Meet the author: Michael Higgins
Michael is the Founder of Loopit, a leading platform for vehicle subscription and rental management. With a background in automotive technology and over a decade of experience at the intersection of mobility and software, Michael brings a pragmatic perspective to innovation in the rental industry.
The opinions expressed in this article are only those of the author and not necessarily those of ACRA.
A recent Microsoft study analysing over 200,000 Copilot sessions revealed something unexpected: “Counter and Rental Clerks” ranked among the top 40 occupations where AI is already in active use.
This headline might seem counterintuitive at first. After all, car rental isn’t typically associated with bleeding-edge tech. But anyone who understands the operational tempo of the sector — high transaction volumes, tight margins, decentralized service delivery — will immediately see why AI has found fertile ground.
Recent headlines about AI in damage detection may have shaped some early perceptions, but they don’t tell the whole story. The real traction is happening in quieter, more everyday moments where AI is making frontline work more manageable and responsive.
It’s not arriving in the form of shiny dashboards or overpromised chatbots, but through individual staff members reaching for AI tools like Copilot or ChatGPT to make their jobs easier. Translating a customer message, drafting a policy update — these are real-world use cases happening on the frontlines. These aren’t tech experiments — they’re pragmatic solutions to long-standing pain points.
The real question is whether we treat these early signs as isolated workarounds — or as signals pointing to a larger shift.
I’ve spent the better part of a decade working at the intersection of software and mobility. And what I’ve come to understand is that AI doesn’t slot neatly into existing systems. It forces us to rethink how information is captured, shared, and acted on. That includes customer preferences, damage records, vehicle availability, payment rules — all the operational details we live and breathe.
To be clear, this isn’t about replacing rental staff. No algorithm is going to handle a last-minute booking during a long weekend rush better than someone who’s been doing it for years. But AI can take the edge off — helping the best teams be faster, clearer, and more consistent.
The challenge — and the opportunity — is ensuring that the underlying platforms are ready. That means structured data, flexible workflows, and systems that talk to each other. It means thinking about AI not as a feature, but as an evolution of how we operate.
For rental professionals, this is a moment to lean in. Not because we have to — but because we can. The teams that start asking how AI might streamline their branch ops, improve handovers, or reduce friction in fleet allocation will be better prepared when these tools become the norm rather than the exception.
Because AI won’t replace the people or the principles that make car rental work. But it will sharpen the divide between operators who adapt — and those who don’t.