Connected Car Vendor Bright Box Delivers AI-First Based System for OEMs and Dealerships Could it someday replace salesmen in car dealerships?

Bright Box, a global vendor of connected car services, has recently released Honda Connected Car services for European countries, and implements an AI system that could replace salesmen in car dealerships.

This AI can evaluate the customer's lifestyle and recommend accessories, can sell cars based on driving style and the individual's lifestyle. Not only that, it is able to predict when the user needs to go in for a service from the data generated from the telematic control unit or OBD dongle.

The new system is based on work that Bright Box has done with the processing of 90 terabytes of data from connected car users from various countries.

The AI-based solution from Bright Box helps to offer drivers from different categories a certain set of products and services—appropriate accessories, new car sales or an upcoming service visit—based on new analysis, vehicle telemetry, social networks, and master data.

One of the goals of the Bright Box team was to create a reliable model for forecasting the probability of car owners' visits to dealerships for service. This information is very important for dealerships, as most car owners do their first scheduled service only and never return again. For each vehicle, Bright Box used data collected up to a particular date that allowed them to assess the probability of two events: a car visiting any dealership within six weeks (particular date + 42 days) or a car visiting a particular dealership for service.

The team at Bright Box researched and evaluated segmentations of drivers by their driving style and vehicle usage patterns in order to offer drivers from different categories a certain set of products and services: appropriate accessories, new car sales or an upcoming service visit.

For instance, if a customer has a record of driving aggressively at night, it may make sense to offer them new tires optimized for these particular conditions or 19-inch wheels. If a customer has relocated to the countryside, it might be appropriate to offer them a test-drive of a new, more suitable crossover. The Remoto AI can forecast the next service visit. It works based on the driver's behavior, on the "look-alike" principle with very high probability.

A typical consultant at a dealership works with an average of 100 customers. Bright Box enables dealerships to provide a personal consultant to every customer in the form of an intelligent application. This way, a dealership can increase sales and service quality by 100x or more.

The quality of provided services depends solely on the amount of collected data. Bright Box has been collecting data for over five years. Each connected car unit from Bright Box generates up to 8.7 million records (status records)—over 2.3 million car status entries on the average. As a result, the company has accumulated more than 90 terabytes of connected car data from users from different countries.

Bright Box has created something called Data Lake, on the basis of Microsoft Azure, where terabytes of data gathered from cars are stored in a structured fashion. Upsell forecasts are based on the data from Telematics (mileage, GPS, speed, RPM), as well as from CRM, DMS or ERP systems (customer ID, date of the transaction, breakdowns by work/materials). It can bring so-called "insights" to light based on this data.

For example, Bright Box can calculate approximately 100 indicators that company consider important: the portion of driving time spent at speeds of over 80 mph, how frequently the driver steps on the gas, where they go most frequently in an urban setting or in the country, etc. Data is constantly being accumulated and analyzed from all available sources.

For every user, there are a certain number of indicators that characterize only that user. It should be total duration of trips for the period, average part of trips with engine speed, part of trips in which right rear passenger door was opened/closed, part of trips with distance of the trip in range [5; 10] km, total number of trips for the period, part of trips in which trunk was opened/closed (in total number of trips), average part of trips in the mornings (6.00 - 11.00), and 120+ insights more.

It can then determine the likelihood of a response to an offer from a dealer based on every driver's indicators. If this probability reaches a certain value required to trigger a marketing or service campaign, a push notification is sent to the user's email or phone. The car owner receives a minimally-interactive message. If the customer is interested, Remoto AI offers to send them an application, open a chat window, or schedule a return call from a dealer for further communication. The customer's reaction affects the evaluation of the probability of their responding to similar offers in the future.

AI-based algorithms detect driver behavior changes in order to offer them new cars or accessories. Now, Bright Box has offered this AI solution first for their customers. Remoto AI can be connected to any available Connected Car solution, and get the same results.

Implementation of a new solution takes around a month. In 2019, the company plans to influence car manufacturers and their processes in the sense letting them know that a system or indicator they supply is not used by drivers.

Bright Box LLC (www.remoto.com) is a European corporation that is specialized in solutions and platforms in the connected car sector. Its headquarters are in Switzerland and the developers work primarily in Eastern Europe. The bright box management team has many years' experience with software systems in the automotive sector. ?onnected Car platform Remoto has already been successfully deployed by several automakers, including Infiniti, KIA, Toyota, Hyundai and Nissan. The Connected Car platform from Bright Box is in trial operation by many vehicle manufacturers around the world, from Europe through the Middle East to Asia. Bright Box was declared one of the top five vendors in the Connected Car market from 2017 to 2021 by Technavio and one of the top 300 companies in the Internet of Things field according to Berg Insight.