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Kansas City: The Quiet Epicenter of Modern Freight

Kaja Kusińska · June 16, 2026 · 4 min read

We sat down with Kevin Coomes, CRO at Chain, an AI-powered freight visibility platform that automates manual work, and George Schergen, CCO at Dynamic Logistix, a Kansas City-area 3PL and transportation management company.

They discuss why Kansas City is becoming one of the most important freight hubs in the United States, how freight tech is evolving, and why the future of logistics will still depend on human relationships—even as AI takes over workflows.

What Makes Kansas City a Magnet for Logistics Investment

The conversation with Kevin Coomes and George Schergen made one thing clear: Kansas City isn’t just a convenient freight hub anymore, it’s becoming a distribution engine for the modern U.S. supply chain. Why?:

located in the center of the U.S.
every Class I railroad runs through the city
strong warehousing infrastructure
lower operating costs

George’s first thought when he thinks of Kansas City from a freight perspective is simple: it’s a central hub.

“Shippers like this area because they can target the location of their customers and can hit those places in two to three days by utilizing the trailer, LTL, and truckload. All those things combined make it really attractive from a freight perspective.”

As for Kevin, he's seen a big push from the Chicagoland area towards Kansas City.

“The cost is a lot more manageable in the Kansas City area.”

And this is just the beginning.

The Real Drivers: Amazon, Automation, and Speed Expectations

The shift isn’t just geographic—it’s behavioral.

The rise of 1–2 day delivery expectations (“the Amazon effect”) has completely reshaped how freight networks are designed.

"You've seen a lot of that shift over to more of that full truckload or expedited or LTL freight because of the way customers or their product. They want that product. They want it now."

In recent years, Kansas City has attracted major investments from companies such as Panasonic (with its ~$4B lithium-ion battery plant investment), Amazon (major driver of e-commerce fulfillment expansion), and Garmin, which maintains its headquarters in the city.

The result: Kansas City sits directly in the flow of modern logistics.

In 2024, Dynamic Logistix partnered with Chain for their AI-powered load matching and booking tool, further signaling how logistics tech and regional distribution networks are collaborating in markets like Kansas City.

Freight Tech Is Running Into a Reality Check

If there was a shared theme across both of our guests, it was this:

Most freight technology still doesn’t understand freight operations deeply enough.

Kevin Coomes didn’t hesitate:

Building tools without understanding how brokers, shippers, and carriers actually work won't get you anywhere:

“ You could be the most brilliant tech designer in the world, but if you don't understand the customer's problem, it's not going to work”

But neither did George:

Overcompensating on “shiny tech” instead of real workflows won't work either:

“There are a lot of pretty things and shiny things in this space. The people will show you it doesn't mean it's going to do what you need to do at the end of the day”

AI in Freight: Acceleration Without Replacement

Both Kevin and George were also aligned on where AI is heading: many startups won’t survive:

Kevin:

“There's always a separation of the weed in the chaff when you have something like this technology boom. There will be a lot of companies that don't make it or they get acquired for cheap because they didn't succeed, but they have good tech that they built, so somebody will pick them.”

AI will replace repetitive tasks and improve efficiency, but it will NOT replace human relationships in freight brokerage.

George:

“If you're ultimately losing that tangible communication... you're going to see that immediate ROI dip, and all of a sudden numbers are not going to look like they were before, because you've lost customers, because you're not doing the same things you were doing previously because you rely too much on some type of tech platform.”

Both have the same outlook on being physically in front of customers.

George:

“You can do all those Teams calls, you can set up all the demos via the web, but it's so important to get in front of them because we're not the only people in this space that's doing the same thing. That customer service aspect is so important in our space, it's never going to go away.”

Tech will keep evolving, and networks will keep expanding, but as both Kevin and George pointed out, it all comes back to the same thing: showing up, understanding your customer, and doing the work in person when it matters.

Watch it on YouTube now, or listen to the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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