Experian Automotive is a company that uses data to help car dealers find and reach the right customers. Instead of guessing who might buy, they use information to target people more accurately.
Generating leads means getting dealership contact requests from people who might buy a car. The episode is asking whether AI can do that better than current websites.
AI agents are computer programs that can do tasks for you automatically. In this case, they contact car dealers and help move the shopping process forward.
A middleman is a company that sits between the buyer and the dealer. The startup is saying it can connect them more directly using AI, instead of relying on listing sites.
An email/phone alias is a stand-in contact that still lets people communicate, but without exposing the customer’s real details. Here, it’s used so the AI agent can talk to dealers for the shopper.
NADA is a big organization for car dealerships. The speaker is saying that at NADA, people were talking a lot about using AI to improve the buying process.
Transaction experience is how smooth the whole car deal feels—from first contact to finishing the purchase. They’re saying AI can make that process better for both buyers and dealers.
A dealer network is just a set of car dealerships that work together with a company. The goal is to have enough dealerships in enough places so customers can buy cars easily.
They’re saying they’d rather work with fewer dealerships that perform well than sign up a huge number of dealerships that don’t. The focus is on better outcomes for customers and dealers.
A third-party lead program is when a website or service sends dealership leads—people who might buy a car. The speaker is saying those leads often don’t lead to enough real sales for dealers.
Conversion rate means “how many leads actually turn into real results.” For car sales, it’s basically how many interested shoppers end up taking the next step.
Ford is a major car brand. In this conversation, it’s mentioned because the speaker says their program isn’t currently working with Ford in the same way as other automakers.
Dealer fees are charges added by the dealership on top of the vehicle price, such as documentation fees or other administrative costs. When listings don’t include these, the advertised price can look cheaper than the true final cost.
Stopping distance is how far a car goes before it fully stops after you start braking. Shorter stopping distance generally means fewer crashes or less severe impacts.
Instead of using fluid pressure to send your brake pedal input to the brakes, the car uses electronics to do it. You press the pedal, sensors read it, and the system commands the brakes to slow the car.
Most cars use brake fluid and hydraulic lines to move force from your foot to the brake pads. Over time, leaks or fluid degradation can become maintenance concerns.
An LLM is a type of AI that can understand what you ask and respond in a useful way. In car shopping, it can help people find options without going through the usual listing websites.
CarEdge.com is referenced as the speaker’s own company, used as an example of how AI-driven discovery can reduce traffic to websites. The point is that shoppers may get answers directly from AI tools rather than clicking through from search.
ChatGPT-style tools are AI chat assistants you can talk to. Instead of searching and clicking around, people can ask the AI for help finding what they want.
Incumbent third-party marketplaces are the older, established websites where dealers list cars. The speaker is saying these sites may lose visitors if shoppers start using AI chat instead.
Autobitel is referenced as an early vehicle-pricing/lead service that originally worked by having someone at the dealership take calls. The speaker notes it has evolved from a phone-based buying program into a website, illustrating how marketplace models shift over time.
Taken private means the company stopped being publicly traded. That can change how it’s run and what decisions it prioritizes.
Company
AI
AI means using computer systems that can learn patterns and make smarter predictions. Here, it’s being discussed as part of how these car websites might improve their service.
Company
Pell
Pell is mentioned as a company/investor involved with the marketplace. The speaker’s point is that it’s heavily focused on AI, which could mean smarter tools for car shopping.
“Affinity partners” are organizations that collaborate with a platform to reach specific groups of consumers. In this context, the speaker suggests that if a listings company doesn’t innovate, it could lose these partners and related consumer demand.
They’re talking about websites that list cars for sale. The point is that these sites can fall behind unless they update their approach to attract both shoppers and partners.
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Hey, this is daily drive executive producer Jake Nier in Detroit.
Thanks for joining me for this bonus episode of the show.
Earlier this week, I spoke with Automotive News Retail tech reporter Mark Holmer about
his reporting on whether AI agents might soon replace vehicle listing sites in generating
leads for dealerships.
If you missed that conversation, go back and check out Tuesday's episode of the show.
In that conversation, we heard a clip from Mark's interview with Zach Shufska, CEO of
Carage, a startup that's betting it can lure dealers away by eliminating the middleman.
Today we're bringing you that interview with Shufska, who says listing sites have been
outdated for a long time.
Zach, thanks for joining us.
My understanding of your tech is that basically you provide, in part, AI agents to help consumers
shop for and buy cars.
Yeah, for the past year or so, we've had in market AI agents that contact car dealerships
on behalf of paying customers, creates an email and phone alias.
We've done this over 50,000 times now and have sent hundreds of thousands of messages
on behalf of consumers to help them purchase vehicles.
Do you know how many sales you've accomplished?
We've actually touched hundreds of millions of vehicles.
About 80% of our paying customers have bought a car within three months of purchasing what
we call Carage Pro, which is access to our AI.
We're talking tens of thousands of vehicles have been transacted with AI agents.
