Ekho AI Sales Agent vs Kenect
Kenect covers more of your dealership than we do. Ekho goes further on the one job of selling a unit.
These are not the same product, and a dealer choosing between them is really choosing which problem to solve. Kenect is a dealership communications platform with conversational AI across text, email, voice and social: it fills service bays, sends reminders and recall campaigns, takes payment by text, and manages reviews. Its Voice AI is built for the service department and handles "20% of calls without human intervention" by their own published figure, so a person still takes most of them, and the conversational side is backed by Managed Conversations, a paid add-on where Kenect's own staff text your customers from a set of approved responses. It reaches channels Ekho does not, and it covers a department Ekho does not sell into at all. Ekho's AI Sales Agent does one job and takes it further: it answers on your website and over text, sells from your live inventory by name and price, pre-qualifies the buyer against real lenders, builds the payment in checkout, and can carry them through to a completed, compliant purchase in all 50 states. Your team configures it per rooftop from the Admin Portal rather than filing change requests. If your pain is the service lane, phone coverage or reputation, Kenect is the better fit and we would say so. If your pain is that sales leads arrive and nothing happens to them, that is what Ekho was built for, and plenty of dealers run both.
SIDE BY SIDE
Ekho AI Sales Agent and Kenect (Engage AI, Service AI, Voice AI), capability by capability
| Capability | Ekho AI Sales Agent | Kenect (Engage AI, Service AI, Voice AI) | Stronger |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the product is for | Selling a unit: answering the buyer, qualifying them, and finishing the deal | Communicating across the whole dealership: sales, service, parts, payments and reviews | Comparable |
| Channels the AI speaks on | Website chat and text. Email and AI phone calls are in development | Text, email and voice, plus Facebook, Instagram and website chat in one inbox. Their Voice AI is scoped to the service department and they publish "20% of calls handled without human intervention" | Kenect |
| Selling from live inventory | Names the actual unit, the actual price and real availability from your feed, and answers questions about it | Captures and nurtures website chat leads, per 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 |
| "What's the monthly on this?" | Surfaces a pre-qualification CTA when payments or financing come up, and the approval range comes back in the thread. The agent does not quote a monthly on the unit; the payment is built in checkout | Not described on their site | 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 in all 50 states. Off unless you turn it on | Ends in a booked appointment, a service job, or a payment. No vehicle transaction described | Ekho |
| Who configures the agent | You do. Name, personality, permissions, greeting and source documents, per rooftop, from the Admin Portal, live and without a release | Not described on their site | Ekho |
| Who answers the customer | The agent itself, from your live inventory and your own uploaded documents, escalating to a rep only when it cannot finish. There is no script it has to stay inside | Automated texting for reminders and campaigns, and Managed Conversations as a paid add-on where Kenect's own "real people based in the USA" text your customers 24/7. Those specialists "only answer with approved responses" and pass anything too specific back to your team | Ekho |
| What the agent knows about your store | Upload your own manufacturer, finance and policy documents and the agent answers from them | Integrates with your DMS and turns DMS data into service appointments and campaigns | 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 | Not described on their site | Ekho |
| Taking money in the thread | The Transaction Engine takes the money: a full checkout with financing, real tax and fee calculation and F&I coverage, live today, completing the purchase rather than settling an invoice. A compliant reservation on the unit is coming soon | Text-to-pay on service work, including pay over time | Ekho |
| Reviews and reputation | Review solicitation after the sale, so a completed deal turns into a review request instead of a missed one. Google reviews are surfaced on the vehicle page and refreshed nightly. Private pre-CSI feedback routing is not offered. | Review generation plus private pre-CSI feedback routing so issues are caught before the OEM survey | Comparable |
| DMS and CRM connections | Two-way sync with the dealer CRMs we support, and ADF lead delivery into any CRM without a direct integration | The broadest DMS integration set in the category, by their own account | Kenect |
| A group of several rooftops | One parent account with an agent per store, group defaults each rooftop inherits, cross-location routing, and one place to see every lead | Not described on their site | Ekho |
| Manufacturer-level deployment | A brand-scoped agent on a manufacturer's own site that hands each buyer to the nearest authorised dealer | Not described on their site. They run an OEM partner programme, over 100 manufacturer and technology partners, giving those manufacturers' dealers preferred access and pricing | Ekho |
| Installed base | Newer, and growing fast. Three manufacturers deploy Ekho across their dealer networks, and stores run it across automotive, powersports, marine, RV, golf carts and LSVs. | Over 10,000 dealerships, by their own account | Kenect |
| Vehicle segments | Automotive, powersports, golf carts and LSVs, marine and RV, with the titling work each one needs | Powersports, marine, RV, equipment, outdoor power and automotive | Comparable |
WHERE WE WIN
Where Ekho is stronger
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It sells the unit, rather than routing the enquiry
Our agent names the machine, the price and whether it is actually available, then answers questions about it from your own documents. That is a different job from capturing a lead and nurturing it, and it is the job that decides whether a browsing buyer becomes an appointment.
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The two questions that stall a deal get answered in the thread
"Can I get approved?" is where buyers go quiet. Ekho runs a 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. On the monthly, the agent surfaces that same pre-qualification rather than quoting a payment on the unit.
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The conversation can finish the sale, if you want it to
Where you switch it on, the same thread carries a ready buyer through checkout, taxes and fees, signing, titling and registration in all 50 states. It is a toggle per rooftop, not an obligation, and it is off until you choose it.
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It is your agent, and your team changes it
Name, personality, what it is allowed to do, the greeting on each kind of page, and the documents it answers from are all set by you per rooftop from the Admin Portal. A change goes live without a ticket or a release. This is the difference between an agent that stays accurate and one that slowly stops matching your store.
