Ekho AI Sales Agent vs Dealership Accelerator (Drive AI)
Both products work your inbound leads to a booked appointment. Ekho does that same job, and can optionally keep going, and it answers on your website as well as by text.
Both products put an AI on your inbound leads so none of them go cold, and both are built to get a buyer to a booked appointment your team then closes. Ekho does that job too, and it does not stop there if you do not want it to: the same conversation can pre-qualify the buyer for financing, price the monthly on the actual unit, surface the offers they qualify for and, where you switch it on, carry them through to a completed, compliant purchase. That last part is optional and off unless you choose it. You can run Ekho as a pure appointment-setter and it will book into your calendar, confirm, and chase a no-show for a rebook, exactly like Drive AI. On the capabilities that decide whether a car deal closes, Ekho does everything Drive AI does and adds soft-pull pre-qualification, payment maths on the unit the buyer is looking at, website chat with one shared memory, and configuration your own team controls. On channels it is a trade-off: Ekho answers on your website where Drive AI does not, and Drive AI works a lead by email where Ekho does not yet. Outside franchise automotive, in powersports, marine, RV, golf carts and LSVs, Ekho has the deeper track record and the integrations with the systems those stores actually run, and nothing about it is narrower on cars.
SIDE BY SIDE
Ekho AI Sales Agent and Dealership Accelerator (Drive AI), capability by capability
| Capability | Ekho AI Sales Agent | Dealership Accelerator (Drive AI) | Stronger |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booking an appointment | Checks real availability, books into your calendar, confirms, sends reminders, and chases a no-show for a rebook. Only offers slots your store can actually staff | Checks availability, proposes times, confirms, and follows up on a no-show, for sales and service | Comparable |
| How far the conversation can go | Your choice, per rooftop. Stop at the appointment, or let the same thread run through pre-qualification and a completed compliant purchase. Off unless you turn it on | Stops at the appointment. Their FAQ describes Drive AI as optimised for lead engagement and appointment booking | Ekho |
| Channels the AI speaks on | Website chat and text, with email and AI phone calls in development | Text, email and phone, with no website chat described | Comparable |
| Chat on your own website | A first-class channel, with a greeting your team writes and targets to the kind of page a visitor is on. Most buyers never fill in a form, and this is the traffic that answers | Works the lead once it is in the CRM. No website chat widget described | Ekho |
| One memory across channels | A buyer who starts in web chat and replies by text is not starting over. One thread, one history, one inbox for your team | Not described on their site | Ekho |
| First response | Under five seconds, any hour | Under 30 seconds by text, any hour | Ekho |
| Answering from live inventory | Names the actual unit, the actual price and real availability from your live feed, rather than steering the buyer to a menu | Checks live inventory when a lead arrives, per their site | Comparable |
| Who configures the agent | You do. Look, name, personality, what it is allowed to do, what it answers from, and the greeting, all changeable per rooftop from the Admin Portal without raising a ticket or waiting on a release | Their team tunes it for you, with a performance coach for six months | Ekho |
| What the agent knows | Upload your own manufacturer, finance and policy documents and the agent answers from them, on web chat and over text | The AI is trained on your inventory and your voice by their team | Ekho |
| "What's the monthly on this?" | Payment maths on the actual unit at the actual price, with term and rate, rather than a link to a generic finance page | Not described on their site | Ekho |
| "Can I get approved?" | Soft-pull pre-qualification in the thread against real lenders, with a credit range you set deciding who gets an approval and who goes to a finance manager | Not described on their site | Ekho |
| "Are there any offers on this one?" | Dealer and manufacturer promotions are surfaced in the conversation, and every offer the buyer qualifies for is priced into the deal rather than mentioned and forgotten | Not described on their site | Ekho |
| Taking a deposit | A compliant reservation on the unit while the buyer is still interested. Coming soon | Not described on their site | Comparable |
| Handover to your rep | Everything the agent could not finish lands in one queue with the buyer, the unit and the ask, assigned to a rep. When the rep replies the agent stands down, so nobody gets two voices at once, and automation resumes when the rep is done | Hands the rep a task in the CRM and picks up high-touch situations | Ekho |
| Nothing goes quiet | The agent and the rep hold the same lead so neither drops it, and an item nobody touches escalates on a timer rather than going cold | Escalation rules configured during onboarding | Comparable |
| Long-horizon follow-up | Runs as long as you want with no fixed cut-off, and stops the moment a buyer asks not to be contacted again | Leads stay in active follow-up for up to 12 months | Ekho |
| Working the leads already in your CRM | Aged and cold leads get worked automatically, and the ones your team is already on are left alone | Works leads your reps gave up on | Comparable |
