EV charging is still a relatively new industry, which means the pace of change continues to accelerate… and it’s not about to slow down.
Think back a few years when there were just a handful of public EV chargers available and it took several hours to charge the battery of your electric car.
Fast forward to 2025 and there are now tens of thousands of public EV charging points, with the fastest GRIDSERVE charging stations able to add 100 miles of charge in as little as five minutes. It’s never been easier to make the switch to an EV.
But what’s next? And how will artificial intelligence (AI) impact the world of electric vehicle charging? Let’s explore the future of EV charging networks.
EV charging artificial intelligence impact
There are several key areas that AI and machine learning will impact the most when it comes to EV charging, and the majority are centred around operational efficiency – both for the customer and charge point operators (CPOs).
With the ability to take large amounts of real time data, AI can analyse charging habits across the UK – and world – to provide smart EV charging solutions and optimised charging schedules that give the best user experience while balancing electricity demand on the grid.
Route planning and queue management
Route planners have come on a long way since the first clunky in-car sat nav systems. Now they’ll give you a dynamic arrival time and adjust your route in real time depending on traffic.
If you’re driving an EV, it’ll also direct you to an EV charging station on your route and some advanced systems will take into account your battery life and arrival time to find a suitable EV charging station to navigate to.
Move this on a little further and at busy sites, AI could help with queue management, calculating who is next to optimise the charging schedule and get drivers back on the road as quickly as possible.
Personalised user experience
Artificial intelligence will also have a role to play when it comes to personalising the user experience – think welcome messages like you’re at a fancy spa. It’s more than a few fancy flourishes, though.
By analysing your EV charging behaviour, it has the potential to recommend EV charging stations that best suit your needs, offer tailored pricing solutions, allow automated billing and make the experience even more seamless with integrated technology along the charging journey.
Cost optimisation in dynamic pricing
As energy prices continue to fluctuate, pricing of EV charging has never been more topical. We’re already seeing dynamic pricing introduced and the widespread deployment of AI can take this even further to help offer the fairest and most up-to-date price.
Smart EV charging is common in home charging solutions as your EV wallbox is connected to your own electricity supply. AI will help expand the learnings from this to wider EV charging infrastructure.
Grid efficiency, energy management and demand forecasting
Pulling in real time data such as energy demand, the number of EV users plugging in locally, grid stability and demand forecasting, AI is crucial to ensuring operational efficiency as the EV market continues to grow.
EV naysayers will tell you the grid can’t cope with everyone switching to electric vehicles but that’s simply not true – the National Grid has said as much. That said, AI will have a crucial role within energy management systems to help handle power demand at peak times and avoid grid overload, as well as manage the transition to even more renewable energy sources.
Proactive electric vehicle charging maintenance and issue prediction
Advanced AI algorithms can help charge point operators manage their charging infrastructure – not just when it comes to energy demand but also reliability.
Tracking charger performance and learning from charging stations across the country, AI and machine learning can predict faults before they arise and send an engineer ahead of time.
Reducing charger downtime not only improves CPO revenue but provides an enhanced user experience, giving people the trust and confidence to go electric.
AI-driven analysis, modelling and prototyping
The more AI learns about EV charging behaviour, smart grid integration and charging infrastructure, the better it will be able to make recommendations for the future rollout of EV charging stations.
Better analysis, modelling and prototyping will allow charge point operators to be more strategic and better informed to make business decisions that accelerate EV adoption.
And that’s the true potential of AI in EV charging – making the experience seamless and easy so drivers can make the switch not because they have to but because they want to.