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It only promises what your store actually does
Scoped to the brands and categories a rooftop genuinely carries, so it will not offer a transfer, a service or a unit you do not have, and it routes the buyer on instead.
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A group is not several copies of one store
One parent account sets voice, guardrails and defaults; each rooftop inherits and tunes its own; a lead that names no store still lands; and every agent knows what the other locations carry. Ownership sees all of it in one place.
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 | Crowded. Kenect has a large automotive footprint and an OEM AI partnership | Two-way sync with the dealer CRMs we support, ADF lead delivery into any CRM, inventory over your existing feed | Choose on the job. Kenect for the phone, the service lane and reputation. Ekho for what happens to a sales lead: pre-qualification, the payment, used-unit condition and recall checks, and the option to finish online. |
| Powersports | Kenect is often already installed, alongside texting widgets and lead-generation tools | Direct integrations with the DMS and CRM platforms powersports stores actually run, plus scheduled inventory feeds where there is no direct connection | 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 products adapted from another segment | Inventory over an existing XML or CSV feed where there is no DMS, which is most of this segment | LSVs are titled vehicles with state-by-state rules a general dealership tool has no concept of. Street-legal configuration and the paperwork that follows are part of the sale. |
| Marine | Kenect serves marine dealers, largely on the service and reputation side | 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 group running a marine division alongside powersports needs an enquiry with no location on it to reach the right division, not just the right store. |
| RV | Kenect serves RV dealers; the sales-side AI field is thinner | Feed-based inventory sync, plus the CRMs RV dealers already run | Long consideration windows on high-ticket units, follow-up with no fixed cut-off, and financing terms different enough from automotive that a generic pre-qualification is worse than none. |
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 whether the agent reads live inventory, and whether it can add up fees and tax rather than handing 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.
- 03
"What is the monthly on this with 20% down?"
Ask it of both. The agent surfaces a pre-qualification CTA rather than quoting a monthly, so you should hear what each product actually returns before you decide how much that matters.
- 04
"Do you have anything like it at another store?"
If you run more than one rooftop, this 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 and voice In development
Kenect answers on text, email and voice, and handles inbound calls. Ekho answers on website chat and text, with email and AI calls being built. If your leads reply by email, or you want the phone covered, Kenect does that today and we do not.
- The service department Not on the roadmap
Service scheduling, intake, status updates, recall campaigns and CSI protection are a real product for Kenect and are not something Ekho sells. If fixed ops is the problem you are solving, we are the wrong tool and Kenect is a good one.
- Pre-CSI feedback routing Not on the roadmap
Kenect routes private pre-CSI feedback so an unhappy customer is caught before the OEM survey reaches them. Ekho does not do this. Review solicitation and review display are separate and are covered in the table.
WHICH TO CHOOSE
It depends on what you sell and where the deal ends
- A dealer whose problem is the service lane or the phone
Kenect
Scheduling, intake, status updates, recalls, CSI protection and inbound call handling are their product and not ours. We would rather tell you that than sell you the wrong thing.
- A dealer whose problem is that sales leads go nowhere
Ekho
Selling from live inventory, a soft-pull approval, and a conversation that can finish the deal. That is the job we built for.
- A dealer who wants reviews and reputation managed
Kenect
We do not offer it.
- A store whose leads reply by email, or who wants AI answering the phone
Kenect, for now
Both are in development for us. Until they ship, Kenect reaches channels we do not.
- A group standardising sales across rooftops
Ekho
One parent account, an agent per store, group defaults inherited on day one, and cross-location routing so a lead that names no store still lands.
- A dealer who wants both jobs done
Run both
This is the most common honest answer. Keep Kenect on service, reputation and the phone, and put Ekho on sales. They do not fight over the same work, and you are not choosing a side.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, and anyone telling you that is working from old information. Kenect sells conversational AI across text, email and voice, plus inbound call handling, service scheduling, recall campaigns, text-to-pay and reviews. It answers after hours, because that is much of what dealers buy it for.
Only partly, and only on the sales side. Ekho does not cover the service department, reviews, or the phone, and it does not do email yet. Plenty of dealers keep Kenect for those and run Ekho on sales. If someone tells you it is a clean swap, ask them what happens to your service scheduling.
Four things. It sells from your live inventory by name and price rather than capturing an enquiry. It runs a soft-pull pre-qualification in the thread. It can carry a ready buyer through a completed, compliant purchase in all 50 states. And your own team configures it per rooftop, live, rather than filing change requests.
Not today. Website chat and text only, with email and AI calls in development. Kenect does both now. If those channels are the requirement, that is a real advantage for them.
Not yet. Trade-in valuation in the conversation is in development. Pre-qualification and the full checkout are live today.
No, and this is worth saying plainly because dealers have renewed a contract days before discovering the overlap. Ekho runs on sales alongside Kenect without either getting in the other's way, so there is nothing to wait for and no need to cancel anything to try us.
Neither publishes a rate card. Kenect is listed by third-party directories as per-user with a free trial. Ekho is priced per rooftop and quoted on a call, because what you need depends on which products you turn on.
Sources
Every claim about Kenect 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.
- Kenect homepage retrieved 2026-08-23
- Kenect FAQ, AI and automation retrieved 2026-08-23
- Kenect Engage AI retrieved 2026-08-25
- Kenect Voice AI retrieved 2026-08-25
- Kenect Managed Conversations retrieved 2026-08-25
- Kenect business text messaging retrieved 2026-08-23
- Kenect, about us retrieved 2026-08-25
- Kenect OEM and technology partners retrieved 2026-08-25
- Ekho changelog, AI Sales Agent retrieved 2026-08-23
Last reviewed August 25, 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.