How Zengistics drove $1M in annualized value with Augment’s AI as their orchestration layer

Company Name: Zengistics

Location: Austin, Texas

Services: Full-service logistics offering efficient solutions to complex supply chain challenges

Problem: Zengistics ran a stack of single-purpose AI tools that each covered one slice of a load, and none of them worked together.

Results at a Glance:

• Automated 16 workflows from order to cash

• Grew tracking updates posted in Turvo by 57x

• Made 75% of loads ready for invoicing within a day of delivery

• Returned over 100 hours a week to Zengistics reps

What Zengistics delivers for its customers

Zengistics is a full-service logistics company based in Austin, Texas. Zengistics’ customers are shippers who rely on Zengistics to contract with a carrier to deliver their load, track the truck, collect the paperwork and send the invoice. All of these workflows are tracked in Zengistics’ transportation management system (TMS), Turvo.

Shippers expect three outcomes from Zengistics: timely delivery, proactive status updates, and accurate invoicing. Zengistics wanted their reps to stay focused on delivering these outcomes alongside building the relationships that help them win more loads.

Early on, Zengistics made a bet that AI was the key to offering exceptional customer service while continuing to innovate as a business. They had a vision for a company that moves loads from quote to cash with almost no manual work, runs that work inside the systems its reps already use, and owns technology no competitor can buy off a shelf. 

The problem Zengistics faced

Zengistics has a track record of adopting new freight technology early and often. Prior to partnering with Augment, they already had a tool for nearly every job. One tool built loads. Another told a rep where a truck was. Another generated invoices. Each tool automated one slice of a load, but none of them worked together.

“The old solution was like a human being had 10 different VCR clocks that maybe 5 people figured out how to use, and the rest of the people in the company didn’t know how to use. So we had all these things that on a perfect day, if all the stars aligned, would make you work way better. Unfortunately, they didn’t fit well together.” - Trevor Adey, CEO at Zengistics

Managing all of these fragmented systems was a coordination tax that drained operator productivity at Zengistics. Reps had to transfer information between systems by hand. When a shipper changed a pickup date, a rep still had to make the update in Turvo and write the status email. When posted loads drew dozens of carrier calls at once, reps had to answer each one individually.

Why Zengistics chose Augment

Zengistics made Augment their primary AI partner because the platform provided a true full-stack solution across the full order-to-cash lifecycle. Augment was directly integrated with Turvo, allowing Zengistics to bring all of their previously fragmented tools together under one orchestration layer. In addition, the Augment team brought decades of freight experience that translated into strategic intelligence, not just task automation. 

Augment’s Workflow Builder was the biggest selling point for Zengistics. With Workflow Builder, the Zengistics team can build workflows custom to the nuances of their business. For each new workflow, Augment develops a custom SOP, defines the events that trigger the workflow, and sets guardrails around the work our AI teammate, Augie, completes in response.  

With Workflow Builder, Zengistics no longer adapts its process to fit a piece of software. Augie adapts to the way Zengistics runs. 

Augment as the system of action

In their first meeting, the Zengistics and Augment teams mapped the biggest pain points in the business from first quote to final invoice. They determined where automation would deliver ROI fastest, then built workflows to solve each problem with Augment’s Workflow Builder. Since that initial meeting, the team has built 16 workflows, with many more scoped for the future. 

“In some weeks we hand Augment a problem every day. We get in a room with the team, show them how we do the work today, and ask what happens if Augie does it. Then we build a new workflow that goes live in weeks. We don’t have to fit our process into a piece of technology that requires a specific format. We can go do what works best for our team, our carriers, and our customers.”  - Josh Nemes, Vice President, Operations at Zengistics

Every workflow earns its way into production. Augie first runs the workflow against a simulated copy of Zengistics’ business, with test calls, test emails, and test loads. The team adapts the workflow accordingly before pushing it live.

With each workflow, Augie reads and writes to Turvo directly, manages shared inboxes in Outlook, posts in Teams channels, and answers the carrier phone line. Every action Augie takes ends with a write back into Turvo, so the TMS remains the system of record, with Augie as the system of action.

“Every brokerage on Turvo can add Augment as this supercharged AI layer tomorrow. If you like Turvo today, you will like Turvo on steroids a lot more, and that is Augment.” - Trevor Adey, CEO at Zengistics

Workflows in action

Previously, Zengistics reps had to field dozens of calls for every posted load, hunt down the MC number, and tell most callers no. Augie now answers the carrier line, pulls the MC number, screens out the carriers that fail vetting or price above the load, and hands the qualified carriers to a rep.

“Your team will always miss calls on a hot load. Half the calls you do catch end with the rep saying ‘I can’t use you,’ or ‘your rate is way too high.’ Augie handles those calls, and my reps take the ones that end in a booked truck.” - Josh Nemes, Vice President, Operations at Zengistics

Augie also tracks every load end to end, calls the driver when the automated channels go quiet, and writes each update into Turvo. Some of Zengistics’ shippers frequently change pickup locations, add stops, and move dates. Every change used to mean manual updates in Turvo and handwritten status emails. Augie takes all that work off a rep’s plate. For high-touch shippers, Augie sends every pickup, delivery, and change in real time, through whatever channel the shipper prefers.