| Works with the CRM you already run | Two-way sync with the dealer CRMs we support, and where there is no direct integration your leads still arrive in your CRM by ADF. Every lead lands in Ekho either way, and you can see per lead whether it reached your CRM | Native API integration with the major franchise CRMs, positioned as no second platform to run | Comparable |
| A group of several rooftops | One parent account with an agent per store. The group sets voice, guardrails and defaults once, each store inherits and then tunes its own, and every lead rolls back up to ownership in one place | Configured per store, routed on your org chart | Ekho |
| A lead that names no store | Routing decides the store, the department and the person automatically, and every agent knows what the other locations carry, so a buyer asking for a unit you do not have is pointed to the store that does rather than lost | Routing by brand, location, department and rep availability within a store's configuration | Ekho |
| Guardrails on what it promises | Scoped to the brands and categories your rooftop actually carries, and it will not offer a service you do not provide | Escalates to a rep on a high-touch situation | Ekho |
| Manufacturer-level deployment | A brand-scoped agent on a manufacturer's own site that hands each buyer to the nearest authorised dealer, whose agent picks the conversation up | Not described on their site | Ekho |
| Vehicle segments | Automotive, new and used, plus powersports, golf carts and LSVs, marine and RV, with the integrations and titling work each one needs | Positioned for retail automotive, and does turn up in non-automotive deals | Ekho |
WHERE WE WIN
Where Ekho is stronger
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You decide where the conversation stops
Run it as a pure appointment-setter and it behaves like the product you were quoted: books into your calendar, confirms, chases the no-show. Or let the same thread carry a ready buyer through pre-qualification and a compliant purchase. It is a toggle per rooftop, not a philosophy you have to buy into, and it is off until you turn it on.
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It catches the buyer who never fills in a form
Most of your buyers browse a unit at 10pm and leave without touching a form. Website chat is a real channel here, not an afterthought, with a greeting your team writes and targets by page type. A product that starts from a CRM record can only work the leads that already exist.
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Web chat and text share one memory
A buyer who asks a question on your site at lunchtime and replies to a text that evening is not starting over, and your team sees one thread rather than two half-conversations in two tools.
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It is your agent, not ours
The look, the name, the personality, what it is allowed to do, and the documents it answers from are all set by you, per rooftop, from the Admin Portal. Changes go live without raising a ticket or waiting on a release, which is the difference between an agent that stays accurate and one that slowly stops matching your store.
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The questions that stall a deal get answered, not queued
"Can I get approved?" and "what is the monthly?" are the two moments a buyer goes quiet. Both are answered in the thread: soft-pull pre-qualification against real lenders with a credit range you set deciding who gets an approval and who goes to a finance manager, and payment maths on the actual unit at the actual price.
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Nothing waits on a rep remembering to update the AI
Anything the agent cannot finish lands in one queue with the buyer, the unit and the ask, assigned to a rep. The moment the rep replies the agent stands down, so no buyer hears two voices. When the rep is done, follow-up resumes on its own, and an item nobody touches escalates on a timer instead of going cold.
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A group is not five copies of one store
One parent account sets the voice, guardrails and defaults; each rooftop inherits them and tunes its own, and a new store starts on day one with no separate build. Every agent knows what the other locations carry, so a lead with no store on it still lands, and ownership sees all of it in one place instead of logging into five systems.
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Deepest where a car deal actually stalls
Franchise and independent car stores are the segment with the most competition and the least differentiation, and it is where the extras matter most: a soft-pull approval, the monthly on the actual unit, used-unit condition and recall checks before a listing goes live, promotions priced into the deal, and a digital-retail pipeline that tells you which buyers abandoned a cart or were declined so your team can work them. Ekho does the same appointment-setting job on cars and then keeps going.
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One platform, whatever is on your lot
The same agent, checkout and 50-state compliance run across cars, powersports, marine, RV, golf carts and LSVs. That matters on cars because the compliance work is the hard part of any titled vehicle sale, and it matters more to a group with a car store and a non-car division, which would otherwise buy two products and reconcile two sets of leads.
