- Freight AI claims sparked a sharp market selloff across trucking logistics stocks
- Investors reacted strongly to automation fears as a small AI firm rose in value
- Market anxiety about AI disruption spread beyond trucking to healthcare and publishing
Shares in trucking and logistics companies fell after investors reacted sharply to claims by a small AI firm about automation in freight operations.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the sale “is one of the most extreme examples yet of the sell-now-ask-later ethos sweeping financial markets in the artificial intelligence era.”
The sale began after Algorhythm Holdings, once known for in-car karaoke products, said its SemiCab platform helped customers scale freight volumes by 300% to 400% without adding staff.
Limited by human bandwidth
The company claims that operators using SemiCab have been “able to manage more than 2,000 loads annually, compared to the traditional industry benchmark of approximately 500 loads per year per freight broker, demonstrating a 4x improvement in workforce productivity.”
“Historically, logistics has been limited by human bandwidth,” said Gary Atkinson, CEO of Algorhythm. “Each increase in volume requires more planners, more dispatchers and more manual intervention. Our SemiCab platform breaks this dependency by integrating intelligence directly into the freight operating system.”
That statement pushed Algorhythm’s shares up nearly 30%, despite the company’s small market capitalization of $6 million. USD, but the reaction elsewhere was far less optimistic.
The Russell 3000 Trucking Index fell 6.6% as traders rushed out of logistics names. CH Robinson Worldwide fell 15% at the close after falling as much as 24% earlier in the session.
Landstar System fell 16%, while RXO fell 20.5%. JB Hunt Transportation Services and XPO each lost about 5%. Selling pressure spread beyond trucking, where drug distribution companies including McKesson Corp and Cardinal Health fell about 4%. European logistics groups also took hits. DHL Group fell 4.9%, DSV A/S fell 11% and Kuehne+Nagel International AG lost 13% in late trade.
Algorhythm’s CEO seemed surprised by the scale of the market reaction. “Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined a day like today,” Atkinson said. “It’s almost like David versus Goliath.”
Algorhythm previously focused on karaoke technology before selling its Singing Machine unit to Stingray for $4.5 million. USD and turned to AI shipping software.
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