EROAD uses Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to accelerate product development

EROAD, with its purpose of delivering intelligence you can trust, for a better world tomorrow, will work with Microsoft on Generative AI product development to enhance customer experience and value.

AUCKLAND, 28 November 2023: Transportation technology services company EROAD Limited (NZX/ASX: ERD) (EROAD) has today announced that they will be developing new products and features using Microsoft’s generative AI to deliver innovative user experiences.

This is part of EROAD’s growth strategy, which has included an active search for strategic partnerships in the high growth North American market and the building up of relevant in-market sales capabilities and expertise.

Microsoft enables EROAD to use AI to assist further development of CoreTemp, a high value-added predictive analytics software for refrigerated vehicles and trailers. This is to facilitate a swifter and more extensive integration of EROAD’s solution into the expansive reefer market, consisting of 400,000+ trailers solely in the North American market. This is just the first in a significant roadmap of AI enhancements that will help EROAD deliver to markets at speed.

“Our mission is to provide businesses with the intelligence to help them deliver a better and more sustainable world. We have been actively looking for collaborations to help drive our growth strategy, and who better to partner with than Microsoft. This collaboration doesn’t just speed up our product development and open up new segments of the North American market, but it will give us product functionality that can benefit our New Zealand and Australian customers as well”, said Mark Heine, CEO of EROAD.

“We are thrilled to work with EROAD, a leader in sustainability and fleet management solutions, to accelerate their AI innovation and transformation. EROAD is a great example of how Microsoft’s cloud and AI platforms can empower businesses to harness the power of data and AI to create new value and experiences for their customers. We are looking forward to seeing the impact of these projects and features on the transport industry and beyond,” said Vanessa Sorenson, Managing Director of Microsoft New Zealand.

EROAD will deliver AI-powered tools such as:

Dashboards that can generate customized, interactive reports and insights based on user preferences and feedback.
Voice assistants that provide hands-free and conversational access to EROAD’s products and services, such as navigation, alerts, and analytics.
Image recognition that detects and classifies objects and events from the cameras installed on the vehicles, such as traffic signs, road conditions, and accidents.

EROAD recently ran a companywide AI Innovation event with Microsoft, where teams of developers, data scientists and user experience specialists developed projects using Microsoft Azure and AI services. Two resulting projects will bring significant benefits to EROAD and its customers by mid 2024.

Examples of the early benefits of the collaboration include AI Digital Advisor, which leverages generative AI to act as a strategic consultant for fleet operations. By analyzing telematics data, it optimises asset load balancing and driver efficiency. This AI Advisor will go beyond mere suggestions by providing interactive graphical representations and prompts. Such visual aids will seamlessly integrate into EROAD’s user interface, designed to enable customers to intuitively explore actionable insights and receive guidance on enhancing operational efficiency.

Complementing the Digital AI Advisor is a refined interactive model focused on predictive maintenance and management of reefer operations. This innovative system will utilize AI to identify patterns and anomalies that can predict maintenance issues before they become critical. It goes a step further by scrutinizing reefer conditions, preempting shutdowns and suggesting corrective actions to maintain optimal operations.

EROAD has already seen great benefit from AI adoption in product development with GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered coding assistant, for its developers. GitHub Copilot helps developers write better code faster by suggesting relevant code snippets based on the context and intent of the code. According to EROAD, over 40% of new code and 70% of unit tests are being written by AI, resulting in improved quality, efficiency, and speed to market.

Tim Mole, CTO of EROAD, said, “GitHub Copilot has been a game-changer for us. It has enabled us to deliver more value to our customers faster and with fewer bugs. It has also freed up our developers to focus on the more creative and challenging aspects of their work. We are impressed by the capabilities and future potential of GitHub Copilot and we look forward to seeing how it continues to evolve”.