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

Ford rolled out an AI assistant this week that can monitor and analyze millions of data points to help Ford Pro commercial customers boost their bottom lines.

The bet most other automakers are making is that money can be made from software.

Ford Pro AI debuted at Work Truck Week in Indianapolis, and is now available to all Pro telematics subscribers in the US. The AI ​​assistant is included in the subscription. Ford does not disclose how many U.S. subscribers it has; It has more than 840,000 global subscribers.

Ford Pro, with revenue of $66.3 billion in 2025, is a reasonable target for the company as it seeks ways to give its paying customers more value. But she’s not the only one. Ford announced earlier this year at CES 2026 that it is 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 confirmed to TechCrunch that this is not just a chatbot. Instead, the company said its own systems provide subscribers with detailed information about fuel consumption, seat belt usage, and vehicle health, not just a set of diagnostic error codes when something is wrong. It can also provide managers with information about idle times, speed and acceleration events across the fleet.

Like the consumer AI assistant, the Ford Pro AI is built from Google Cloud and uses a number of AI agents. The secret sauce, for Ford, is its use of internal data from each customer’s fleet to reduce the likelihood of AI-related hallucinations and errors.

Ford Pro, a business division that includes large Super Duty trucks as well as sales to commercial, government and rental customers, has become a moneymaker for the automaker. Ford’s Pro business division generated net income of $6.8 billion in 2025, according to its earnings report. Ford Pro paid software subscriptions grew 30% in 2025, the company said.

Even as Ford rolls out AI tools to its customers, executive leadership has warned of impending job cuts due to the technology. Last year, CEO Jim Farley predicted that artificial intelligence would cut the number of white-collar jobs in the United States in half. In January, Farley said the United States needs essential workers to build and support the infrastructure needed to achieve its AI goals.