. That's
54:36
going to be really important when things
54:37
are moving on their own. you know, where
54:39
is that um aerospace assembly, right?
54:42
Like we have customers who want to know
54:43
where this really expensive asset is
54:45
that they need to perform their job
54:47
right now. That's sort of like
54:50
>> Do you think uh automated uh you know
54:52
self-driving trucking is just around the
54:54
corner? It seems to be around the corner
54:56
for cars. I mean obviously it's already
54:58
happening with Whimos uh and and Teslas
55:01
now and automated pilot. In three years
55:03
are we at 10% uh self-driving trucks?
55:07
Are we at 75%? What's your gut?
55:11
>> I think on the robo taxi side it's going
55:13
to happen a bit faster because the
55:15
operations are much more regional. Um
55:18
they're much more um similar, right?
55:20
Like the way that you and I ride in a
55:22
taxi across town is going to be quite
55:24
similar. And so that's I think where
55:26
you're going to see the biggest sort of
55:27
like visible impact of autonomous
55:30
vehicles. Um, on the trucking side, it's
55:32
also important to realize like there's
55:34
long haul trucking and kind of like
55:36
moving stuff from point A to point B.
55:37
That tends to be a minority fraction of
55:39
what the commercial vehicles on the road
55:41
are doing. Most of the commercial
55:43
vehicles are um in like industries like
55:45
field service, right? So, they're HVAC
55:47
technicians or plumbers, electricians,
55:49
so people performing some work. Um, and
55:52
they're also they're either doing
55:54
something like that or they're in
55:55
industries like construction where
55:56
they're building the road. that tends to
55:58
be where current day sort of like
56:01
autonomy doesn't work so well. It's like
56:03
the really messy long tail. So for that
56:05
reason, we think the adoption might be a
56:07
bit slower, but it's not like a no. It's
56:10
just it might take 10 20 years. And
56:12
these are industries where again the
56:14
equipment's highly specialized. Like if
56:16
you look at cement mixers or you know
56:18
garbage trucks, like these are
56:19
customuilt. So for um for the autonomy
56:23
systems to make their way out to that
56:25
edge is just going to be a longer
56:27
diffusion curve than you know for a
56:29
sedan which is or or a van or something
56:31
like that which is very much the same.
56:33
>> Great. Maybe to to close um I'm very
56:36
very curious like you're at the heart of
56:38
this real economy as we said at the at
56:41
the beginning of this conversation
56:43
transportation and utilities and
56:45
manufacturing and all those you know
56:47
fundamentally important things. What
56:49
what's your sense of the reality of
56:55
power today? Are you seeing same level
56:59
of velocity? Are you seeing an
57:01
Uh is the AI boom and like the data
57:04
centers like having a real impact on
57:06
your customers? What what's your um
57:09
sense of the level of just um velocity?
57:13
>> Yeah, very much. So I I think our
57:15
customers have it's very clear they're
57:17
busier than they've ever been before. So
57:19
from like an American economy
57:21
perspective, like we're seeing a lot of
57:23
intensity. Um I was just in the field
57:25
last week with a large energy utility.
57:27
Um and they've been involved in grid
57:29
modernization and uh they shared with me
57:31
a really interesting stat. They said,
57:33
you know, over the last 125 years, we
57:35
built a certain amount of grid capacity
57:36
in in megawatts or or gigawatts really.
57:39
Um in the next 5 years, we're going to
57:42
triple that. Like they as a company are
57:44
going to 3x the amount of power they
57:47
deliver. And that's like in five years
57:49
versus 125 years. So that requires a
57:51
tremendous amount of infrastructure
57:53
build even with new technologies. It's
57:54
like they can't work fast enough. U we
57:57
are seeing that across so many different
57:59
kinds of industries. And in that case
58:00
like they also shared you know 90% of
58:02
that demand is data center related. So
58:04
as the data center demand continues to
58:06
skyrocket the energy needs or all these
58:08
like different bottlenecks that have
58:09
been appearing. So many of our physical
58:11
operations companies uh customer
58:13
companies are involved in in that
58:16
directly. I know a lot of people that
58:18
your customers employ are trades people.
58:20
What what's your take on evolution of
58:22
trade? Like the the the idea that you
58:24
know we've seen we've all seen in the
58:26
last like couple of years is that uh
58:27
actually being a plumber uh becoming a
58:30
plumber might be a great idea if your
58:32
lawyer job is going to get automated.
58:34
Some of it is some level joke but I'm
58:36
I'm curious about uh what what you what
58:40
>> Yeah. I I I will warn the lawyers
58:42
thinking about becoming plumbers. It's
58:43
it's a pretty messy job, right? So,
58:45
>> it's much harder.
58:46
>> It's it's pretty hard stuff. Um, so yes,
58:49
we've been continuing to see that
58:51
there's a basically a labor shortage,
58:52
labor bottleneck in a number of
58:54
different trades, but also things like
58:56
long haul trucking, commercial driver's
58:58
license holders, things like that. So,
59:00
uh, in general, I think there's a lot of
59:02
growing demand for these uh,
59:04
professions. And this data center boom
59:06
is a great example. There are just like
59:07
not enough electricians, uh, out there
59:09
right now. So you see companies like
59:11
Meta doing initiatives to like reskill
59:14
people, train them on how to become, you
59:16
know, a good electrician and then how
59:18
can you take the people who are trained
59:20
and make their jobs as efficient as
59:21
possible. So you don't want them like
59:23
waiting on materials at a job site like
59:25
you want to put them to work to perform
59:28
uh you know wherever their skills are
59:29
needed kind of thing. So very much kind
59:32
of a bottleneck, but the trades are in
59:33
incredible demand. And I also think that
59:36
their jobs are getting um more
59:38
modernized as well because if you think
59:40
about it as an electrician, a lot of it
59:42
is getting to the job site and having
59:44
the materials and knowing what you're
59:46
going to do. If an AI can kind of help
59:48
you with that, it takes a lot of the
59:50
mental load off and you can focus on on
59:52
the really unique trade kind of value
59:54
>> Well, Sanj, it's been a fantastic
59:55
conversation. Thank you so much. very
59:58
excited about uh what you guys are
1:00:01
continuing to build and like its sheer
1:00:03
importance in the overall economy and
1:00:05
it's been wonderful to learn more about
1:00:06
it. So, thank you.
1:00:07
>> Thank you. It's been fun.
1:00:10
>> Hi, it's Matt Turk again. Thanks for
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