From Trucks to Data on Wheels: Penske’s AI and Data Journey

Every conversation with Penske CIO Sarvant Singh is a privilege. He’s a remarkable leader, and in our CXO Talk interview he not only shared Penske’s inspiring innovation story but also highlighted concrete examples of AI delivering measurable impact at scale

With over 430,000 vehicles and thousands of locations across North America, Penske is a vital part of how supply chains keep moving. But the story goes beyond trucks on the road. Behind the scenes, Penske has been transforming into a data-driven enterprise - and the results are extraordinary.

Each vehicle is now a rolling data center, equipped with hundreds of sensors producing massive streams of information. By integrating that real-time IoT data with operational and maintenance history, and then applying advanced AI models, Penske is turning complexity into intelligence.

The results speak for themselves:

• Proactive Diagnostics, their predictive AI solution, helped prevent 95,000 roadside breakdowns in a single year, ensuring drivers and goods reached their destinations without costly delays.

• Guided Repair, a prescriptive AI tool, supported 117,000 repairs, enabling technicians to resolve issues faster and with greater accuracy.

What makes this especially powerful is that these aren’t pilots or experiments. These are production AI solutions built by Penske’s own teams, in partnership with a trusted ecosystem that includes Qlik. Increasingly, their citizen developers - finance analysts, maintenance experts, business professionals - are using self-service tools to design and scale AI apps tailored to their needs.

The cultural shift is just as important as the technology. By embedding data literacy, AI literacy, and strong governance, Penske has created an environment where innovation can scale responsibly. Today, they have more than 170 Qlik developers and dozens of citizen data scientists creating hundreds of applications and logging millions of interactions every year.

For organizations looking to replicate Penske’s success, Sarvant highlights three key strategies:

1. Start with a strong data foundation

There is no good AI without good data. Stewardship, governance, and integration practices must be in place so AI projects can scale with confidence.

2. Make tools accessible to everyone

Self-service is the “easy button” for data and AI. When business users and citizen developers have access, they can solve problems directly, right where they happen.

3. Build an ecosystem of partners and talent

No one can do this alone. Success requires collaboration across business and technology stakeholders, supported by trusted partners like Qlik, who bring the right capabilities together at scale.

As vehicle technology evolves — from electrification to autonomy — the need for robust data and AI will only accelerate. Penske’s vision of each truck as a data center on wheels is inspiring. And it shows how disruptive technologies like AI and generative AI, powered by trusted data, can deliver real value for customers, employees, and the communities they serve.