CanLift Deploys Employee-Led AI Across Rentals for Instant Support and Smarter Operations

CanLift Rolls Out AI Across Rental Operations With Employee-Led Innovation

CanLift Equipment Ltd. has deployed AI across customer and internal operations, setting a practical example for operations leaders in asset-heavy businesses. The focus: faster response times, tighter dispatch, and smoother cash flow without sacrificing a people-first culture.

The company operates in the MEWP rental space and is among the first in Canada to integrate AI at this depth across workflows. The timing aligns with projected growth in construction rentals and rising expectations for speed and service.

How AI Shows Up in the Workflow

• 24/7 support: Clive (CanLift Intelligent Virtual Expert) now handles website inquiries with instant responses.
• AI-powered call routing: Calls reach the right department faster, cutting missed calls and shortening time to resolution.
• Faster quotes, less downtime: The combined impact is quicker turnaround for rental requests and fewer delays for customers.

Employee-Led Adoption: The "AI Club"

Internally, CanLift formed an employee-led AI Club to build and test use cases. This bottom-up approach sped up adoption and ensured tooling solved real problems.

• Custom GPTs: Built in-house for fleet optimization, prioritizing urgent repairs, and cash flow management.
• Service and dispatch: Quicker service calls and more accurate dispatching based on live priorities.
• Back office wins: Faster accounts receivable collections and cleaner handoffs.
• Training at scale: AI-generated videos support onboarding and ongoing knowledge transfer.

What Operations Leaders Can Learn

• Start where latency hurts: Website inquiries and phone routing are high-traffic, high-friction points that AI can stabilize quickly.
• Make adoption employee-led: An internal AI forum surfaces practical use cases and builds trust.
• Instrument the work: Track speed to quote, first-response time, dispatch accuracy, service call completion time, and DSO in AR.
• Turn SOPs into assets: Use AI video and structured prompts to standardize training and reduce shadow time.

Results Backed by the Team

"There's no doubt that professionals across Canada are feeling anxious about AI replacing their jobs, but CanLift took the opposite stance. Instead of seeing AI as a threat, the Company treated it as an engagement lever that helps us do our best work," says Paul Cavert, Rental Coordinator at CanLift. "We've been able to take an active role in how AI is used on the team, and the tools we've helped implement to automate repetitive tasks have made my work more rewarding."

"Our AI innovation is empowering people, not replacing them. The industry relies on individual knowledge, which AI cannot replicate. Combining AI with our team's expertise allows us to serve customers more effectively than companies that haven't adopted these tools. We've done this while staying true to our people-first culture that earned us a Great Place to Work certification," says Ryan Fitzgibbon, Director of Technology and Marketing at CanLift. "These tools free our team to do what they do best, which is build relationships and deliver exceptional service."

Implementation Playbook (Condensed)

• Phase 1: Deploy a customer-facing chatbot and AI call routing. Measure response times, abandonment rate, and quote speed.
• Phase 2: Stand up an internal AI Club. Prioritize 3-5 use cases tied to revenue protection (e.g., AR collections) and uptime (repair triage).
• Phase 3: Build lightweight custom GPTs for fleet planning, repair prioritization, and dispatch prompts.
• Phase 4: Convert SOPs to short AI-generated training videos. Track ramp time and first-time-right metrics.
• Governance: Set data access rules, review prompts quarterly, and audit decisions that affect safety or compliance.

Why This Matters for Operations

AI is most useful where minutes and margins matter. CanLift shows you can upgrade service speed, reduce downtime, and improve cash flow while keeping people at the center of the system.

If you're building similar capabilities, explore practical training on custom GPT workflows and ops-focused automations here: Custom GPTs for Operations.