Fleet managers can now react within minutes as Ford Pro AI, which debuted this week, translates data into decisive recommendations and reduces the time from insight to action.
Ford Pro AI debuted Tuesday afternoon at NTEA Work Truck Week in Indianapolis. It is designed to help simplify fleet management by turning responsibilities, big and small, into tasks you can complete in minutes. It’s now available to Ford Pro Telematics Software subscribers in the U.S.
“Today I’m excited to share the next step on our journey. As many of you know, Artificial Intelligence is the fastest adopted technology in human history, reaching 100 million users in just two months,” said Kevin Dunbar, general manager for Ford Pro Intelligence. “And while there is still a lot to learn, we believe AI can play a crucial role in helping our customers be more productive, efficient, and effective in managing their fleets.”
Ford Pro AI is part of Ford's vision, shared earlier this year at CES, to bring impactful technology not only to the families who rely on Ford Pro, but also to the businesses that use its trucks and vans to get their work done.
How Ford Pro AI Helps Fleet Managers
“Designed to simplify the complex and make the routine effortless, Ford Pro AI takes the millions of data points commercial vehicles can generate, from seatbelt clicks to vehicle health signals, and turns them into insights fleet managers can use to act quickly,” Dunbar explained. “And we are not just integrating with a standard large language model. Decades of engineering expertise have gone into providing accurate, manufacturer-grade vehicle data. Having direct vehicle data means not having to rely on diagnostic trouble codes (DTC) codes and other surface-level information used by other tools.”
Managing a fleet is a balancing act. Drivers want to get their work done and finish their shifts safely. Meanwhile, the company demands efficiency; you need to optimize routing, vehicle maintenance, safety, and budgets.
As a fleet manager, you wear many hats, including human resources, scheduling, dispatch, maintenance, driving, inventory, warehouse, tracking costs, and customer service.
Ford Pro AI helps you master your multi-hat role by turning complex duties into tasks completed in minutes. Ford Pro said you can more quickly review vehicle performance and health, driver performance, analyze service needs, and adjust strategies on the fly.
Ford Pro surveyed fleet managers to understand how much time they spend on specific job duties. They reported that, on average, more than 23 hours a week are devoted to juggling routine tasks ranging from scheduling service to managing drivers and tracking costs.
What could you do with these hours back each week?
Fleet Managers Survey Results
Fleet managers surveyed anticipate that using AI could help them save an average of 40% of their time or more on daily tasks each week. To ensure Ford Pro addressed real fleet pain points, it worked with early access customers like Mackenzie Meis, who manages over 2,000 vehicles for CentiMark, a commercial roofing company. Her verdict? “It has saved me time by pulling up important vehicle data and summaries on demand. If an office has a question, I can have an answer for them in minutes.”
Ford Pro AI leverages proprietary systems to provide more accuracy and details about your vehicles’ health. The company said this helps remove the guesswork to get to the core of an issue quickly.
Example of How Ford Pro AI Works
Imagine you’re a fleet manager operating 25 vehicles for a plumbing company. Let’s ask Ford Pro AI “What vehicles need service this month?” Ford Pro AI quickly responds with a list of vehicles in your fleet that need service based on their vehicle health data.
You can easily follow up to dive deeper into a specific vehicle’s diagnostics and ask “Tell me more about what’s wrong with vehicle Tango” then ask about the specific issue, to quickly get recommendations that can help you prioritize which vehicles to service first – preventing unwanted downtime.
You can use Ford Pro AI to quickly navigate to the service scheduling feature in your Ford Pro Telematics Software to easily book a maintenance or repair appointment at one of our more than 760 Ford Pro Commercial Vehicle Centers, all within your software.
Using Ford Pro AI to Track Costs
Fleet managers also reported spending more than two hours per week on tracking costs on average. Here’s another example showing how Ford Pro AI could help do that quicker. Imagine managing 150 last-mile delivery vehicles. Fuel costs are spiking. Usually, you’d spend hours digging through fuel logs and cross-referencing routes and receipts. This time, you ask Ford Pro AI for help.
Quickly, it analyzes vehicle and fuel utilization, idle times, speeding, and acceleration events across the fleet to help you identify the issues. You quickly get a list of recommendations to reduce fuel costs based on your fleet’s unique utilization.
Then you drill down for a list of vehicles with the highest fuel costs in the last 30 days. Ford Pro AI quickly identifies specific vehicles with irregular patterns that are driving higher fuel costs.
Armed with that data, it’s time to take action. You ask Ford Pro AI to draft an email to your supervisor recommending specific steps for these vehicles and drivers to help reduce fuel costs.
What used to take an afternoon now takes minutes. And when this intelligence comes directly from embedded modems in your Ford commercial vehicles, you get manufacturer-grade accuracy, not guesswork.
“Fleet managers can now react within minutes as Ford Pro AI translates data into decisive recommendations on how to streamline operations, reducing the time from insight to impact,” Dunbar said.