Beyond safety - CTO John Bicket explains how Samsara is methodically building the system of record for connected operations

Samsara is in the midst of an evolution from being a safety-focused telematics provider to what it envisions as the comprehensive system of record for physical operations. Speaking with CTO and Co-Founder John Bicket at the company's Beyond conference in San Diego this week, it's clear that Samsara's ambitions are beginning to extend well beyond its key use case for customer adoption (safety) - but the path there is measured, customer-driven, and grounded in the realities of industries that have been historically resistant to digital transformation.

However, what's particularly interesting about Samsara's approach is how it has used safety as a wedge to establish trust and demonstrate value in sectors where pen-and-paper processes still dominate. Now, with that foothold firmly established, the company is systematically expanding its platform to include a fuller spectrum of physical operations - from route planning and maintenance management to asset tracking and workforce safety beyond vehicles.

The safety wedge strategy pays dividends

Bicket's enthusiasm for the expanding use cases is evident, but it's tempered by a clear understanding of why safety remains the entry point for most customers. As he explains during our conversation, the ROI on safety programs is "so good" that organizations can implement dash cams, run safety programs, and see dramatic reductions in accidents and insurance costs - all within about six months.  Bicket says:

It's all very contained, so they can just go do it. They do the before and the after, and then they're like, ‘Clearly, this delivers real value’.

This isn't just vendor speak. Yesterday we heard how The Home Depot has seen an 80 percent reduction in delivery-related accidents and over 60 percent reduction in overall claims since implementing Samsara. For a self-insured company, those translate directly into cash flow that can be reinvested in further technology improvements.

But here's where Samsara's strategy is evolving. Once those dash cams are installed for safety purposes, they're also capturing telematics data. And once customers see the value from safety programs, they're primed to explore what else that data can do for them.  Bicket explains:

Usually when they're installing the dash cams, they're going to do telematics at the same time. What we've generally seen is that there's a second or third series of projects that the customers just immediately do because it's already there and it's a case of just kind of turning it on.

The importance of hardware investment

A counterintuitive element of Samsara's strategy is its continued investment in hardware development, even as the broader technology industry pivots toward software-only solutions. Bicket's explanation of this choice reveals how Samsara thinks about serving its customers:

Obviously, if you could do it all through software, it's just frictionless, and that's the nice thing about it. The most difficult thing about the hardware stuff, especially with our customers, is actually the installation and the management of it.

Yet Samsara persists with hardware for strategic reasons. First, it ensures ownership of the stack across diverse operational environments, citing the variety of vehicle types that customers operate. Bicket says:

Having our own piece of hardware there lets us be consistent across a bunch of different things.

More importantly, hardware enables capabilities that software alone cannot deliver. When discussing the new wearable device announced yesterday, Bicket recounts how Samsara initially tried to create a panic button feature in software only: 

There were a lot of cases where they needed to have the button—they can't just hit the panic button on their phone in the situations that they are in.

This hardware investment also serves a dual purpose in Samsara's platform strategy. Not only does it solve immediate customer problems, but each piece of hardware becomes another data collection point, feeding the expanding platform with more contextual information. The asset tags tracking equipment, the wearables monitoring worker safety, the dash cams capturing road conditions - all contribute to a richer operational dataset that enables more sophisticated platform capabilities.

From safety to operational intelligence

The progression Bicket describes follows a logical pattern: safety first, then fuel efficiency programs (which use similar coaching methodologies), then maintenance optimization, and eventually into more complex areas like route planning and comprehensive workflow management. Each step builds on the trust and infrastructure established by the previous one.

This sequential approach addresses a fundamental challenge in digital transformation for physical operations: these organizations often have multiple systems, acquired companies with different technology stacks, and deeply entrenched processes. As Bicket notes, most larger companies "have actually done at least one acquisition internally" and "usually actually have multiple groups that might be running different stacks across their ERP applications."

The complexity this creates can't be understated. When Samsara announces new features for maintenance or route planning, Bicket explains, the real work is in understanding:

How are these going to get deployed in the organizations? We kind of need to show wins at every step along the way. And we're probably going to have to coexist with other systems.

Physical operations leapfrogging traditional IT

The dynamics Bicket describes around how physical operations companies are approaching digital transformation reveal a surprising shift from conventional enterprise IT patterns. In several conversations, he notes an unexpected eagerness to bypass traditional IT bottlenecks. Bicket says:

I had three conversations today where folks were a little bit like, 'Hmm, if I don't have to do an integration with the IT department, we actually might be able to roll something out much faster’. They were the ones really pushing the envelope.

This represents a significant shift from just a few years ago, when these same organizations might have been characterized as technology laggards. The catalyst? According to Bicket, widespread AI adoption among the workforce is helping. When one presenter asks conference attendees how many had used ChatGPT or Gemini in the last week, Bicket observes that "more than 80% of the hands went up, which is just amazing to see that kind of rollout, or that kind of change happen so fast."

This adoption makes more sense when you consider the unique position of physical operations workers. Unlike office-based knowledge workers who might view AI as a threat to their jobs, drivers, technicians, and field workers see AI as a tool that eliminates tedious administrative tasks without threatening the physical nature of their work. Bicket explains:

Folks are really starting to push the envelope, they’re really understanding there's a lot of things that these AIs can do that eliminate a lot of work that was just not that fun - whether it's data entry or other stuff. 

This dynamic creates an interesting paradox: industries that were slow to digitize might actually leapfrog traditional enterprise IT adoption patterns because their workers are less threatened by and more eager to embrace AI assistance. They're not worried about AI replacing them behind the wheel or in the field - they're excited about AI handling the paperwork they never wanted to do in the first place.

