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Rental businesses have plenty of data. Most already use dashboards, KPIs, and reports for revenue, utilization, maintenance, and customer activity. But what’s often missing is a quick, clear way to turn that data into decisions.
This was the main topic of a recent Point of Rental webinar, AI-Powered Rental Intelligence Suite: From Reports to Decisions. Collin Pike, Vice President of Platform and Data Science, and Brian Zarske, Rental Intelligence Suite Product Owner, walked attendees through the thinking behind the platform, a live demo, and shared results from beta customers.
The Problem Isn’t the Data. It’s Getting to the Answer.
As Pike explained, most rental businesses can already answer basic questions about what happened. Where things get harder is answering the questions that actually drive a decision: Why is utilization down, which customers are becoming inactive, why are costs increasing, what is actually driving revenue that month, and where to invest or divest.
Finding those answers has historically meant pulling reports from different systems, comparing them manually, and sometimes making phone calls. Depending on the question, this process can take anywhere from 20 minutes to two days. The challenge isn’t a lack of access to information. It’s the time it takes to turn that information into a decision.
Pike shared that when Point of Rental asked customers at an industry conference where they most wanted to see AI and machine learning applied, the answer wasn’t e-commerce or the counter experience. It was back-office decision support: where to move inventory, when to sell it, and how to reprice it.
He also told a story from onboarding a beta customer at ARA. While looking at the analytics page, they noticed one asset had zero activity on every metric. At first, they thought the data was wrong. But the customer’s operations manager explained that the asset, an excavator with no tires, had been sitting unused in the yard for two years. The data had been telling that story all along. It just hadn’t been visible.
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Reports as a Starting Point, Not a Finish Line
Rental Intelligence Suite isn’t meant to replace reporting. During the Q&A, Pike made this clear: Reporting, especially for executives and operations, is still important. “It doesn’t replace reports; it works hand-in-hand with reports,” he said.
The platform is designed to analyze the data in those reports and highlight what to do next, using plain language. You don’t need to know which report to run or how the data is set up. Pike summed it up during the presentation: What if the software worked like the best operations manager, someone who already knows the fleet and can answer your question right away, without sending you to run another report?
A Look Inside the Platform
Zarske gave a live demo that covered several parts of the suite.
| Feature | What It Does | Key Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard | Pre-built overview of ROI, utilization, worst-performing assets, and repair costs, with a natural language layer for building and adjusting widgets conversationally | Get to a custom view of the business without knowing which report to run |
| Analytics | Drills from a high-level view down to an individual serialized asset, with filtering, saved views, and period-over-period comparisons | A single, transparent source of truth for fleet performance |
| AI Insights | A daily briefing highlighting what needs attention that day, available in app or by email | Stay current without logging in every day |
| Disposition Planner | Flags assets against configurable thresholds for age, hours, and ROI, with an AI-generated keep or sell recommendation and direct listing through Storefront or Bidadoo | Turns a manual, multi-report decision into a guided one |
| Voice Agent | Configurable phone agent for after-hours calls or overflow, built on rental industry knowledge, with call summaries and sentiment logged automatically | Every call gets answered and captured, even outside business hours |
| Customer Analytics | Built on the recently acquired Owl technology, surfaces which customers are trending up, going quiet, or need outreach, with a 0 to 100 priority score | Helps sales teams focus on the accounts that matter most |
| Industry Benchmarks | Compares a fleet to the broader industry using the ARA equipment taxonomy, refreshed nightly | Removes the up to 90-day lag Pike said customers commonly face elsewhere |
| Fleet Advisor | Projects revenue and repair costs for individual assets roughly three months out, using Monte Carlo simulations against historical data | Plan ahead instead of reacting after performance has already dropped |
Every calculated metric in Analytics has an info icon that shows exactly how it was figured out. As Pike said, “we don’t want anything to be a black box of AI or machine learning.” For Industry Benchmarks, he explained that the data is anonymized and aggregated to meet antitrust and fair use standards, and predictive data for each account stays separate for that customer. Pike also previewed two upcoming Fleet Advisor features: fleet-expansion scenario planning and a fleet-balancing tool to help multi-location operators put assets where they’re needed most.
What Beta Customers Are Saying
Both presenters shared stories from customers who are already using the platform in closed beta:
- One customer told Zarske that comparing their fleet used to take a whole day, but now it only takes about thirty minutes.
- Several customers have made six-figure fleet decisions based directly on information from the analytics page.
- A disposition evaluation that used to take about 45 minutes per asset now takes just two minutes. As Zarske put it, “it takes them 2 minutes to figure out whether they should be selling an asset or not in a way that no one has been able to before.”
What’s Coming Next
The session also previewed a few upcoming features:
- A Disposition Agent, coming soon, that automates more of the research and ranking behind disposition recommendations.
- Fleet Expansion and Fleet Balancing features, planned for later this summer.
- Expanded support for unserialized and bulk assets to better serve party and event rental businesses, planned for later this year.
- Regional segmentation within Industry Benchmarks, also planned for later this year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Rental Intelligence Suite replace my existing reports?
No. Pike was clear that reporting remains important, particularly for executive and operational use. The platform is designed to analyze the reported data and help surface recommended next steps.
Is this available for Essentials or Syrinx customers?
Rental Intelligence Suite is currently built for Elite customers. Syrinx, Point of Rental’s product for EMEA and APAC customers, recently entered its own closed beta, with an open beta to follow. Integration with Essentials is in development, and tests with select customers will begin soon.
Do I need to be cloud-based to use it?
No. Customers need to be on the latest version of Elite, but it can be on-prem or cloud-based.
Can the data be exported?
Yes. Export was one of the first requests from closed beta customers, and it has been built into the features shown during the demo.
Is this useful for event and tent rental businesses?
The demo focused on equipment and general tool rental, since that reflects the platform’s current depth for serialized assets. Support built specifically around unserialized and bulk assets, which is more common in party and event rental, is planned for later this year.
How is customer data protected within Industry Benchmarks?
Benchmark data is anonymized and aggregated in line with legal requirements such as antitrust guidelines. Predictive insights generated for an individual account remain fully segmented to that customer.
How do I get access?
Reach out to your account manager for details on availability and next steps.
Watch the Webinar
Watch the full session, including the live platform demo and Q&A:
Ready to turn your rental data into your next decision? See Rental Intelligence Suite in action and discover how AI-powered insights can help your team move from reports to real decisions, faster.