Tekion builds Automotive Retail Cloud and Smart Communication AI tool with Azure

Finding the right car can be time-consuming and confusing for consumers wanting to balance style and performance with affordable payments and servicing. Tekion is committed to making it easier for people to locate and purchase cars that suit their specific needs. The company’s automotive retail technology platform helps consumers navigate every aspect of car ownership, from financing to leasing and vehicle maintenance.

With offices and employees across North America, Europe, and India, Tekion helps dealerships and car companies around the world improve operational efficiency and consumer experience. It also works closely with major automotive brands and dealerships to power digital retail experiences.

“It’s an industry with many complex parts and large transactions,” says Binu Mathew, Chief Technology Officer at Tekion. “Historically, it was underserved by outdated software solutions, making it difficult to provide a seamless, modern experience. Tekion was founded with a mission of changing that.”

Deeper customer connections

To streamline vehicle purchasing for consumers and dealerships, Tekion aimed to create a unified, cloud-native platform that uses generative AI. “We built Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC) to help buyers and retailers better connect—a modern, cloud-native stack that integrates CRM and ERP systems and could securely streamline dealership operations, providing a modern SaaS experience without legacy system constraints,” says Mathew.

“Microsoft Azure has the scale, security, and foundation to manage business continuity and realize our vision for our global customers,” continues Mathew. With Microsoft Azure, Tekion employed Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure OpenAI Service. “We use AKS extensively to manage our containerized applications,” says Mathew. “This helps us efficiently deploy, scale, and manage our cloud-native stack, ensuring seamless operations and high availability for our ARC.”

The team used Azure SQL, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL to manage and store customer data more efficiently and securely. It employed Azure Cosmos DB for critical configurations and transactions demanding high availability. Mathew says its flexible schema supports rapid development, allowing seamless updates in production with zero downtime during upgrades. The team used Azure SQL for scenarios requiring strong transactional guarantees, ensuring impeccable data integrity for read/write operations with minimal tolerance for errors.

“Azure OpenAI Service helps us simplify customer search, appointment scheduling, interpreting customer queries, and providing salespeople with information to respond effectively,” says Mathew. Buyers can search for vehicles and receive detailed information and matching options based on their preferences. They can also get real-time updates on vehicle orders or service status. Dealerships can support digital signatures and electronic forms, streamlining contract processes and reducing physical paperwork.

Smart Communication, an ARC CRM feature, uses Azure OpenAI Service to analyze and summarize communications between car shoppers and sales agents. Using natural language processing, it extracts key points and insights from phone conversations, chats, texts, and emails, providing customer-specific recommendations and prompts for agents to deepen engagement. Smart Communication also automatically creates emails for agent follow-up, facilitating ongoing connection with potential buyers while saving agents’ time.

Within ARC, Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Cosmos DB are also used for CRM to boost sales efficiency and a customer support chatbot to handle less-complex customer questions. This helps in managing customer interactions and sales processes more effectively.

Fluid and efficient

“Azure OpenAI Service removes friction from the customer experience, making interactions fluid and efficient,” says Mathew. Consumers can interact with car companies and dealerships seamlessly across websites and physical stores without losing continuity. Tekion dealerships report greater ease in handling leads, which is driving accelerated sales pipelines, larger transactions, and cost savings. One Tekion customer reports up to $5,000 savings a month.

Since 2021, Tekion’s valuation has grown from $1 billion to $4 billion, in part due to the company’s ongoing AI innovation. “When we started, we had goals of differentiating our products to increase market share, average transaction value, and customer retention,” says Mathew. “With help from Azure OpenAI Service and the power of the Azure environment, we’re doing that and simultaneously continuing to innovate. That’s powerful.”

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