One of the things that came up a lot at NADA, I'm guessing you were there along with everybody
else, is that AI agents is beginning to help consumers and dealers make an environ around
the listing companies.
Is that what goes on with your technology?
Yeah, absolutely.
To a degree here, what we're seeing is the next paradigm shift in retail auto.
My dad, who is my co-founder at Carage, reminds me that he used to sell trucks before there
were window stickers, and the way that they would figure out what price to sell the truck
at was how interested the customer was.
Then my dad reminds me of when the internet came around in the late 90s and early 2000s,
and then he had internet leads.
And I, as his son and as a tech entrepreneur, look at the moment now, Mark, and it's the
age of AI agents, both dealerships and consumers.
Both sides of the marketplace using this technology to help them have a better transaction
experience.
Do dealers work with you, or do you just work with consumers?
No, this is new for us in 2026.
We've started to build out a wait list for our dealer network.
So this is brand new for Carage.
We're just starting to work with dealer partners.
We've worked with the OEMs for a year or so now, and that's been interesting, but they're
a little bit slower moving than dealers, and we're helping these dealers sell thousands
of cars, so we might as well work collaboratively with them.
So yes, we have a dealer network.
We're building it out right now, and that's our big initiative for 2026.
How many dealership groups do you have, and how many do you hope to have?
Yeah, Mark, the goal's not actually to have the biggest dealer network in the United States
of America.
I think there are actually some lessons learned from the incumbent third-party marketplaces
that have tens of thousands of dealers signed up, and then quarterly, all the publicly
traded companies, the analysts are asking, how are you increasing the average account
size, and how are you growing revenues from your dealer network?
For Carage, the way we think about this is we want enough coverage nationwide of dealers
who like to operate transparently and efficiently so that we can meet our consumer demand.
Our whole thing is quality, not quantity.
Today we're not working with any dealers.
It's a brand new program.
We work indirectly through the OEMs, so this is brand new and an opportunity to start from
ground zero.
So pause for a second, then you work indirectly with dealers through manufacturers.
How does that work?
So these automakers have third-party lead programs, which are not productive primarily
for dealers.
However, we've been in that program for about a year now with pretty much everyone, with
the exception of Ford and Toyota, and we lead all OEM programs in terms of conversion rates,
the quality of leads.
I hate being in that business candidly because it just perpetuates some of the challenges
that retail auto has faced.
Working with the agents is much more productive for the industry and for consumers.
So, but the agents are helping to fuel people to the dealers, but you don't have the relationship
yet with the dealers on the other side, but you're working on that in 2026.
Is that correct?
Exactly, Mark, because again, tens of thousands of people are using this technology to purchase
new and used cars.
And what's interesting about that is if we don't work with the industry, if we do not
work with dealers, we're going to end up in a situation where we have an AI agent from
the consumer reaching out to an AI BDC talking to an AI salesperson going to ask the AI manager
what they can do on price.
That is not a good outcome for our industry.
A good outcome is to work collaboratively with dealers who want to be at the cutting
edge, who want to operate more efficiently, and who want to work with AI agents on the
consumer side who kind of see that this is going to change and want to be a part of that.
Are listings companies outdated?
Listing companies have been outdated for a long time.
That business model doesn't make sense in an agent-first world.
And to be clear here, it's just like when my dad shared the stories of getting his first
internet lead, it's not like walk-ups went away the next day or phone-ups went away the
next day.
So the change here that we're going to see I think will be rapid, but I also think it
will take time.
But Mark, you and I both know you go on a listing company website right now and you can see
a great deal.
But then when you go and request the Alpedore price, and to be clear, this is the bane of
dealers and of consumers, the price changes with the add-ons, with the fees.
One of the benefits for consumers of working with agents is the agent doesn't get tired.
The agent will contact multiple dealerships, get you out the door price quotes, show you
real transparent data.
One of the benefits for dealers in the CarEdge dealer network is you get access to the same
exact data.
Gone are the days of bait and switch.
Gone are the days of advertising aggressively low prices that aren't true in reality.
Agents really can level the playing field for the whole ecosystem, consumers and dealers.
Okay, but at least two, maybe three of the listings companies that are publicly traded
have begun or continue to process to update their software, their platforms.
So, that generative AI and perhaps AI agents can find them basically under the new paradigm.
Is that going to work?
I encourage them.
I mean, at NAD, I met with leadership of these third-party listings companies.
They know what we're up to, and I said, hey, you know, race is on.
Who can bring this to market better and faster?
I think they're going to be pretty slow.
They're big enterprises.
I think they have track records of not being particularly innovative in many ways.
And so, you know, they, and to be clear, I don't envy them.
They have analysts, you know, on their butts every single quarter saying 2% dealer, sure,
and fix it.
So, I don't envy the existing businesses that are publicly traded and massive,
and I also think they're going to be a little slower to bring these innovations to market,
and CarEdge represents a faster, more nimble company to do it.
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Almovio is taking aim at one of the most fundamental parts of vehicle safety.
Breaking.
