The AI Sales Agent answers on your website and over text in under five seconds, at any hour, and it can carry a conversation through to a completed purchase. Here is everything it does, and how it compares.
The AI Sales Agent has been answering real buyers on real dealer websites for months. Today it gets the launch it never had.
That gap was deliberate. We had a working product long before we had one we were willing to put our name behind publicly, so we shipped it quietly to dealers who were happy to be early, and we spent the time closing the distance between good and best in market. We are calling it launched now because we think it is there. What we are not doing is slowing down: the pace below is the pace we intend to keep.
Watch the two minutes above, then go and talk to one yourself. The demo store is live and it is free: try the Sales Agent on a demo dealership. Ask it anything a buyer would.
The problem it was built for
The industry does not have a lead shortage. It has an answering problem. 53% of inquiries get no response inside 24 hours, and 30% are never answered at all (Pied Piper PSI-ILE). Meanwhile more than 60% of buyers browse after 5 PM, once the doors are shut (NADA). And 78% of them buy from whoever replies first (Lead Connect).
Read those three numbers together and the conclusion is uncomfortable. Most dealerships are losing deals to a clock rather than to a competitor.
It started as a hackathon project
When a step change in AI capability landed last year, we stopped the roadmap for a week and ran a company-wide hackathon. Engineers, ops, sales, everyone. The Sales Agent came out of that week as a rough prototype that answered one question well.
We have shipped against it every week since. Not because a roadmap said so, but because dealers kept telling us the next missing piece. Most of what follows was built in the open, one announcement at a time.
What it does now
It answers on the website and over text, in under five seconds, at any hour (Ekho internal, 2026). It knows the store’s live inventory, so it talks about the vehicles actually on the lot rather than in general terms. From there:
- It answers for the brands a store actually carries, not for the category.
- It reads the documents you give it, so it quotes your fees and your promotions in your words.
- It pre-qualifies a buyer on your terms, with each store setting its own threshold.
- It routes every lead to the right team and escalates when nobody answers.
- It follows up on a schedule you build, and stops when the buyer replies or opts out.
- It works the dormant leads already in your CRM, not only the new ones.
- It writes back to the CRM you already run, whether that is Lightspeed or Salesforce.
- Your team can text buyers from the portal, photos and video included, without leaving the deal.
- Every conversation captures a lead rather than ending in a dead form.
Each of those is a link to the announcement it shipped with. That is the point: none of this is a roadmap slide.
How it compares
Four honest alternatives, and what each one does with a buyer who asks a question at eleven at night.
| Do nothing | Hire more BDC staff | A website chatbot | A standalone AI BDC | Ekho Sales Agent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answers after hours | No | Only if you staff it | Scripted replies | Yes | Yes |
| Knows live inventory | – | Yes | No | Sometimes | Yes |
| Speaks in your store’s voice | – | Yes | No | Generic by default | Yes, from your own documents |
| Books on your calendar | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Pre-qualifies and values a trade | No | Yes | No | Rarely | Yes |
| Works leads already in your CRM | No | If they have time | No | Sometimes | Yes |
| Can complete the purchase | No | In store | No | No | Yes, financing to plates |
| Cost shape | Lost deals | Salary per head | Low | Highest in category | A fraction of the category |
The last two rows are the ones worth sitting with.
It costs less, and it can finish the job
We price the Sales Agent at a fraction of what the category charges. That is a deliberate choice rather than an introductory offer, and it is why the payback maths is short: roughly two extra sales a quarter covers it.
The bigger difference is what happens after the conversation goes well. Every other tool in that table hands the buyer back to your desk. Ekho does not have to. Because the same platform runs the Transaction Engine, a conversation can carry straight through to a completed purchase: financing, protection, paperwork, titling and registration in all 50 states. Turn that on when you want it, and leave it off until then.
Go and try it
The fastest way to judge any of this is to behave like a buyer. Open the demo dealership, ask the agent something awkward, and see what it does. Then read how it works, or book time with us to talk about your own store.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The demo dealership at dealer.demo.ekho.com runs the real agent and is free to use. Ask it about inventory, financing or a trade and see how it answers.
Yes. It deploys on your existing site, and stores usually go live in days rather than weeks.
No. It answers the hours nobody is there to cover and hands a qualified buyer to the right rep. A rep can take any conversation over at any point, and it stays theirs.
