The Real-Time Visibility Wars

Why Three Giants Are Betting Their Futures on Different Strategies

Three supply chain visibility platforms launched in 2014. They all rode the COVID-19 wave when real-time tracking became critical. Now they’re diverging. Project44 calls itself a Decision Intelligence Platform. FourKites is going all-in on AI agents. Shippeo positions itself as the real-time visibility leader.

Only one is sticking with visibility as its core strategy. The question isn’t just who will win. It’s whether any of them can survive what comes next.

The Identity Crisis in Supply Chain Visibility

Anthony Miller posed a direct question to the logistics community. Three companies, same founding year, similar COVID-era growth trajectories. Different strategies emerging in 2025. The responses revealed something more concerning than competitive positioning. They exposed fundamental questions about whether standalone visibility platforms have a future at all.

Peter Creeden frames it clearly. “It has been obvious we are moving beyond visibility. The real differentiator is how platforms use it to drive decision support across the client’s ecosystem.” He suggests the three companies target different customer segments based on digital maturity. It’s less about who’s best and more about alignment with customer needs.

Miller pushes back. “The problem with customer digital maturity and these solutions is that aside from Shippeo, they are not complementary or supportive. They are designed to replace, not improve.” He points out that digitally mature customers using SAP Supply Chain are the target audience. But SAP now has its own AI capabilities. If decision support matters, Project44 appears most likely to succeed at scale based on their marketing positioning.

This exchange captures the core tension. Visibility platforms originally sold themselves as essential tools to supplement existing systems. Now they’re positioning as replacements for transportation management systems and other enterprise software. That shift changes everything about how customers evaluate them.

The Commoditization Threat Nobody Wants to Discuss

Slawomir Wycislak delivers the harshest critique. “You’re asking the wrong question. These three are fighting over who gets to be the last visibility vendor standing while the ground shifts beneath them.”

His argument cuts deep. All three companies share the same business model at their core. They aggregate carrier data, normalize it, and sell it back to shippers with dashboards. The labels change from “Decision Intelligence” to “AI-powered” to “real-time leader.” The fundamental service remains identical.

Wycislak sees disruption coming from two directions. First, beneficial cargo owners can now build their own applications using low-code or no-code tools. “Why pay a middleman when you can spin up your own visibility solution? The tools are already here.” Second, agentic AI will build custom visibility platforms from scratch, integrated directly with carrier APIs.

He adds context that stings. “Companies pay premium prices for visibility platforms, yet almost none achieve full end-to-end visibility. That’s failure at Ferrari prices.” Meanwhile, low-code platforms and AI agents have become mainstream enterprise tools handling the same API integrations vendors charge premium rates for.

The desperate pivot to “Decision Intelligence Platforms” reveals that vendors know pure visibility is commoditizing. Wycislak predicts companies will quietly reduce vendor dependence as they realize they’re overpaying for basic data aggregation.

This isn’t theoretical concern trolling. João Vinhas confirms it from the freight forwarder perspective. “Forwarders, the bigger ones at least, are coming to the conclusion that bringing in Devs to ‘build in-house’ is the way to go, and some are already hiring AI experts to leverage it, and most likely void the use of those ‘third-parties’ entirely.”

The Visibility Paradox: Do Customers Even Want This?

Nilanka Pieris offers an uncomfortable truth. “This visibility game is too overrated and attracts too much attention. In my opinion 90% of shippers don’t need such level of visibility. Most providers play on the inquisitiveness of humans where we have an inherent nature to keep knowing about something rather than it actually adding value to the operation.”

This challenges a fundamental assumption. The entire visibility platform industry assumes customers need more tracking data. Pieris suggests the opposite. Providers exploit human curiosity rather than solving operational problems. We want to know where things are because we’re curious, not because knowing changes what we do.

Seraj Ansari reinforces this from an operational angle. “Visibility wins when it’s baked into ops, not just a dashboard. I’ve seen teams focus on one thing, then scale faster because people and process matched the tech. That matters.”

Visibility only creates value when it drives different actions. A dashboard that shows delays doesn’t help unless someone can respond to those delays differently. Most organizations lack the processes or authority structures to act on visibility data. They end up with expensive dashboards showing problems they already knew existed and still can’t solve.

