J.B. Hunt deploys agentic AI from incubator’s first startup

Overroute is currently working on three agents, with one in production and in use at J.B. Hunt and two in the prototype stage. (Jon Tetzlaff/Getty Images)

J.B. Hunt Transport Services is deploying agentic artificial intelligence across each of its business units that will coordinate data on loads the carrier transports and enable smoother freight movement.

Not so coincidentally, the startup behind the AI tool — Overroute — is the first to emerge from an incubator co-founded by the carrier.

Lowell, Ark.-based J.B. Hunt’s intermodal, dedicated, integrated capacity solutions and truckload divisions handled about 1.85 million loads in the second quarter of 2026 while its final-mile services unit carried out nearly 862,000 stops in the same period.

Overroute’s AI agents will automate the coordination work behind each load.

“What our agents are doing is helping those people do that work more efficiently through helping them make phone calls, finding issues with an appointment, rescheduling it, and surfacing information about what’s happening in that system,” Overroute CEO Alex Reed told Transport Topics. “These are different pieces that are floating in the stack of some carrier’s network that are helping these humans work more efficiently.”

Work started in July 2025. Reed joined Overroute in December 2025. The company now has 15 employees.

The startup emerged from a joint venture freight and logistics technology incubator between J.B. Hunt and UP.Labs — known as the Logistics Venture Lab — launched in October 2024. Overroute is the first startup to emerge as part of this effort.

Agentic AI describes autonomous systems that can independently set goals, make plans and execute workflows to achieve specific outcomes. Unlike chatbots that require continuous human prompting, agentic AI reasons, uses external digital tools and adapts to new information without constant human intervention.

As Reed noted in a blog published as Overroute emerged from stealth mode: “A useful AI product cannot just produce an answer. It has to know where the answer came from, what workflow it belongs to, who needs it, what action it supports, and when a person needs to step in.”

Overroute is currently working on three agents, with one in production and in use at J.B. Hunt and two in the prototype stage.

The two currently at the prototype stage are focused on gathering more operational data directly from drivers and appointment scheduling, Reed said.

For the former, the Overroute CEO said: “Even with good telematics and all kinds of visibility that a lot of these carriers have, there’s still a number of instances where you have data gaps. Drivers stop; things happen. A lot of it comes down to actually making phone calls. … The idea was very simple. Let’s go get operational data to plug gaps, because our big vision beyond these action agents is to get to more of an intelligence layer.”

Fayetteville, Ark.-based Overroute will initially work with J.B. Hunt on the products, but is actively seeking additional fleets to work with, he said.

“Overroute is an example of a broader strategy where we’re using AI as a force multiplier within our expansive network to reduce friction and improve how freight gets executed every day,” said Nick Hobbs, chief operating officer of J.B. Hunt.

J.B. Hunt ranks No. 3 on the TT Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America, No. 2 on the truckload/dedicated sector list and No. 1 in the intermodal/drayage segment. J.B. Hunt also ranks No. 4 on the TT Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies.