United Rentals rolls out AI agent to support decision making

United Rentals has rolled out a new AI agent built with AI data cloud company Snowflake Intelligence across its 1,600 branches, to help with frontline decision making 

The Business Intelligence Agent allows branch managers, sales leaders, and regional teams to ask questions of their company data in plain language, drill down, and get actionable information quickly.

One of United Rentals’ 1,600 branches. (Image: United Rentals).

The agent brings together United Rentals’ financial, fleet, telematics, pricing, contract and operational data to create a single platform. Analysts can build queries and visualizations, while business users can ask real-time questions, reducing manual work and speeding decision-making.

Powered by Snowflake, it also enables employees to interact with data using natural language and understand not only what is happening, but why and is designed to deliver consistent, explainable, and accurate answers aligned with how the business operates, such as how metrics are calculated or how performance is measured.

Alongside this, United Rentals uses Snowflake’s Cortex Code which builds, tests, and scales additional AI agents faster and more reliably, and is helping it translate business logic and data context into production-ready AI apps, reducing the time from prototype to deployment.

Effective interactions 

According to United Rentals, the deployment of the Business Intelligence Agent gives employees a flexible, conversational way to interact with company data across financial and operational functions. Since it was introduced earlier this year, the company said it has seen steady growth in adoption and repeat usage, highlighting how AI can enhance business insight for companies managing large fleets and teams working across large geographically areas.

“Our innovation vision is to apply technology in ways that strengthen our operational processes and help our people do their jobs more effectively,” said Tony Leopold, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, United Rentals.

“Snowflake helps us build on our existing data foundation with a trusted, governed platform. With Snowflake Intelligence, employees can use natural language to better understand their data, discover actionable insights, and make more informed decisions.”

Mike Gannon, Chief Revenue Officer, Snowflake added that United Rentals is using Snowflake Intelligence to give employees clearer, faster answers in the moments that matter most. “By enabling frontline teams to ask natural language questions and get real-time, trusted answers without waiting on manual analysis, they’re embedding intelligence directly into daily decision-making.

“In large, complex organizations, it’s this consistent, governed intelligence that separates AI that truly works from AI that doesn’t.”