Geotab has unveiled a powerful new tool poised to transform fleet management across the roads and infrastructure sectors.
In an industry where efficiency, safety, and timely decision-making are paramount, Geotab has released an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven conversational platform tailored specifically to meet the needs of fleet operators.
Geotab Ace is a generative AI assistant which transforms data interactions with intuitive AI for faster insights, reliable data protection and built-in simplicity.
In recent years, the globe has witnessed an increase in the use of generalised AI models, useful for some but not all applications.
According to Chris Martin, Senior Manager of Solutions Engineering (APAC) for Geotab, general AI tools can fall short when it comes to addressing the unique needs of specialised industries like the roads and civil construction sectors.
That’s why Geotab, a leader in telematics, has created a tool fit for the job.
“Geotab Ace is designed to be useful for anyone involved in the maintenance of road network infrastructure and for managing fleets of any sort,” says Martin.
Using large language models (LLM’s) to harness insights from fleet data around the world, Geotab Ace allows users to interact with their data in plain language.
Whether it’s understanding vehicle usage, identifying operational hotspots, or querying safety incidents, Geotab Ace provides immediate answers without the need for complex report building or data exports.
“We know fleet managers want access to information quickly and without fuss, and Geotab Ace is the perfect solution,” says Martin.
“Users can ask it anything, from where the most activity in the fleet was the week prior or if there were any incidents they should know about.”
Previously fleet managers would be required to export weeks’ worth of data to input into an excel document and manually compare it to get similar information. Martin says Geotab Ace is the newest, easiest way to interface with that data.
Geotab Ace has also been designed to be used with all Geotab platforms including the Safety and Sustainability Centres.
Geotab’s Sustainability Centre helps managers reduce costs, control emissions and report on sustainability, while the Safety Centre allows users to easily track, uncover and manage risks with AI-powered predictive safety.
“Each has a role in managing a fleet and therefore they work together. Using a mix of several Geotab centres cohesively gives users all possible information they could need at a single click,” says Martin.
“Geotab Ace has access to the same information that can be accessed through the other centres. Yet the new AI model is designed to allow the fleet manager to interrogate that data in greater depth.
“Within seconds fleet managers can have answers to specific questions using Geotab Ace.”
Intelligence at fingertips
Geotab Ace is tailor-made for those in the roads and infrastructure sectors. Especially those responsible for the maintenance of heavy vehicle fleets, from light utility vehicles to rollers, sweepers, and everything in between.
Martin says it’s particularly well-suited for local governments and municipalities managing assets, such as pothole patchers and maintenance crews.
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It also benefits contractors and commercial operators performing large-scale construction and repair, as well as private operators managing diverse fleets of road repair equipment and construction vehicles.
By leveraging the telematics data already available through the Geotab platform, Ace offers unprecedented clarity into fleet operations, streamlining the decision-making process for everything from preventive maintenance to workforce deployment.
A common task for road managers is pothole identification and repair, a task often marked by reactive scheduling and inconsistent data.
Martin assures the effective use of AI-powered language models such as Geotab Ace when assessing pothole repairs.
“Operators can use Geotab Ace to identify several critical points of information which would otherwise be difficult to attain,” he says.
“Questions could include finding areas in which the crew has mostly been working, if the jet patcher has been used to repair known potholes and if certain areas need more or less attention.
“It can also compare data sets from prior weeks and determine specifics statistics, such as how many activations of the jetpack were used one week compared to prior weeks.”
For this reason, Martin says Geotab Ace is ideal for everyone regardless of their knowledge on constructing a database query, tailoring an Excel sheet or building a report in a system.
“There is a lot of flexibility with this tool, and we expect it to be very exciting for someone whose subject matter is primarily road repair.”
A trusted source
Unlike other AI generalist models which are known to “hallucinate or fabricate” some answers, Martin says Geotab Ace is built on quality and trusted data.
“We have put the ultimate care in creating Geotab Ace ensuring it is a quality system, ultra specific and trained on fleet management concepts and data within the Geotab system,” he says.
“When training the model, we kept the scope narrow and trained it in the types of questions that fleet managers are going to ask.”
Martin says this minimises the likelihood of seeing those hallucinations in responses.
Geotab understands how important it is to be able to trust an advanced system such as this with certain information. This is why Geotab Ace will always explain to the user exactly how it came to a conclusion.
“Building trust in language models is paramount, and we want all users to have 100 per cent confidence in using the tool,” he says. “We also want operators to feel confident that it has understood the question in its entirety and given a correct answer.”
Geotab Ace will always provide an answer accompanied by a paragraph explaining the process of interpreting the question, and what sort of process it went through to retrieve the data.
“This all comes down to Geotab’s core values of delivering ethical, collaborative and transparent telematics,” says Martin.
“We have adopted all principles of ethical AI in Geotab Ace and maintained a clear focus on data privacy and the ownership of customer data. This ensures that customer data never leaves Geotab infrastructure, allowing customers to retain ownership of their data.”
This article was originally published in the October edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.
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