Introducing the Rentman MCP: Letting AI help you do your work

Rentman has been the place where AV and live event production teams run complex events from one place. Quotes, crew plans, packing lists, invoices, project schedules: all the moving parts of getting a job out the door, in one platform. 

‍

Now, AI is opening up new ways of working across every industry, and AV and live events are no exception. We want to bring those possibilities into Rentman to take more of the routine work off your plate, so you can focus on what matters to you. AI is moving fast, and so are the ways people are using it. We know the best way to learn what's useful is to put something in your hands and figure it out together.

‍

Today is our first public step. It's the Rentman MCP, and it's now in public beta.

‍

What is the Rentman MCP?

‍

The Rentman MCP is the simplest way yet to connect Rentman to the AI tools you already use, like Claude, ChatGPT, or another MCP-supported AI tool, so you can ask questions about your business in plain language and get answers based on your own Rentman data.

‍

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard for connecting AI tools to the apps you use every day. Think of it as a secure bridge between Rentman and the AI of your choice.

‍

The MCP is also our first concrete step in opening Rentman up to AI. A way to start seeing where AI genuinely helps in your work.

‍

That's what the beta is for. The questions you ask, the workflows that stick, the use cases that save you real time, tell us what to build next. When you try the MCP, you're helping shape what AI in Rentman can become.

‍

What you can do with it today

‍

All your tools in one conversation

‍

If you've connected your AI to other tools like your inbox, Slack or Teams, or cloud storage, you can use them together with Rentman in the same conversation. A dry hire email can turn into a project request, with details and an equipment list ready to go. A Slack or Teams message can turn into a new contact. Or a supplier invoice from your cloud storage can become new equipment in your inventory. Once the connection's there, you can act on something straight from where it came in, rather than copying it across yourself.

‍

Get answers from your data

‍

Ask questions about your Rentman workspace in plain language and get a clear answer back. Things like "what was our most-rented equipment last quarter?", or "what is the busiest day in my warehouse next week?" to help you plan ahead. The answer comes from live data in your own account.

‍

Getting started

‍

1. Turn on the MCP permission. In Configuration > User Roles, enable the "Access for AI assistant via MCP." If you don't have admin access, ask whoever does to switch this on for you.
2. Connect your AI tool. In Configuration > Integrations, copy the link under "MCP (AI Assistant)." Paste it into your AI client as a custom MCP connector, then sign in and approve access when prompted. The flow looks slightly different in Claude, ChatGPT, or other tools, but the steps are the same.
3. Start asking. You're ready to go. 

Note: Your workspace must be on version 530 to access the MCP

‍

For detailed step-by-step instructions, read our support article here.

‍

Try it together with us in the MCP Beta Community

‍

Alongside the beta, we're opening a brand-new online community for those trying the Rentman MCP.

‍

It's the place where you can compare notes with other AV and live events teams who are exploring this with you. You can ask questions, share what's working and what isn't, and pick up ideas from how others are using it. The Rentman crew will be actively participating and sharing updates there as well.

‍

This is new ground for everyone, including us, and we'd much rather figure it out with you, our customers, than for you. The online community is how we'll do that. If you join the beta, this is where the conversation lives.

‍

Join the Rentman MCP Beta Community

‍

Try the MCP, join the community, and tell us what works, what doesn't, and what you'd like to see next.

‍

A few things to keep in mind

‍

AI is still a new technology, and it isn't perfect. It can misunderstand a question, give an answer that sounds confident but isn't quite right, or, in some cases, invent things that don't exist. People call this hallucinating. So while the MCP beta will save you real time, it's not a tool to use blindly. A few practical things will help.

‍

Always review what the AI does, especially before it makes a change. When your AI tool is about to take an action in Rentman, adding a contact, creating a project request, or drafting something for you, it might ask for your permission first. Take a moment to check that what it's about to do is what you actually wanted.

‍

Be specific when you ask. "What is our total Pioneer CDJ3000 stock?" works better than "What's our equipment situation?" Anything specific helps: project names, dates, equipment types.

‍

Some workflows are partial today. The MCP beta can suggest a crew plan, for example, but you'll paste the result back into Rentman yourself. It can't yet create quotes or invoices end-to-end. We will continue to change and update this for future versions.

‍

Switch on hourly backups if you haven't already. Backups let you revert your workspace to an earlier version, which is reassuring when you're trying out new tools. By default, your Rentman plan includes daily backups; you can choose to upgrade to hourly backups for more version history.

‍

We'll keep improving the MCP throughout the beta. The safeguards, the permissions, and how the experience feels. Some things will get better quickly. Some things might break. That's what beta is for.

‍

FAQs

‍

What is the MCP? A secure connection that lets AI tools work with your Rentman data, so you can ask questions and get answers from your own business data.

‍

Which AI tools does it work with? Any AI tool that supports MCP. Today, that includes the most common ones like Claude, ChatGPT, and more.

‍

Who at my company can turn this on? Account admins. The MCP sits behind a new permission, so an admin needs to enable it before anyone can connect.

‍

What's the difference between this and the Rentman API? The API is for developers who want to build their own integrations from scratch. The MCP is built on top of that. It's the no-code way to connect AI tools to your Rentman data, so you don't need to write or maintain anything. If you're not a developer, the MCP is what you want.

‍What happens next? Your feedback during the beta shapes what we build, both for the MCP itself and for what's coming next. We'll keep you posted as things take shape.