{"id":405373,"date":"2026-04-30T18:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T18:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/405373\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T18:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T18:00:08","slug":"does-the-bike-industry-use-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/405373\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Bike Industry Use AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Neil\u2019s latest video from Sea Otter poses another big-picture question to the bike industry. To get a better sense of how AI is being used by companies big and small, he asked 27 representatives about their use of the technology. Watch the full video for all the answers on how AI is affecting the bike industry\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Following my video getting the industry\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/bikepacking.com\/plog\/32-inch-wheels-future-video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">thoughts on 32-inch bikes<\/a>, I asked an even bigger question to the industry\u2019s best and brightest at the 2026 Sea Otter Classic. In Does the Bike Industry Use AI?, I look at how the industry is using large language models and modern intelligence tools to try to get a leg up on trends, product development, and sales. Check out the video below for all of the answers:<\/p>\n<p>With some saying basically not at all and others suggesting their employees should polish their resumes if they aren\u2019t using AI in everyday practice, the answers to my questions were varied. Folks like Brian Szykowny of Hudski Bikes, for example, said that they barely used it and that he feels \u201ccreating content with AI is a really bad thing for everyone.\u201d Chris Kratsch of Old Man Mountain also pointed out that they had seen an influx of customers who purchased the wrong axle due to the technology. Loren Mason-Gere of Rolf Prima admitted that while he did use it for some research and product analysis, it \u201cfeels like I\u2019m playing with the devil.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Others, though, were less skeptical and said they planned to implement it more, on top of the fact that they already use it for things like copy, social media, and converting engineering insights into customer-facing language. More specifically, Tyler Reiswig of BITCHN Bikes said he\u2019s using the technology to simplify shipping to other countries, while Shae James of Kona said it was really helpful with sorting through and answering the enormous amount of emails they get. Charles Wells of Verum Velo spoke to how Claude AI could help him restructure his Shopify-based site. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bikepacking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2026-sea-otter-classic-part-four-11.jpg\" class=\"media-img\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2026-sea-otter-classic-part-four-11-2000x1334.jpg\" alt=\"2026 sea otter classic\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-251594\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bikepacking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/btchn-bikes-2026-sea-otter_15_video-BTS.jpg\" class=\"media-img\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/btchn-bikes-2026-sea-otter_15_video-BTS-640x960.jpg\" alt=\"2026 Sea Otter video part 4\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-251415\"  \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bikepacking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2026-sea-otter-part-five_3.jpg\" class=\"media-img\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2026-sea-otter-part-five_3-960x640.jpg\" alt=\"2026 sea otter classic bikepacking\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-251756\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you missed it, Lucas spoke to our position on AI back in February. The <a href=\"https:\/\/bikepacking.com\/plog\/our-pledge-to-readers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">entire post<\/a> is worth a read, but, as he put it, \u201cWhen one of our editors\u2019 names is attached to a post, you never need to wonder: a real person wrote those words, shot those photos, and designed that graphic. We stubbornly insist on doing it this way.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Does AI have a place in the bike industry? Let us know in the Conversation below.<\/p>\n<p>Further Reading<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;padding:0;\">Make sure to dig into these related articles for more info&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"comments\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"conversation-policy\">Please keep the conversation civil, constructive, and inclusive, or your comment will be removed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neil\u2019s latest video from Sea Otter poses another big-picture question to the bike industry. To get a better&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[191812,365,363,364,191807,191808,191813,191816,191809,191810,111,139,69,191815,145,191811,274,191814],"class_list":["post-405373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-adventure-cycling","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-bicycle-touring","tag-bike-touring","tag-bike-tours","tag-bike-packing","tag-bikepacking","tag-cycle-touring","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-stealth-camping","tag-technology","tag-touring-bikes","tag-travel","tag-world-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}