And the company says its next-generation systems can cut stopping distance by meters.
And at the same time, we also see cost advantages for the fighter customer.
Because of maintenance topics, it's significantly less maintenance or even
maintenance free over lifetime of the entire product.
On this week's episode of the Automotive News Shift podcast,
we'll hear from Dennis Fritsch, Vice President of Almovio's Safety and Motion Division.
He breaks down how Almovio is improving braking performance,
including its push toward brake by wire and dry brake technology that eliminates
traditional hydraulics.
I'm Mollye Boygon, tech and innovation reporter at Automotive News.
Join me on Shift, available this Sunday wherever you get your podcasts.
You met with some of you at the third party listings company leadership.
Why did you meet with them?
What did you talk about?
Oh, I have no shame in my game.
I want them to be aware of my crusade, which is to bring transparency and efficiency to the
auto industry.
I want them to know what's on the come and see how agents are going to bring a level of
transparency that this industry has needed for decades.
And the intent in doing that is simply to be on their radar so that they know what's going on
at the tip of the spear.
But does that imply future collaboration, or that you're going to say,
you're saying, I'm here, I'm going to beat you in the long run, take that?
You can see the bike behind me.
I do Ironmans, I run marathons, I'm a competitor.
You know, the intent is simply to let them know what's going on.
I think we can beat them, Mark.
I think there's a lot of angst and frustration from dealers nationwide.
They want a better platform.
And I think agents, if used in the right way, can drive an incredible level of efficiency
and transparency for retail auto.
What do you think, then, of broader generative AI searches,
is that something that will do an end run around third-party listings?
Yes.
And I think that'll happen at the LLM level.
And what I mean by that is...
LLM, the large language model?
Yeah.
So I think we're already seeing it.
There are fewer people clicking through to websites, which to be clear,
I experienced this at my own company at CarEdge.com.
There are fewer people clicking through from Google searches.
Instead, they're using the chat GPTs, the Clods, the Gemini's, the Perplexi's.
They're going at that distribution channel versus the prior behaviors.
And so, yeah, I think there's a ton of pressure on incumbent third-party
marketplaces to be innovative and to look at people finding the car that they want
through an MCP server that's directly tied into chat GPT.
That's going to be the future.
These companies, I think, in a lot of ways need to innovate.
And again, I think they're going to be hamstrung by their bureaucracy,
by the enterprise that they've built, creates an opportunity for startup companies to innovate.
So let's prognosticate a little bit.
Five to 10 years from now, will the vehicle listings companies that exist today still exist?
Or do you expect consolidation or just some of them just crapping out?
You remember Autobitel, Mark?
I don't.
Okay, well, Autobitel got the name Autobitel because when they started,
you literally had someone at the dealership that you would call, like by telephone,
and Autobitel's buying program was they call the dealership and get pricing.
And Autobitel now is just a website, right?
It's innovated, it's changed over time.
I think the incumbent third-party marketplaces will still exist in five to 10 years.
Will they be as large?
Will they have as much command over the industry as they do today?
I certainly think that will change.
Just like Autobitel went from you pick up the phone and you have someone by telephone
calling the dealership with a salesperson who was the Autobitel salesperson,
I think it's going to look different for these third-party marketplaces.
And I think there are going to be much better solutions for both sides of the marketplace
in the future.
A sidebar question to this.
One of the vehicle listings companies true car, as I'm sure you know, has had years of problems.
And as you know, it's been taken private.
It has an investor like many investors, including in Pell, which is AI,
extraordinarily AI-based.
So is this a sign of a potential solution to morph into something,
I mean, I know they're membership-based, they're with a lot of affinity partners,
but they're going to clearly look to AI for their future.
Is that the solution?
I think it has to be.
I mean, again, I'm a competitor through and through.
There's a reason why a lot of the folks out there, the affinity groups that are currently
working with that company are looking at other companies for different solutions.
So yeah, they have a mandate, I'm sure, to innovate and to bring better solutions to market.
If they don't, they're going to obviously lose some of the consumer demand affinity partners.
Yeah, they're in a really, really interesting operating position.
And I wish them all the best as they do it.
And again, I think CarEdge is the best position to be able to bring this type of innovation
to the market.
About this episode
CarEdge CEO Zach Shufska argues vehicle listing sites are fundamentally outdated in an “agent-first” retail auto world. He describes CarEdge’s AI agents contacting dealerships on behalf of customers, using phone/email aliases and generating quotes transparently—claiming tens of thousands of transactions and 80% of buyers purchasing within three months. Shufska says CarEdge is expanding from OEM partnerships to a dealer network in 2026, aiming for quality coverage rather than massive scale. He also predicts generative AI search will bypass listing sites, pressuring incumbents to innovate or lose relevance.
CarEdge CEO Zach Shefska discusses how his company’s AI agents are bypassing traditional vehicle listing sites to connect car buyers directly with dealerships. Shefska explains how the technology works, why he believes listings sites are outdated, and what the future holds for automotive retail.