Nacho Gil de Sagredo states it plainly. “Visibility should not be the target, is the way for smart decision making.” Treating visibility as the end goal misses the point entirely.

The AI Hype Cycle and Its Dangers

Miller acknowledges the momentum behind AI. “I agree but I am also acutely aware that we are nearing peak hype cycle and that is not where value is created.”

Vlad Nikalayeu uses a sailing metaphor. “AI is a sail. Whatever these products are meant to deliver or shift, they will get there faster. It can lift them higher, or it can turn into a swamp that diverts the course.”

João Vinhas observes how AI affects buyer psychology. “From my experience, people’s eyes just shine whenever the word AI is brought up, and the range of possibilities, in their minds, it can provide.” Decision makers get excited by AI’s potential without understanding its limitations or implementation requirements.

Ilya Preston provides the most detailed analysis of what agentic AI strategy actually requires to succeed. “At the end of the day, being ‘everything to everyone’ typically ends up failing. Agentic strategy will flop unless you have 1.) AI-conducive infrastructure, 2.) clean, contextual baseline data layer and 3.) hyper-focus on a specific user and workflow with a high enough pain to automate but low enough risk to get wrong. Not sure that any of the 3 have 1, 2 and 3.”

This matters because FourKites is betting its future on AI agents. Preston’s criteria suggest that bet requires more than adding AI features to existing products. It requires fundamental infrastructure and data quality that may not exist.

Preston also evaluates each company’s positioning. Project44 has the largest upside and a legitimate chance at disrupting the TMS model. FourKites has the best AI strategy and is financially better leveraged to make a move. Shippeo has the highest quality data and the best core visibility product, but the most narrow focus.

Aditya Ravi sees FourKites’ AI emphasis as the short-term winner. “Real-time visibility is table stakes in today’s supply chains. The real value? Connecting that data to downstream impacts and using AI to drive actionable insights.” He notes that data alone makes no difference. What matters is what it means to the business and the client, assuming data quality is good.

Ravi adds that Project44 has been subtle about AI but isn’t far behind. “Their broader connectivity and integration capabilities could give it an edge in providing a more comprehensive view of the supply chain. But right now it still feels they are collecting and presenting a data set, albeit a comprehensive one.”

The Funding Narrative vs. The Product Strategy

Paul Patin reframes the entire discussion. “This isn’t just about product strategy. It’s about funding strategy and narrative.” Real-time transportation visibility probably isn’t a big enough narrative to justify the valuations Project44 and FourKites achieved during COVID supply chain disruptions. They needed to expand into the AI narrative.

Shippeo is EU-based and raises comparatively modest rounds of around 30 million dollars. Both strategies can work for investors, but they’re playing very different games.

Miller disagrees with the suggestion that funding strategies differ. “They all played the same game, the only difference is that it is harder to raise money in Europe. We all know that if Shippeo could have raised more, they probably would have. They failed expansion into other regions already. Their success is local.”

This tension reveals another layer. Are these companies building sustainable businesses or are they building narratives to justify venture capital valuations? The distinction matters because sustainable businesses focus on customer value and unit economics. Narrative-driven businesses focus on growth metrics and market positioning that support the next funding round.

Miller later suggests Shippeo will be acquired within two years. FourKites will either be acquired or IPO. That leaves Project44 to boom or bust. “In that scenario, there could technically be 3 winners.”

The Bespoke Problem: Can Platform Solutions Work?

Dan Myers asks the question that haunts all enterprise software. “My main question on these big players is how they differentiate themselves. Logistics is very bespoke for each shipper. They need different things. How do they tailor the tech?”

This captures a fundamental challenge. Supply chains are not standardized. Each company has unique carriers, routes, products, facilities, and customer requirements. A platform solution must either be flexible enough to handle infinite variations or focused enough to serve a specific segment exceptionally well.

The visibility platforms are trying to be flexible enough for everyone. That approach typically fails because it creates complex software that doesn’t solve anyone’s specific problem particularly well. The alternative is to focus on a specific segment, like automotive or consumer packaged goods. That limits market size but increases value for the target customer.

None of the three companies appears to have made this choice clearly. They’re all pursuing broad market strategies while dealing with fundamentally bespoke customer needs.