When the truck delivers the load, Augie requests, collects, and files the POD in Turvo. With Augie, three quarters of loads are ready for invoicing within a day of delivery. Zengistics gets paid faster for delivering the outcomes their customers expect.

Augie also answers operator questions from Zengistics' own documented procedures through Knowledge Hub. Knowledge Hub acts as Zengistics’ AI knowledge layer, so reps can find answers to questions from training materials, contracts, SOPs, and reporting data in one chat experience.

The Zengistics team has rapidly expanded Augie’s scope to automate manual work across the entire order-to-cash lifecycle.Today, Augie applies the weekly fuel surcharge to every load before billing locks, audits rates against a shippers’ portals and corrects any gaps, prepares the weekly invoicing run, answers the tracking questions one shipper sends fifty to a hundred times a week, and keeps a live log of every spot bid the desk wins or loses. Weekly carrier risk screening and a daily three-way reconciliation across accounting, payments and Turvo are in build. With Augment’s deterministic guardrails, Augie never writes a rate it cannot confirm, never invents a status, and always hands judgment calls back to a rep. 

“Today, Augment is our bionic legs, our bionic arms, and our bionic eyes, all of them completely focused on delivering outcomes.” - Trevor Adey, CEO at Zengistics

How Zengistics moves Liquid Death at the pace of demand with Augment

Liquid Death is Zengistics’ largest customer, and Zengistics services them via a dedicated carrier. Every week that carrier sends its schedule over as a spreadsheet of load numbers. Before Augment, a rep opened each load in Turvo, downloaded the BOL one file at a time, and built a single email back to the carrier with every BOL attached and the week laid out.

Augie runs that whole handoff today. Zengistics simply forwards the schedule to Augie. Then Augie reads every load number off the spreadsheet, pulls each bill of lading out of Turvo, and sends the carrier one email with all of the attachments and a summary of the week ahead. The rep who used to assemble these details gets their time back. With these details in hand, the dedicated carrier can plan their route sooner, so Liquid Death holds its pickup appointments and their product reaches customers on schedule. 

With these automations, Zengistics moves Liquid Death’s inventory as quickly as their brand demands. 

“Most of our partners want to tell us about their AI roadmap. Zengistics just ships new AI tools. We're able to move more of our product because Zengistics is automating work so quickly with Augment’s AI.” - Jason Alto, Logistics Manager at Liquid Death

What Augie changed for Zengistics operators

Augie took manual work off reps’ plates so that they could focus on higher value work. Augie returned about 880 hours to Zengistics reps over 13 weeks. At approximately 100 hours returned a week, Augie now carries the equivalent of more than two and a half full-time reps.

“Nobody gets into freight to make updates in Turvo or write the same status email for the fourth time in a day. Our reps want to build relationships, deliver good service, and grow their book. Today they leave the manual work to Augie and are alerted when they need to make a judgement call.” - Josh Nemes, Vice President, Operations at Zengistics

Not every operator started as a believer, but seeing Augie’s impact firsthand changed their minds.

“One of my best salespeople told me that no agent would ever replace him. Today he runs a set of custom Augie workflows, and he is the loudest advocate I have. Freight reps do not adopt software because leadership bought it. They adopt it the week it wins them a load.” - Trevor Adey, CEO at Zengistics

The business impact for Zengistics

With Augie, Zengistics can automate every step of a load, with every update documented on Turvo. Today, Augie saves the team over 100 hours a week, a 359% increase since launch. Weekly tracking updates in Turvo have grown 57 times over while accuracy held at 99.3% or better in every single week. With POD Collection, Augie ensures that 75% of Zengistics’ delivered loads are ready for invoicing within a day of delivery. 

With Augment orchestrating each of their tools under one central platform, Zengistics’ reps work more efficiently, their bills are collected sooner, and their customers are more likely to return. Zengistics estimates that Augment-led automation across their tech stack accounts for $1.04M in annualized value to their business. Sixteen workflows are live today, with dozens more in scope for the future.

+6 additional workflows, with many more being scoped.

What’s next for Zengistics and Augment

With Augment, Zengistics plans to scale with three layers: Turvo as the system of record, Augie as the system of action, and Zengistics as the gamification user interface.

Zengistics plans to build tier systems for their customers, with every tier scored on Augment’s data. Customers in higher tiers will earn benefits, such as faster payments and exclusive access to hot loads. 

“We have dream team reps at Zen, and in the old days I’d say that I wanted to hire ten more of that guy. Today I want to clone that rep with Augment agents, which become the rep’s employees. I want reps to be excited to run their agent team. People should love the game of logistics so much they can’t wait to get back at it.” - Trevor Adey, CEO at Zengistics

A year ago Zengistics ran on fragmented, disconnected AI systems. Today the same organization automates manual work across the order to cash lifecycle with Augie. Augment acts as Zengistics’ orchestration layer, connecting each of the tools in their tech stack. Zengistics ships custom workflows nearly every week. With Augment, they plan to become the most technologically advanced brokerage in freight.