AI NewsFord’s new AI assistant will help fleet owners know if seatbelts are being used

Ford’s new AI assistant will help fleet owners know if seatbelts are being used

5:00 AM IST · March 12, 2026

Ford rolled out an AI assistant this week that can monitor and analyze millions of data points to help its Ford Pro commercial customers boost their bottom line. The bet, and one that most other automakers are making, is that there’s money to be made in software. Ford Pro AIdebuted at Work Truck Week in Indianapolis and is now available to all of its U.S.-based Pro telematics subscribers. The AI assistant is included in the subscription. Ford doesn’t disclose how many U.S. subscribers it has; it has more than 840,000 global subscribers. Ford Pro, which generated $66.3 billion in revenue in 2025, is a sensible target for the company as it seeks ways to give its paying customers more value. But it’s not its only one. Fordannounced earlier this yearat CES 2026 that it’s developing an AI assistant for owners of its passenger cars and trucks that will debut in the company’s smartphone app, before expanding to its vehicles in 2027. Ford emphasized to TechCrunch that this is not a mere chatbot. Instead, the company said its proprietary systems give subscribers detailed information about fuel consumption, seatbelt use, and vehicle health, not just a bunch of diagnostic error codes when something is wrong. It can also provide managers with information on idle times, speeding, and acceleration events across the fleet. Like its consumer AI assistant, Ford Pro AI is built off of Google Cloud and uses a number of AI agents. The secret sauce, per Ford, is its use of internal data from each customer’s fleet to reduce the potential of AI hallucinations and errors. Ford Pro, a business division that sales to Super Duty large trucks as well as commercial, government and rental customers, has become a moneymaker for the automaker. The Ford Pro business division reported a net income of $6.8 billion in 2025,according to its earnings report. The company said Ford Pro paid software subscriptions grew by 30% in 2025. Even as Ford rolls out AI tools for its customers, executive leadership has warned of impending job cuts because of the technology. Last year, CEO Jim Farleypredicted AIwould halve the number of white-collar jobs in the United States. In January, Farleysaidthat the U.S. needed essential workers to build and support the infrastructure needed to reach its AI moonshot goals.