AI Entrant Series: Proliferate or Participate? Public Transportation: TYL and IOT

In this third report of our AI Entrant Series, we analyze Tyler Technologies (TYL) and Samsara (IOT) in the context of public transportation, where these two otherwise different companies share some overlap, and examine AI-native solutions seeking to compete in the same space. Uniquely, rather than hearing about the same one or two AI-native competitors, we encountered multiple smaller AI-native solutions, suggesting a more fragmented market; however, we think OpenGov and C3.ai have the most potential read-through to both Tyler and Samsara. While Tyler and Samsara are often framed as "back-office GovTech" vs. "front-line IoT," their overlap is increasingly real because public transportation is where software-of-record and real-world operations collide, notably in K-12 school bus and broader municipal fleets. The battleground is not whether an AI-native entrant can displace either incumbent outright, but whether Tyler can extend down-market into operational telemetry/safety workflows or