Motive’s recently unveiled AI Coach promises to automate driver coaching and easily scale coaching, thereby saving time for safety professionals. The coaching sessions are delivered through video, hosted by an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar, and personalized to each driver.

During Vision 25, the company’s second annual innovation summit, Motive unveiled AI Coach, introduced by Shoaib Makani, co-founder and CEO of Motive.

“Over the past year, I've spoken to so many of you about the importance of coaching, but also how hard it is to do at the scale you all operate,” Makani told attendees. “How do you have a conversation with your driver and show them the things that they need to improve upon when they're on the road or in the field?”

The challenge is how can a safety manager coach hundreds of drivers? Motive already provides some tools to manage this complexity, such as its integrated coaching experience, which allows drivers to review their safety events in the driver app and self-coach.

“But what if you could completely automate coaching by using AI to create a version of yourself that gives personalized feedback to your drivers in real time?” asked Makani.

“AI video generation has come an incredibly long way. This incredible acceleration in generative AI has made it possible for us to completely automate coaching for you,” he added.

Personalizing Driver Coaching with AI

With AI Coach, Motive will automate the entire driver coaching process, from selecting and highlighting events that need coaching to delivering a video coaching message to a driver through an avatar.

“AI Coach will be the first and only AI avatar that can deliver personalized coaching to your drivers automatically,” Makani added.

Example of AI Coaching Sessions

Motive, Vision 25, provided an example of what AI Coach can provide to drivers.

The video demonstration, by an avatar, provided specific coaching details based on events related to driver behavior.

In the presentation, the AI avatar said:

“Hi, Charlie. It's Tim Guy, the safety guy, here. Let's go over your weekly recap. We'll highlight what you did well and go over a few areas to help you stay safe and efficient on the road. Charlie, your safety score decreased from 84 to 80. Let's highlight some behaviors that impacted your score. First, we'll cover an area for recognition, alert driver. Next, we'll cover areas for improvement, cell phone usage in vehicle item Charlie. 

“Here's a great example where you avoided a collision caused by another driver's unsafe lane change. Your quick reaction and awareness helped prevent an accident. Awesome job staying sharp. This is exactly the kind of attentive driving that keeps you and others safe.”

Pausing the video of the AI coaching session, Makani explained the process that created it.

“What you just saw was completely AI-generated — the video, the audio, and the script itself, and it was entirely personalized based on Charlie's performance over the past week,” Makani explained.

The AI Coach session video continued with:

“Let's review an area for improvement. You have four instances of cell phone use this week. Even a quick glance can be dangerous, and distracted driving is a leading cause of accidents. Our organization defines cell phone use as handling a phone for five seconds while driving above 25 miles per hour. If you ever need to take a call or check something urgent, the safest choice is to pull over. Another area in need of improvement is vehicle idling. Charlie you idled for over 15 minutes on Thursday in San Jose, despite not being in the vehicle and with mild weather. Minimizing idling in such conditions saves fuel and reduces emissions. Some states have anti idling laws, and violations could result in fines for the company. As a reminder, it's best to turn off the engine when waiting for more than two minutes. Here are some key takeaways. First, great job staying alert and being aware of your surroundings. Next, avoid phone use and take a break when necessary. Lastly, reduce vehicle idling whenever possible to improve fuel efficiency. Charlie, I appreciate your commitment to safety and fuel efficiency, and know you'll continue making great decisions on the road. Let's keep up the progress and have a fantastic week.”

After demonstrating the AI coaching capabilities with the Tim Guy avatar, Makana highlighted how Motive automatically selects the safety events that have the greatest impact on the driver’s score and are the most severe. It provides the driver contest on what they can do to improve, and why it matters.

“As you saw, AI Coach goes beyond safety and can provide feedback on fuel efficiency, compliance, and more, helping drivers improve their performance across the board. And what's really cool about AI Coach is the customizability,” Makani said.

Fleets can choose from a number of pre-generated avatars, or create their own — as in the case of the Tim Guy avatar.

“Tim is a real person, and he is actually here with us today,” Makani said.

As Guy, who is vice president of safety at RoadSafe Traffic Systems, walked across the stage to be greeted by Makani, he glanced toward the large display screen and saw his avatar for the first time.

“The fact that it sounds like me, it feels like me, and looks like me, that is unbelievable. And the fact also that I looked into a smartphone and just had a conversation about my hobbies, and it turned into that,” Guy said.

Makani asked Guy to share his philosophy on coaching. When he did, it was surprisingly similar to the AI Tim Guy coaching example from earlier.

Guy explained he starts a coaching session with an introduction, and then first turns to the positive feedback. That, he said, helps build that employee up. Next, he focuses on the opportunities.

“And when I'm covering the opportunities, I like to have the video and then go over the why. It's not just, ‘Hey, put your seatbelt on’.” Guy explained. “Let's say ‘Put your seatbelt on. That's a life-saving device. I want you to get home to your family.’ When you have the conversation in that type of format, it really gets buy-in, and it makes that coaching session personal. And I really love doing that.”

Makani said AI Coach is in a Beta phase with some customers, but will roll out later this quarter.

What Fleet Safety Professionals Say

Guy discussed the new AI products from Motive with Work Truck and shared which will be the most impactful in his role.

Guy’s top pick: AI Coach

“The reason that I say that's so impactful for me is because when I look at the tools that Motive has, I'm able to reach 80% of our drivers and get them to change their behaviors instantly, “ Guy explained.

However, that leaves an additional 20% of drivers, he said, who need special attention. 

“Historically, that required someone like me or a senior manager to sit down with that driver and have an effective coaching session,” Guy explained. “The fact that the AI technology can just take a simple conversation that I'm having and turn that into an effective coaching session instantly, that's a game changer for us. That's something I'm really looking forward to and I'm super excited about.”

Gilbert Solano, senior maintenance manager for Watco Companies, was likewise impressed with the new AI-driven solutions and agreed with Guy that the AI Coach will be a “game changer.”

With the task of reaching more than 500 drivers, Solano can more easily coach them.

“It's going to change it, because now we're not waiting for a manager to take the time out of his day, or at the end of the work week, when he's trying to finish other jobs. That AI coach is going to be able to take care of that job for them,” Solano added.

For Solano, he has to be concerned not just with safety behind the wheel, but also with employees working on a job site.

“We're working with heavy equipment, heavy materials, a lot of pipe, a lot of windmill blades. So, we want to make sure everyone goes home the same way they came in each day,” Solano said.

However, for him, another key element will be the AI Assistant and its ability to monitor impending weather, allowing him to send out alerts to crews on job sites easily. He will have a new tool to warn workers to take shelter when needed, but it can also let them know to cover materials or equipment that cannot be exposed to rain. 

Detailed Driver Event Analytics

Motive’s new AI tools, Guy pointed out, can provide insights into every event for each driver. 

“Motive has already given us the driver score, but we're going to step beyond that. We want to measure each event by the driver,” Guy said. “Right now, that's a manual process for us, so using the AI and combining that with the new analytics tab that they're rolling out, it's just going to make it easier. It's going to save a lot of time, and that's a value for me being in the safety department.”