United Rentals Introduces AI-Powered Equipment Agent
United Rentals Inc. last week announced the launch of the Equipment Agent, a first-of-its-kind AI-powered equipment recommendation solution designed specifically for the equipment rental industry. The new digital assistant helps customers discover, compare and select the right equipment for their projects by delivering instant, intelligent equipment rental guidance online.
The Equipment Agent provides personalized recommendations based on a customer’s project requirements. Through a conversational interface, customers can describe their job needs in plain language and receive tailored equipment suggestions in seconds, while also comparing equipment types and reviewing key specifications such as capacity, reach, terrain limitations and required accessories. The AI-powered assistant is part of United Rentals’ growing portfolio of digital capabilities designed to help customers manage their equipment needs.
By simplifying equipment discovery and providing expert guidance earlier in the planning process, the Equipment Agent helps customers make faster, more confident, rental decisions.
The solution connects users to detailed product pages on unitedrentals.com, streamlining the path from research to reservation. Built using real customer questions and refined through extensive testing by United Rentals sales and equipment experts, the Equipment Agent reflects decades of fleet knowledge and practical jobsite expertise.
“The Equipment Agent connects United Rentals’ equipment expertise with our customers' needs,” said Tony Leopold, senior vice president and chief technology and strategy officer at United Rentals. “It replaces traditional searching and filtering with an intuitive, agentic chat experience. Customers using the Equipment Agent are seeing a 70-percent improvement in finding the right equipment for their projects.”
Advancing United Rentals’ Innovation Strategy
The Equipment Agent supports United Rentals’ broader innovation strategy, which focuses on combining digital tools, connected equipment and data insights to help customers plan, operate more efficiently and keep projects moving. By applying AI to the equipment discovery process, United Rentals is simplifying how customers identify the right solutions and accelerating the path from project planning to equipment on site.
The Equipment Agent also expands how United Rentals delivers its equipment expertise to customers. By connecting users to insights drawn from the company’s extensive fleet, services and jobsite experience, United Rentals is making it easier to access the guidance and resources needed to plan and execute work with confidence.
It also represents another step in United Rentals’ ongoing investment in a connected digital ecosystem for the jobsite, where intelligent tools, equipment expertise and one of the industry’s largest fleets work together to support better decision-making. Customers can engage with the digital capabilities that best fit their workflow while seamlessly connecting to United Rentals’ broader network of equipment, services and support.
The Equipment Agent is available today and can be accessed at unitedrentals.com.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.