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Years in the non-automotive segments, not a port of a car product
Ekho started in powersports and grew out from there, so multi-line brand rules, boat-motor-trailer deals, LSV street-legal paperwork and RV financing terms are things the product already models rather than things it accommodates. Automotive AI BDCs do appear in these segments. The question to ask any of them is how many stores like yours they run today, and which of your systems they are already connected to.
BY WHAT YOU SELL
Segment by segment, and how deep it goes
The same product across every kind of titled vehicle. This is what else you will run into in each segment, what runs the back office there, and what is specific about selling that vehicle type.
| Segment | What else you will see | Systems Ekho connects to | What is segment-specific |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automotive | The most crowded segment, and the one Drive AI is positioned for | Two-way sync with the dealer CRMs we support, ADF lead delivery into any CRM without a direct integration, and inventory over your existing feed | Everything Drive AI does on a franchise lead, plus what decides whether it closes: soft-pull pre-qualification against real lenders with a credit range you set, the monthly on the actual unit, and used-unit condition and recall checks before a unit goes live. Brand guardrails keep a franchise agent to the brands that rooftop is authorised on. |
| Powersports | Texting widgets, lead-generation tools, and automotive AI BDCs stretched to fit | Direct integrations with the DMS and CRM platforms powersports stores actually run, including Lightspeed DMS, Lightspeed CRM, Blackpurl and DP360 | Multi-line stores carry brands with different rules, and the agent is scoped per rooftop to only the brands you are authorised on. Unit-level titling and registration is handled rather than handed back to you. |
| Golf cart and LSV | Thin, and mostly automotive products adapted after the fact | Inventory over an existing XML or CSV feed where there is no DMS to integrate with, which is most of this segment | LSVs are titled vehicles with state-by-state rules a generic automotive product has no concept of. Street-legal configuration and the paperwork that follows are part of the sale, not an afterthought. |
| Marine | Thin, and mostly automotive products adapted after the fact | Feed-based inventory sync, plus the CRMs marine dealers already run | Boat, motor and trailer are three items on one deal, and the trailer is the part that needs a title. A product built for one VIN per sale does not model this. A group running a marine division alongside powersports needs a boat enquiry with no location on it to reach the right division, not just the right store. |
| RV | Thin, and mostly automotive products adapted after the fact | Feed-based inventory sync, plus the CRMs RV dealers already run | Long consideration windows on high-ticket units, where follow-up with no fixed cut-off matters more than a 12-month cap, and where financing terms differ enough from automotive that a generic pre-qualification is worse than none. |
ON PRICE
What dealers tell us they were quoted
Dealership Accelerator does not publish a price. Their pricing page quotes a custom package built from your lead volume, rooftop count and lead sources. The range above is anecdotal: it is what dealers who came to us after being quoted have told us they were offered, per rooftop per month, and some of those quotes also carried a one-off activation fee of around $7,000. Treat it as a rough guide to the order of magnitude rather than their list price, and get a quote from both of us.
HOW TO EVALUATE
4 questions that settle it in ten minutes
Put these to any AI sales agent you are evaluating, including ours. The answers tell you more than any comparison table, including this one.
- 01
"Is this exact unit still available, and what is the out-the-door price?"
Tests two things at once: whether the agent reads your live inventory, and whether it can add up fees and tax rather than sending the buyer a phone number.
- 02
"Can I see if I would get approved without hurting my credit?"
Either the agent runs a soft pull and comes back with a range, or the buyer waits for a callback. It is the question most likely to end the conversation if it goes unanswered.
- 03
"What is the monthly on this with 20% down?"
Payment maths on the actual unit the buyer is looking at, at the actual price, rather than a generic finance page.
- 04
"Do you have anything like it at another store?"
If you run more than one rooftop, this is the question that exposes whether the agent knows your group exists or only the store it was installed on.
Go and try to catch it out
A live store with a live agent. Ask it all four, right now, and see what comes back.
IN DEVELOPMENT
What we have not shipped yet
- Email In development
Drive AI works a lead by email as well as by text. Ekho's agent answers on web chat and over text today, and email is being built. If email is the channel your leads actually reply on, that is a real gap right now and we would rather you heard it here.
- AI phone calls In development
Drive AI lists phone alongside text and email. Ekho does not place AI calls today and is building it. Our agent routes a buyer who wants to talk to a named rep instead, on a timer, so the request does not sit.
- Taking a deposit in the conversation Coming soon
A compliant reservation on the unit inside the thread is close but not live for every dealer yet. Pre-qualification, the trade valuation and the full checkout are live today.
