Trucking companies say finding drivers is one of their biggest problems. The people behind the wheel, however, have another issue high on their list: trucks that might eventually do some of the driving themselves. A new industry survey puts those competing priorities side by side, with fuel prices adding pressure to both groups.
The American Transportation Research Institute’s 2026 Critical Issues in the Trucking Industry report ranks autonomous trucks as the fourth biggest concern among truck drivers. Artificial intelligence in trucking takes sixth place. Neither appears among motor carriers’ top 10 concerns, where a driver shortage ranks third.
That is an interesting picture of an industry weighing its immediate staffing needs against technology that could change the work. Employers need people to move freight today, while drivers have good reason to pay attention to what companies might automate tomorrow.
Among company drivers specifically, autonomous trucks rank third and AI ranks fourth, behind driver compensation and truck parking. Those are workers drawing a paycheck from a carrier, rather than independent operators running their own businesses. For someone considering trucking as a career, the prominence of automation on that list deserves attention.
Across the full survey, AI rose from tenth place in 2025 to seventh this year. Autonomous trucks climbed five positions to twelfth. ATRI treats the two as separate issues, which helps explain how technology can affect drivers well before a vehicle operates without someone in the cab.
The report points to AI-enabled cameras facing drivers that provide safety analysis and coaching, along with predictive maintenance that helps fleets schedule repairs and reduce downtime. Those applications could improve operations, but they also put software into decisions about how people work. ATRI additionally flags AI’s role in making cargo theft harder to deter, showing that its impact extends beyond productivity.
For all the attention on automation, however, fuel prices took the overall number one spot, jumping 17 places from last year. Thirty percent of respondents included fuel prices among their three leading concerns. It also topped the combined truck driver ranking for the first time in the survey’s 22-year history, driven by its number one position among owner-operators.
That makes sense. An independent operator has to keep a truck fueled while managing the cost of running a business. A discussion about future technology offers little immediate comfort when the expense of moving the next load is squeezing earnings. Motor carriers ranked fuel prices second, behind lawsuit abuse reform.
The wider results show plenty of other pressure. Insurance cost and availability ranked fourth overall, while the economy fell from first to sixth after three consecutive years at the top. Driver compensation came ninth, and driver retention rounded out the top 10.
ATRI collected responses from more than 3,000 stakeholders across North America between August 24 and October 2. Motor carrier executives and personnel accounted for 48.5 percent of participants, professional drivers represented 25.8 percent, and other stakeholders made up the rest. Respondents selected and ranked their three biggest issues, with ATRI assigning more weight to first-place choices.
This was a voluntary survey of industry priorities, so the results do not tell us how many driving jobs automation will replace. They also do not establish that everyone selecting AI or autonomous trucks had the same concern. Safety, employment, and the practical use of these systems can all enter that discussion.
Still, drivers deserve a say in how employers introduce this technology. If AI cameras will influence coaching or software will change the skills a job requires, companies should explain how those decisions work and what recourse workers have when systems get something wrong. Keeping trucks moving depends on the people doing the work, even as the industry invests in ways to automate parts of it.
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