Artificial intelligence continues to penetrate dealerships, as shown by a new integration involving inride, the company behind Trade Agent AI, and ACV’s ClearCar.

The goal is to turn trade-in valuations into booked appointments using one consistent offer across all dealership channels.

With this new integration, ClearCar can provide dealers and their customers with an instant value for their vehicle on the dealer’s website, in the service lane, or through ACV’s new automated inspection platform VIPER.

From there, Trade Agent AI takes over.

The agent reaches out directly via text, answers questions, works through objections in natural back-and-forth conversation, gathers condition details, and follows up over time until the customer is ready to book a trade-in appointment with the dealership.

Interested sellers are handed off to the dealer’s team to complete the transaction in person.

Trade Agent AI is a fully autonomous AI agent that can reason through real conversations, proactively text values, overcome objections, and schedule appointments, with no human involvement required during the AI follow-up process.

The tool has now handled more than 1 million text conversations with American car owners about selling or trading their vehicles across over 75 rooftops in 18 states.

“The integration puts that highly trained conversation engine behind the appraisal tool dealers already trust and builds consistency across every dealership channel to create a single, unified customer experience,” inride said in a news release.

ClearCar is ACV’s consumer acquisition and trade-in tool, using AI and real-time market data to generate accurate, condition-based offers through any channel, including the store’s website, showroom and service lane.

Consumers can enter their vehicle details and condition to get an instant offer from the dealer on their car.

“Dealers do not have a traffic problem; they have a follow-up problem,” inride CEO Nick Perdikis said in the news release. “ClearCar already gives customers an accurate number they can trust.

“Now, Trade Agent AI works every one of those opportunities instantly and around the clock, so dealers acquire more used cars from their own customers and never have to explain why the website said one thing and the showroom said another,” Perdikis continued.

The company elaborated about the point with this hypothetical that might also be happening at your store.

“Ask most dealers where trade valuations go wrong, and the answer is rarely the number itself,” inride said. “It’s often a fragmented experience where customers get several different numbers. A website tool quotes one value, a service advisor eyeballs another, and the desk negotiates a third once the customer is in the showroom.

“Each gap chips away at trust and results in a negative, confusing experience,” inride added.

The company highlighted promising early results from dealers using Trade Agent AI as store adoption is growing. According to the news release, Koons Motors, based in Washington, D.C., reports:

—63% of leads engaged in conversation

—47% of engaged leads booked appointments

—52% of appointments resulted in an acquisition

—11.5 days average acquisition-to-resale

—$3,332 in average profit vehicle retailed (PVR)

—44% of conversations happened outside dealerships’ operating hours

—89% of leads were new to the dealerships

And Perdikis sees more dealership generating results like Koons Motors because of inride now collaborating with ACV.

“Our new integration is built around eliminating that gap,” Perdikis said. “Every offer the AI agent presents runs on ACV’s ClearCar pricing engine, incorporating VIN-specific build data, vehicle history, and condition.

“Customers see the same accurate, condition-based offer whether they get it on the dealer’s website, in the service lane, through digital retailing, or in their conversation with the AI trade agent. One number, everywhere, from first touch to signature,” he went on to say.

Dealers who want an automated AI agent to work every lead, across every channel and their full DMS and CRM database, can upgrade to the full Trade Agent AI platform from inride, with ClearCar-backed offer numbers following the customer the whole way.

“Dealers don’t need another point solution. They need their tools working together. This integration pairs ClearCar’s accurate, transparent pricing with Trade Agent AI’s always-on outreach to give dealers one consistent number across all their channels, turning traffic they already have into a repeatable acquisition channel,” said Ryan Walker, vice president of product with ACV MAX.

“It also works seamlessly with ACV VIPER, our new in-dealership inspection scanning tool, to help dealers acquire cars even more effectively from their service lane,” Walker added.