Every month we write down what we shipped, what we broke, and what we're working on next. Here's April 2026.
What shipped
Carrier Dashboard Rebuild. The previous carrier dashboard had a fundamental wiring problem — interactive elements were connected to hidden placeholder elements instead of visible ones. Buttons appeared to work in testing but did nothing when clicked by external users. We rebuilt the DOM structure from scratch. Tab navigation now works, sign-out works, load actions work. This should have been caught earlier and wasn't. Lesson learned about the difference between internal testing and external usage patterns.
Rate Con AI accuracy improvement. Pushed an update to our PDF extraction model that improved accuracy on regional broker formats from 87% to 94%. The improvement came from adding 2,000+ new rate con examples to our training dataset, specifically from smaller regional brokers whose formats we had underrepresented previously.
Carrier Vetting Beta. Initial version of carrier safety lookup is live in ESSE Portal. Search by MC number, get FMCSA SAFER data, safety rating, and insurance verification status. Currently text-based results — the visual dashboard UI is coming in May.
Site-wide security hardening. Several API endpoints in the marketing routes had missing authentication middleware. Found during internal audit. Fixed same day. None of the endpoints exposed sensitive carrier data — they were AI call center communication routes — but they should have been protected and weren't.
What broke
The Chrome performance issue. The site was using backdrop-filter: blur() on multiple overlapping sections simultaneously, which caused visible jitter when scrolling in Chrome. Fixed by removing the blur from section backgrounds while preserving it on navigation and card elements. Safari was unaffected — Safari handles stacked blur layers significantly better than Chrome.
What we're working on in May
Carrier vetting UI — the visual dashboard version of the safety lookup tool. Load board integration research — we're evaluating the DAT API for direct integration. AI dispatcher improvements — Aida gets confused when brokers interrupt mid-sentence; we're working on interrupt handling. Mobile responsiveness fixes on several pages that were rebuilt quickly and didn't get proper mobile QA.
A note on transparency
We write these updates because we think carriers deserve to know what's actually happening with the platform they depend on. Not a polished press release. Not feature announcements timed to a marketing calendar. Just: here's what worked, here's what didn't, here's what's next.
If you found a bug or have a feature request, email us at office@esseinc.com. Most bug reports get a response the same day. Feature requests go on the list — and the list is shorter than you'd think, because we're building what customers ask for, not what looks good in demos.