WHICH TO CHOOSE
It depends on what you sell and where the deal ends
- A store that just wants its leads worked to an appointment
Either, and Ekho does this too
This is the job both products are built for. Ekho books into your calendar, confirms, and chases the no-show, with no obligation to switch on anything beyond that. Compare them on the questions above rather than on the pitch.
- A franchise or independent car dealer
Ekho
You get the same appointment-setting job, and then the trade, the pre-qualification and the used-unit checks that decide whether the appointment becomes a sale. Ask both products the first two questions above and compare what comes back.
- A dealer who wants ready buyers to be able to finish online
Ekho
An appointment is a handoff. If you want the option of a buyer pre-qualifying, pricing a trade, signing and paying, the agent has to sit on a checkout that can legally complete the sale in your state. You still choose which rooftops that is on.
- A powersports, marine, RV, golf cart or LSV dealer
Ekho
Drive AI is positioned for retail automotive and you will meet it here too, but Ekho was built in these segments: it integrates with the systems those stores run and handles the titling, registration and tax work they involve. Ask both how many stores like yours they run today.
- A group with more than one rooftop
Ekho
One parent account, an agent per store, group defaults every new rooftop inherits on day one, and cross-location routing so a lead that names no store still lands. Ask both products the fourth question above.
- A manufacturer selling through a dealer network
Ekho
A brand-scoped agent on your corporate site that respects dealer attribution and hands each buyer to the nearest authorised store. Drive AI does not describe an equivalent.
- A store whose leads only ever reply to email
Wait for us, or run both
Ekho's email channel is in development. Until it ships, Drive AI reaches a channel we do not. This is the one place we would tell you to look at them first.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The online purchase path is optional and off until you switch it on, and you choose which rooftops have it. Plenty of dealers run the agent purely to answer leads and book appointments, which is the same job Drive AI does. The difference is that you can turn the rest on later without changing tools.
Three things, and none of them are segment-specific. Ekho answers on your website as well as by text and keeps one memory across both. Your team configures the agent itself rather than filing changes with a vendor. And the same thread can answer the approval and the monthly-payment question, and optionally finish the sale, instead of booking an appointment and stopping. Both will book an appointment.
Not today. It answers on your website and over text, and email and AI phone calls are in development. Drive AI lists text, email and phone. If those channels are the requirement right now, that is a genuine advantage for them and we would rather say so than have you find out later.
No. Ekho runs on automotive, new and used, and the transaction and compliance work is deepest there. It also covers powersports, golf carts and LSVs, marine and RV, so a group with a car store and a non-car division can run one platform instead of two. Nothing about the product is narrower on cars.
No. Both sit on top of the CRM you already run. Ekho syncs both ways with the dealer CRMs we support, and where there is no direct integration your leads still arrive in your CRM by ADF. Every lead lands in Ekho as well, and you can see per lead whether it reached your CRM.
With Ekho, you do. Its name, personality, appearance, the greeting on your site, what it is allowed to do and the documents it answers from are all set per rooftop from the Admin Portal, and a change goes live without a release. Drive AI's team tunes it for you and gives you a performance coach for six months.
Drive AI keeps a lead in active follow-up for up to 12 months. Ekho runs for as long as you want with no fixed cut-off, and stops as soon as a buyer says they do not want to be contacted again.
Neither publishes a price. Dealership Accelerator quotes custom pricing built from your lead volume, rooftop count and lead sources. Ekho is priced per rooftop and quoted on a call, because what you need depends on which products you turn on.
It is positioned for retail automotive, and it does appear in non-automotive deals. The difference is depth rather than availability: Ekho started in these segments and models what they actually involve, from multi-line brand rules to a boat, motor and trailer on one deal. If you are comparing the two here, ask each of us how many stores like yours we run today and which of your systems we are already connected to.
Sources
Every claim about Dealership Accelerator on this page comes from their own published material on the date shown. We re-check this page quarterly. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
- Dealership Accelerator homepage retrieved 2026-08-21
- Dealership Accelerator, how it works retrieved 2026-08-21
- Dealership Accelerator pricing retrieved 2026-08-21
- Drive AI product FAQ retrieved 2026-08-21
- Ekho changelog, AI Sales Agent retrieved 2026-08-21
- Ekho integrations retrieved 2026-08-21
Last reviewed August 23, 2026
Put the two side by side on your own inventory
Ask our agent the four questions above on a live store, or have us walk your team through the differences on your own leads.