Looking to extend the reach beyond the US of its artificial intelligence (AI) driver coaching safety solution – used to calculate fuel usage, compliance and equipment health – physical AI operations platform provider Motive is now offering UK drivers its AI Coach personalised driver teaching system.
Launched two weeks ago at the developer’s annual technology conference, the system is designed to deliver automatically personalised, high-quality feedback at scale using AI-generated coaching videos. Motive claims that UK fleet organisations can use the system to reduce coaching workloads by up to 100% while improving safety and performance, with fast, consistent guidance for every driver.
In making the introduction to the UK, Motive said driver coaching is critical but hard to scale, especially in a country where rising insurance costs, Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency scrutiny and ongoing Driver Certificate of Professional Competence requirements are adding pressure to fleets.
Moreover, Motive warned that driver retention has become a critical challenge across the entire physical economy. Citing data from the fleet management and compliance platform Zerity, it noted that large fleets, particularly in the UK, were seeing annual turnover rates as high as 60% and that losing a single driver costs organisations an average of £6,300.
That means, for a fleet with 1,000 drivers, turnover costs could add up to nearly £4m annually. On top of that, the UK is facing a projected HGV driver shortage of 200,000 by 2030, which threatens the 82% of domestic goods that are moved by road freight in the UK.
Furthermore, Motive warned that in many fleets, coaching still focuses on mistakes, while recognition remains manual, inconsistent and difficult to scale. The result is disengaged drivers who are more likely to leave, and challenges in recruiting new talent.
Another issue identified by Motive was that safety managers often oversee hundreds or thousands of drivers, and yet some managers spend less than one-third of their time on people management, including coaching sessions. Even when coaching does occur, consistency and accuracy are difficult to maintain, and without timely, personalised feedback, unsafe behaviour is repeated.
AI Coach is designed to automatically select the safety events that have the highest impact on a driver’s score and are the most severe, to give drivers context on what they can do to improve and why it matters. It’s embedded in Motive Workforce Management, the company’s centralised AI-powered platform that digitises and automates critical workforce processes.
The system delivers automatic, personalised AI-generated coaching videos each week through the Motive Dashboard and Driver App. Coaching videos deliver reinforcement to recognise where the driver did well, as well as actionable feedback to offer continuous improvement in driver safety and performance.
Fleets can choose from a number of pre-generated avatars or record a custom avatar to provide personalised video messages that increase engagement and retention. Personalised feedback is attributed with being able to help reduce risk and reinforce safe behaviours sooner. Automated text messages and push notifications are designed to remind drivers to review their weekly feedback recaps, reducing manual follow-ups.
Commenting on the launch, Nyanya Joof, regional vice-president of UK markets at Motive, said: “Gaps in driver coaching put organisations at risk of preventable incidents. But driver coaching only works if it is accurate and trusted by drivers. AI Coach uses high-precision AI to automatically send personalised coaching videos, which can greatly reduce manager workload while improving safety and driver engagement.”
Adam Fox, operations manager at bus operator Beeline, said it had previously spent several hours reviewing incidents and doing one-on-one coaching long after the fact. “With Motive’s AI Coach, automatic personalised coaching comes from a familiar face and helps us provide feedback at a scale we didn’t think was possible,” he added. “Always reliable and accurate, AI Coach helps us keep our drivers safe and reduce our incident rate.”