The network effect emerges

As noted in my previous piece, Samsara's scale is now enabling capabilities that individual organizations could never achieve on their own. With 120 billion API calls and 14 trillion data points flowing through its platform, the company has visibility into operational patterns across industries and geographies that it's beginning to use in interesting ways.

The new Street Sense capability announced this week highlights this approach. By aggregating anonymized dash cam imagery from millions of connected vehicles, Samsara can provide near real-time visibility into road conditions and weather impacts across vast areas. During the keynote demonstration, the system shows images from flood zones in Texas with timestamps from just seconds earlier. It also allows Samsara to provide contextual awareness to why and how drivers made certain decisions - decisions that they may have been penalized for, if the AI didn’t have the broader context of what risks were at play. 

But the network effects go beyond weather monitoring. Bicket sees particular value in benchmarking capabilities that help customers understand their performance relative to peers. This isn't about abstract metrics - it's about actionable insights that can drive specific improvements:

If we come back to them and say, four out of five things you guys are in line with and don't really need to work on. But if we say, we see a lot more speeding in your organization than is typical...it's much easier to take action on it rather than it being just an abstract idea. 

The workforce and asset expansion

Samsara's push into workforce and asset management reveals how far the company's ambitions extend beyond its original vehicle-focused offerings. The new wearable device announced this week, capable of more than a year of battery life by leveraging the Samsara network rather than cellular connectivity, extends safety capabilities to workers operating outside vehicles.

The asset tracking capabilities introduced last year are already showing significant returns. Bicket shares that some organizations are reporting savings of "tens of millions of dollars of losses per year" by recovering equipment that would otherwise disappear. One customer discovers millions of dollars in theft recovery opportunities they "didn't really have great visibility into before."

Yet even with these successes, Bicket acknowledges that many customers are still determining optimal deployment strategies: 

They actually have been going through and doing a couple trials with it and figuring out exactly where to put this. For them, they need to do a little bit of ROI calculation.

Where Samsara's platform strategy becomes most apparent is in its approach to workflows. Rather than simply collecting and analyzing data, the company is increasingly focused on how that data integrates into daily operations. Bicket's conversation with a natural gas and propane delivery company illustrates this evolution. He explains: 

We were really discussing and mapping out the workflows and the driver's whole day. How do they plan their work in the morning? Where does the information live that they generate the orders from to figure out where they need to stop during the day?

The discussion covers everything from route sequencing to customer notes, from tank level monitoring to hazmat compliance, from ERP integration to automated documentation. It's a comprehensive view of operations that goes far beyond simple vehicle tracking.

While AI underpins many of these advances, Samsara's approach is more grounded compared to the AI hype dominating much of enterprise technology. Bicket frames it as giving "superpowers to the safety admins" - augmenting human capabilities rather than replacing workers.

The AI implementations announced this week - from contextual analysis of driving events to voice-to-text conversion for inspection reports - are targeted at reducing friction in existing workflows. This pragmatic approach reflects both Samsara's understanding of its customer base and the unique dynamics of physical operations work.

The platform play takes shape

What emerges from these conversations and announcements is a picture of Samsara methodically building toward its vision of becoming "the ERP platform for the physical world." But unlike traditional ERP implementations that require massive upfront investment and organizational change, Samsara's approach allows customers to start small - typically with safety - and expand based on proven value.

This incremental strategy addresses the reality that Bicket articulates: customers need help with sequencing. They need to understand which projects to tackle first, how to build internal momentum, and how to demonstrate value at each step. By starting with safety's clear ROI and expanding into adjacent areas that leverage the same infrastructure and data, Samsara provides a roadmap for digital transformation that feels achievable rather than overwhelming.

The third-party integration capabilities Bicket discusses - the "open platform" - further reinforce this approach. Rather than forcing customers to abandon existing systems, Samsara is building to coexist and complement. This is particularly important for the route planning capabilities, where Bicket describes how Samsara offers everything from basic stop sequencing tools for simpler operations to full dynamic routing for more sophisticated fleets - allowing customers to adopt the level of technology that matches their current operational maturity.

As Samsara continues to expand its platform capabilities, the focus remains firmly on delivering value at each step of the journey. Bicket says: 

We basically have to earn their trust that these do result in wins. We've been spending a lot of time in the last few years, really trying to understand: where are they spending money? Where do they believe the wins are?

My take

It’s been a very interesting week so far at Beyond. There's clear momentum at the company, but some hurdles do remain for Samsara. Many organizations in the vendor’s target markets still rely heavily on manual processes. The company's asset tracking offerings are still in early adoption phases as customers work through ROI calculations. And while the AI capabilities are impressive, they still require careful change management to ensure adoption.

Moreover, as Samsara expands its platform capabilities, it increasingly competes with established players in spaces like TMS and route optimization. The company's advantage lies in its integrated approach and the trust it's built through safety programs, but converting that advantage into dominance across multiple operational domains won't be automatic.

Yet the opportunity is clearly there. Bicket's observation about the rapid advancement of AI models suggests that applications previously impossible are becoming viable. Combined with a customer base that's surprisingly eager to embrace AI - precisely because it enhances rather than threatens their physical work - Samsara may have found the perfect moment to accelerate its platform ambitions.

The vision of becoming the system of record for connected operations is ambitious, but Samsara's methodical approach makes it achievable. By meeting customers where they are, showing value at every step, and building on established trust, the company is creating a new playbook for digital transformation in physical operations.

As I've noted previously, plenty of IoT platform providers have struggled to find sustainable business models. Samsara's focused, application-specific approach has not only delivered clear ROI for customers but positioned the company to capture a much larger opportunity. The next few years will reveal whether this methodical expansion can maintain momentum as the company moves beyond its safety stronghold into the full complexity of physical operations.