Sanchit Garg poses three challenging questions for rental car operators rapidly becoming more relevant to success:

1. How do you translate AI into real action for outcomes? 

2. How do you actually use it to be more agile as it relates to your pricing? 

3. How do you use the data to price it twice or five times a day, or 12 times a day? 

To answer the third question, a car rental operator tapping into AI can adjust prices every five minutes on certain days if that’s most profitable.

“You can create a strategy on an AI dashboard that you can roll out for a day, or for a week, and know how your strategy is performing,” said Garg, CEO of RateGain’s Rev AI division. “It works better than manually changing prices. AI has become powerful in running car rental businesses, which face hundreds of problems to solve daily. Now you can ask the AI analyst what happened and what to do tomorrow, in six months, and next year.”

RateGain is a global travel tech provider of AI-powered SaaS for the world's top airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and OTAs.

For car rental operations, this means providing AI-driven pricing and revenue management products that help them maximize fleet usage, devise profitable pricing strategies, and enhance customer experience.

Garg recently spoke with ARN about the latest innovations in the global car rental industry, the role of artificial intelligence, and what operators can expect in the years ahead.

He joined RevAI as CEO in June of this year, bringing 15+ years of experience in e-commerce, technology, sales and strategy. 

That includes founding Rartogo, a global digital platform for sourcing and exporting engineered goods such as automotive parts; executive roles at ONE Championship, a media and e-sports unicorn backed by venture/capital and private equity; and leadership positions at Lazada, an e-commerce unicorn also with VC/PE backing, acquired by Alibaba Group. 

He also worked as an associate at McKinsey & Company, serving clients that included Fortune 500 companies from both the private and public sectors across automotive, high-tech, and pharmaceutical industries.

ARN: When looking at the global car rental sector, what are some of Rev AI’s plans for developing new innovations, products, and services? What should the industry be on the lookout for?

Garg: If you step back and look at the car rental industry since COVID, demand patterns have been erratic. Rev AI was created to help car rental companies and pricing teams improve forecasting accuracy and agility. 

Today, the industry faces hyper-competition and new challenges from car-sharing platforms like Turo. Rev AI helps companies use their data to move from being price takers to price leaders. For example, we worked with a client in Calgary who used Rev AI to expand fleet size during peaks, doubling throughput and revenue.

ARN: So the more real-time data you have, the more operators can make fluid, profitable decisions on pricing, fleet, and operations?

Garg: Exactly. Many operators lack the bandwidth to process all the data — including hotel ADRs, flight arrivals, competitor pricing, and more. Rev AI aggregates these to give actionable forecasts. The franchisees bring their local expertise, and together, we create powerful insights for pricing and operations.

ARN: AI is still a challenge for many U.S. operators. What AI-related changes should they prepare for in the next few years?

Garg: We’re past the stage of manually pulling Excel data. AI can now surface what matters most, allowing operators to focus on informed decision-making. Second, the industry will shift toward micro-experimentation — conducting brief tests on pricing and demand strategies at specific locations. If successful, those can be rolled out broadly. The key skills now involve leveraging technology for informed business decisions, rather than manual data entry.

ARN: When you say people want to shop many times a day, do you mean consumers or rental operators?

Garg: I’m referring to operators checking competitor prices. Increased competition and better AI tools are driving this.

ARN: A rental car industry vendor has recently launched what it calls the first all-AI car rental company. How viable is this concept?

Garg: AI is powerful, but it’s not magic. Car rental has many operations —insurance, buying, and selling — that can’t or shouldn’t be fully automated. Companies should focus on replacing building blocks with AI rather than aiming for full autonomy right away. At Rev AI, we’re moving toward a fully autonomous co-pilot model, where operators can chat with the system like an analyst, asking about pricing, demand, and fleet strategy in real-time.

ARN: For example, with the LA Olympics, could rental operators use AI to anticipate peaks in demand based on travel and hotel data?

Garg: Exactly. Rev AI provides stock market-like demand charts, updated in real time as pricing changes. This allows operators to see immediate impacts and gives them confidence to raise prices during peaks, even if competitors are lowering theirs. Peaks define much of the annual revenue, and missing out by even an hour can cost significantly.

ARN: Any final thoughts on RateGain’s role and future collaborations?

Garg: We’re grateful for the trust global operators place in RateGain and Rev AI. The AI wave is already transforming our products, and we’re building solutions with partners like Amazon and Google to push the industry forward. We look forward to collaborating with others to share insights and advance the industry.