CarLabs has appointed former Carfax automotive OEM partnerships director Joseph Schumacher to serve as vice president of business development — the provider of artificial intelligence-powered digital assistants for the automotive industry announced Monday.

Via its commerce platform, the company allows consumers to interact directly with all of an auto brand's digital assets by applying AI and natural language processing to automakers' existing data to create “white-labeled” digital assistants.

CarLabs most recently introduced Kia Motor America's "Kian." The new digital assistant provides automated sales and customer service support on both Kia.com and on Facebook Messenger.

"Joe's proven ability to establish and grow OEM partnerships by identifying strategic opportunities and providing innovative solutions makes him the ideal choice for CarLabs as we enter our most rapid growth phase," company chief executive officer and co-founder Martin Schmitt said in a news release announcing Schumacher’s appointment.

Schumacher brings 25 years of automotive industry expertise to his new role. The company said that he will lead efforts to increase adoption of CarLabs' existing suite of solutions and identify new opportunities throughout the vehicle ownership lifecycle.

In addition to automating online sales and customer service, current CarLabs solutions cater to increasing ROI on digital ad campaigns, improving website conversion rates, capturing real-time customer feedback and automating response improvement.