What We Heard at Manifest 2026

Manifest is always worth the trip. But this year felt different.

The conversations were sharper. The urgency was real. And a few clear themes kept surfacing no matter who we were talking to - carriers, brokers, shippers, or tech leaders.

Here's what stood out, and why it matters for how we're thinking about trailer strategy at REPOWR.

The industry is done with manual coordination

Everyone we talked to is moving away from phone calls, spreadsheets, and email threads to manage equipment. The expectation now is simple: if you have assets, you should be able to deploy them instantly. If you need capacity, you should be able to find it without a back-and-forth.

That's the whole premise behind REPOWR - a self-serve marketplace where carriers find and reserve trailers on demand, owners list underutilized equipment in minutes, and the platform handles approvals, payments, and documentation automatically.

Repositioning costs are under the microscope

If there was one cost center that came up in nearly every conversation, it was repositioning. Idle trailers. Empty miles. Storage fees. Yard moves that go nowhere.

The question everyone is asking: can we turn this cost into something productive?

The answer is yes, but only if you have a network to plug into. Through REPOWR, trailers can move with freight instead of deadheading, and assets can generate revenue while repositioning rather than just sitting. It's already happening across the 40,000+ trailers on our platform.

AI is getting practical

There was a lot of AI talk at Manifest, but the tone has shifted. Nobody was debating whether to adopt it. The question was where it actually removes friction.

Trailer operations are full of small decisions that add up: where should equipment flow next, which markets need capacity, what pricing maximizes utilization. We're embedding automation into exactly these decision points, dynamic listings, market controls, booking probability modeling, so trailer managers spend less time guessing and more time moving.

Security isn't optional

Fraud, theft, chain of custody - security conversations were everywhere. In a high-value freight environment, vetting and visibility aren't nice-to-haves.

REPOWR's safety suite covers carrier vetting through Highway, identity verification through Persona, mandatory pre- and post-trip inspections, and full telematics visibility into who has what equipment and where. Flexible access only works if it's secure, and that's been foundational to how we've built the platform.

The companies that win this year won't just move freight faster. They'll treat equipment as dynamic, something to be deployed intelligently, not managed reactively. Manifest made that clearer than ever.

We're building toward that future. If you want to see how, let's talk.

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