The Hardware Reality Check

Ricardo Pinhal raises a practical point. “In my humble opinion, whichever one uses IoT with hardware, that to me is real RTTV. But we also know how difficult it is to implement.”

This matters because software-only visibility depends on carrier data feeds. Those feeds are inconsistent, delayed, and often inaccurate. Hardware-based tracking using GPS, cellular, or satellite connections provides actual real-time data. But it requires physical devices, installation, maintenance, battery management, and recovery logistics.

The visibility platforms mostly avoid hardware because it doesn’t scale with software economics. You can’t sell hardware solutions at software margins. But software-only approaches face data quality problems they can’t fully solve.

The Untapped Revenue Stream: Carbon Monetization

Stephen Symington points to an opportunity all three companies are missing. “All have access to data which they are not monetizing properly. IE the amount of CO2e each shipment can monetize over existing routes to which I have taken a provisional patent out on to protect my solution.”

He notes that US government policy isn’t pro-climate initiatives, but European companies must comply with carbon regulations. “Whatever narrative you follow or agree with, there are billions of dollars on the table.”

This suggests visibility platforms sit on valuable data they haven’t figured out how to monetize beyond subscription fees. Carbon optimization, route efficiency, and sustainability reporting all create additional revenue opportunities. The platforms that figure out how to monetize data beyond basic visibility will have an advantage.

What Comes Next: Three Possible Futures

The discussion reveals three potential outcomes for the supply chain visibility market.

Scenario One: Consolidation and Acquisition

Miller predicts Shippeo and FourKites get acquired within two years. Project44 either booms or busts. This scenario assumes the market can’t support three independent platforms long-term. Larger enterprise software companies like SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft acquire visibility capabilities rather than building them. The platforms become features within broader supply chain suites.

Scenario Two: DIY Disruption

Wycislak’s prediction comes true. Low-code tools and AI agents make it feasible for companies to build their own visibility solutions. The platforms lose customers to in-house development. They’re forced to dramatically reduce pricing or pivot to serving smaller companies that can’t build internally.

Scenario Three: Decision Intelligence Winners

One or more platforms successfully evolve beyond visibility into genuine decision support systems. They become essential tools that drive automated responses to supply chain events. This requires solving the data quality, integration, and workflow automation challenges that currently limit value creation.

The third scenario is what the platforms are betting on. The first two scenarios are what their critics expect.

The Real Strategic Question

Kenneth West points out that clarity matters as customers work through education on the technology. “Having to explain what an AI agent is and what it does for you can create dropoff points in the process.”

Miller responds that clarity is easier for Shippeo because it remains truer to its initial purpose. “As for FourKites and P44, they are both still finding their feet with their new offerings. At least that is how it feels when you check out their content.”

This gets to the heart of strategic positioning. Shippeo’s focus on visibility is clear and defensible in the short term. But it may not be enough to sustain a standalone business long-term. FourKites and Project44 are expanding their scope to create more defensible positions. But they’re doing it while the market is still trying to understand what they actually do.

Valentin Korsougne suggests the answer is a combination approach. “RTTV plus slot booking plus AI agents could be a solution.” Miller thinks that’s what Project44 is now promoting.

Miller’s final assessment summarizes his view. “Overall RTTVP is dead, pivots have to happen, visibility is a tool, not an overall product or solution.”

The Uncomfortable Truth

The debate around these three platforms reveals an uncomfortable reality for the supply chain visibility market. The original value proposition, real-time tracking of shipments, is becoming commoditized. The pivots to decision intelligence, AI agents, and broader platforms are necessary but risky.

All three companies face the same core challenges. Can they differentiate enough to avoid commoditization? Can they deliver value beyond dashboards that justify premium pricing? Can they build the infrastructure and data quality needed for AI-driven decision support? Can they convince customers not to build their own solutions?

The winner won’t be determined by who has the best current product. It will be determined by who solves these strategic challenges first. Right now, none of them has a clear advantage.

You’re watching three well-funded companies with similar products try to reinvent themselves before the market decides they’re no longer necessary. One will likely succeed. One will probably get acquired before failure becomes obvious. One might not make it at all.

The supply chain industry needs better decision support tools. Whether these three platforms are the ones to provide them remains genuinely uncertain. That uncertainty is what makes this competition worth watching.

What do you think? who might be the winner?