Tens of billions of dollars wiped out from household name brands as obscure "penny stock" karaoke-vendor-turned-AI platform debuts "game-changing platform"

• Freight AI claims triggered a sharp market sell-off across trucking logistics shares
• Investors reacted strongly to automation fears as small AI firm surged in value
• Market anxiety around AI disruption spread beyond trucking into healthcare and publishing

Shares in trucking and logistics companies plunged after investors reacted sharply to claims made by a tiny AI firm about automation in freight operations.

Wall Street Journal reported the selloff "is one of the most extreme examples yet of the sell-now, ask-later ethos sweeping financial markets in the artificial-intelligence era."

The sell-off began after Algorhythm Holdings, once known for in-car karaoke products, said its SemiCab platform was helping customers scale freight volumes by 300% to 400% without adding staff.

Constrained by human bandwidth

The company claims operators using SemiCab have been "able to manage more than 2,000 loads annually, compared to the traditional industry benchmark of approximately 500 loads per year per freight broker, demonstrating a 4x improvement in workforce productivity."

“Historically, logistics has been constrained by human bandwidth,” said Gary Atkinson, CEO of Algorhythm. “Every increase in volume requires more planners, more dispatchers, and more manual intervention. Our SemiCab platform breaks that dependency by embedding intelligence directly into the freight operating system."

That statement pushed up Algorhythm's shares nearly 30%, despite the company’s small $6m market value, but the reaction elsewhere was far less upbeat.

The Russell 3000 Trucking Index fell 6.6% as traders rushed out of logistics names. CH Robinson Worldwide dropped 15% by the close after falling as much as 24% earlier in the session.

Landstar System slid 16%, while RXO fell 20.5%. JB Hunt Transportation Services and XPO each lost about 5%. The selling pressure spread beyond trucking, with drug distribution companies including McKesson Corp and Cardinal Health dropping about 4%. European logistics groups also took hits. DHL Group fell 4.9%, DSV A/S dropped 11%, and Kuehne+Nagel International AG lost 13% in late trading.

Algorhythm’s chief executive seemed surprised by the scale of the market reaction. “Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have imagined a day like today,” Atkinson said. “It’s almost like David versus Goliath.”

Algorhythm previously focused on karaoke technology before selling its Singing Machine unit to Stingray for $4.5m and pivoting toward AI freight software.

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