AI agent helps negotiate car deals, saving buyers time and money

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Car buyers who dread negotiating prices may now have a new ally: artificial intelligence. A new AI agent developed by car buying website CarEdge is designed to haggle with dealerships on behalf of consumers, potentially saving thousands of dollars with minimal effort.

With just a few clicks, you can have someone - or something - else negotiate a car deal for you.

Zach Shefska, CEO of CarEdge, founded the platform with his father, a former car salesman with more than four decades of experience in the industry. The Shefskas also maintain a large social media presence, reaching millions of viewers each month.

"We get 25 million views on social media every single month teaching people how to buy cars," Shefska said.

CarEdge's AI agent uses the company's extensive data to interact directly with dealers, shielding the buyer from phone calls and emails. The agent creates a unique email address and phone number for each customer, keeping their personal information private.

"That first message you're seeing is from the AI agent," Shefska said. "It created a unique email address and phone number for the customer, so the customer never receives any communications, it goes to the agent instead."

In one example, a dealer initially quoted a price of $37,356.68. The AI agent countered with a request for an "out the door price of $35,195." After further negotiation, the final price settled at $35,800-more than $1,500 in savings.

"Like the AI negotiated this whole deal and the customer never got a phone call or an email," Shefska said.

The process is simple: users input the vehicle they want to buy on the CarEdge website and the AI agent begins negotiating while they go about their day.

"You press that button, you go to sleep, you press that one, you go to work, you press that button, you go take your kids to soccer practice," Shefska said.

While other AI tools like ChatGPT can assist with negotiation strategies, CarEdge's agent handles the entire process independently and anonymously.

The service costs a one-time fee of $40.