Artificial Intelligence in Practice

35Harley-Davidson: Using Artificial Intelligence To Increase Sales

Harley-Davidson is an American manufacturer of motorcycles, which sells around 150,000¹ bikes around the world each year. It also licenses its iconic brand for use on clothing, homeware and accessories. The bikes are sold through its worldwide network of dealerships. The owner of Harley-Davidson New York, Asaf Jacobi, was walking in Riverside Park wondering how he could get out of a sales slump when he met Or Shani, CEO of artificial intelligence (AI) marketing specialists Adgorithm.

What Problem Is Artificial Intelligence Helping To Solve?

When you think of Harley-Davidson you may not initially think of a high-tech business. In fact, its bikes are still individually assembled by humans on the shop floor – to ensure a level of bespoke and custom detail that fully automated assembly lines are still not able to deliver.

Selling expensive, high-end goods such as cars or motorcycles is a low-volume business – Harley-Davidson New York was averaging one or two sales per week.² In this type of business, it's worth spending money to attract customers, as every sale makes a noticeable impression on the bottom line – but it's important that money is being spent on attracting the right customers.

Understanding how to most effectively use a marketing budget is essential, but without the right data, determining who, and where, your customers are can be hit and miss. Once you've got that data, you need to understand it, ...