Death of the Car Salesman? BMW Makes AI App To Sell Electric Cars

cartechboy writes "You thought Willy Loman had it bad. BMW is launching an artificial intelligence app allowing consumers to ask questions about its new BMW i3 electric car without the hassle of having to pick up the phone or go into a dealership. Potential customers can text a simple question about the i3 and the system builds an appropriate response in real-time using AI — interpreting words, sentiment, and context. The futuristic robo-car salesman was developed by 19-year-old entrepreneur Dmitry Aksenov and operates around the clock. No word on whether the app says, 'Wait here — I'll check with my sales manager,' like human car dealers often do."

Comments

No way

[tuo42]

No application can be as aggressively persuasive as your general car salesman!

Re:No way

[rwise2112]

I hope it's like this:

"Hi, I'm Malfunctioning Eddie, and I'm malfunctioning so badly, I'm practically giving these cars away!!! "

Lolwut

[korgitser]

without the hassle of having to pick up the phone

How exactly am I supposed to use the app without picking up the phone?

I see you are trying to buy an electric car.

[tlambert]

I see you are trying to buy an electric car.

Do you want some help?

(o) Take me to the Tesla web site
( ) Flounder around with this hunk of junk
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Re:Car salesmen

[OzPeter]

Based on my last experience, we don't have car salesmen in England, either - we have financial product salesmen who push loans, hare-brained leasing deals and dubious extended warranty schemes to people who have already decided to buy the car and are (figuratively, at least) waving the cash in their face. Its pretty clear that actually selling cars has little to do with their business model.

But .. but .. but .. you have totally awesome car leasing places like Ling's Cars

(Pro tip .. check out the ASCII art in the source. Yes .. ASCII art!)