How RunBuggy scaled vehicle transportation operations with AI.

The operational reality

RunBuggy operates one of the largest automotive transportation marketplaces in North America, coordinating thousands of live vehicle shipments at any given moment. Dealer transfers, auction purchases, fleet moves, and high-value consumer shipments all depend on the same fundamentals - accurate driver assignments, reliable ETAs, and timely updates when conditions change.

As volume increased, the challenge wasn’t technology-it was disorder. Order updates arrived through a mix of phone calls, texts, emails, and last-minute driver changes. Operations teams spent an increasing share of their time tracking down information, confirming details, and manually updating systems just to keep data current. The work was necessary, but it was not value-add. More importantly, it didn’t scale.

At a certain point, growth creates risk. Fragmented communication weakens the single source of truth, slows response times, and pulls experienced operators away from the exceptions that require judgment. RunBuggy needed a way to absorb complexity without increasing headcount or degrading service quality.

The constraint that mattered

RunBuggy didn’t need “AI for AI’s sake.” The company was not looking for automation theater. Any solution had to work inside real-world operations, where mistakes carry downstream consequences for customers, drivers, and partners.

Accuracy was non-negotiable. Any system collecting or updating order data had to meet or exceed the reliability of human outreach. Security and trust were equally critical. Order details could only be shared with verified drivers and transporters, and conversations had to respect the sensitivities of high-value shipments. Just as important, automation had to integrate directly into RunBuggy’s workflows. Information trapped in transcripts or dashboards is not operational intelligence-it’s noise.

Most of all, the goal was augmentation, not replacement. AI needed to remove repetitive administrative work so operators could focus on subjective, high-impact situations where experience and judgment matter.

What changed

RunBuggy implemented an AI-powered voice agent, powered by Sierra, as part of its core operations layer, designed specifically to handle structured, repeatable outreach tied to live order events.

When triggered by changes in shipment status, the agent makes outbound calls to drivers and transporters to collect current ETAs, confirm assignments, and understand delays or rescheduling. These are not rigid scripts. The agent asks context-aware questions, adapts to real responses, and moves efficiently through conversations designed for drivers who are often on the road and short on time.

Crucially, the information collected does not sit in isolation. Updates flow directly into RunBuggy’s internal systems, closing tasks automatically or flagging true exceptions for human review. In a single call, the agent can gather and update information across as many as a dozen active orders, matching the effectiveness of manual outreach while eliminating the administrative overhead.

Human operators remain in the loop by design. When edge cases arise or responses fall outside defined thresholds, the system escalates to the operations team.

What it took to make this work

This wasn’t a “flip the switch” deployment.

Translating real operational workflows into reliable automation required close coordination across engineering, operations, data science, and solutions engineering.

RunBuggy invested time in mapping standard operating procedures into controlled AI journeys, defining when outreach should occur, what information mattered, and how success would be measured. The team monitored call behavior closely, refining prompts and logic based on real driver interactions rather than assumptions. Analytics dashboards provided visibility into both quantity and quality, allowing the system to improve without compromising trust or accuracy.

The rollout was deliberately iterative. Coverage expanded only after performance matched human benchmarks, reinforcing confidence internally and ensuring that automation strengthened operations rather than introducing new risk.

The goal wasn’t automation for its own sake - it was operational confidence at scale.

The impact

The operational impact was immediate and measurable.:

• ~20% reduction in total monthly calls
• ~15% reduction in manual operational touchpoints
• Nearly 1,000 hours per month returned to exception handling and high-value work
• Human-level success rates in collecting accurate order updates
• Improved real-time visibility across thousands of in-flight shipments

Equally important, service quality did not decline. The AI agent consistently collected accurate updates at a success rate comparable to human outreach, while improving real-time visibility across thousands of in-flight shipments. The result was not just efficiency, but stability under scale.

Why this matters

For marketplaces operating at scale, growth usually means one thing: more people.

RunBuggy challenged that assumption by focusing on the work itself rather than the headcount behind it.

By automating routine coordination and preserving human expertise for decision-driven situations, RunBuggy built an operations layer that scales with demand instead of fighting it. The outcome is a system that moves faster, stays accurate, and protects the experience for customers, drivers, and internal teams alike.

This is not about replacing people with AI. It is about building operations that can grow without breaking.

What’s next

RunBuggy is extending this foundation to additional workflows, including inbound voice interactions and expanded self-service capabilities. Deeper integrations with internal AI systems will further strengthen real-time visibility and decision support across the marketplace. The long-term vision is an AI-enabled operations platform that grows alongside the business, maintaining trust, reliability, and service quality as volume continues to increase.

About RunBuggy

RunBuggy is an automotive transportation marketplace that connects shippers, transporters, and drivers across the U.S. and Canada. By combining technology, data, and operational expertise, RunBuggy enables reliable, secure vehicle transport at scale - helping keep vehicles, and the industry, moving. To learn more, please visit: www.runbuggy.com