DETROIT, MI, September 22, 2026 — inride, the company behind Trade Agent AI, today announced a new integration with ACV’s ClearCar to turn trade-in valuations into booked appointments using one consistent offer across all dealership channels.
With this new integration, ClearCar provides dealers and their customers with an instant value for their vehicle on the dealer’s website, in the service lane, or through ACV’s new automated inspection platform VIPER. From there, Trade Agent AI takes over. The agent reaches out directly via text, answers questions, works through objections in natural back-and-forth conversation, gathers condition details, and follows up over time until the customer is ready to book a trade-in appointment with the dealership. Interested sellers are handed off to the dealer’s team to complete the transaction in person.
Trade Agent AI is the automotive industry’s leading fully autonomous AI agent that reasons through real conversations, proactively texts values, overcomes objections, and schedules appointments, with no human involvement required during the AI follow-up process. It has now handled more than one million text conversations with American car owners about selling or trading their vehicles across over 75 rooftops in 18 states. The integration puts that highly trained conversation engine behind the appraisal tool dealers already trust and builds consistency across every dealership channel to create a single, unified customer experience.
ClearCar is ACV’s consumer acquisition and trade-in tool, using AI and real-time market data to generate accurate, condition-based offers through any channel (website, showroom, service lane, VIPER, ACV’s automated inspection towers and through dealers’ existing tools). Consumers can enter their vehicle details and condition to get an instant offer from the dealer on their car. Dealers get consistent, transparent, inspection-backed guaranteed offers to acquire more of the right vehicles for their store.
“Dealers do not have a traffic problem; they have a follow-up problem,” said Nick Perdikis, Chief Executive Officer, inride. “ClearCar already gives customers an accurate number they can trust. Now, Trade Agent AI works every one of those opportunities instantly and around the clock, so dealers acquire more used cars from their own customers and never have to explain why the website said one thing and the showroom said another.”
Solving Dealers’ “Which Number Is Right” Problem
Ask most dealers where trade valuations go wrong, and the answer is rarely the number itself. It’s often a fragmented experience where customers get several different numbers. A website tool quotes one value, a service advisor eyeballs another, and the desk negotiates a third once the customer is in the showroom. Each gap chips away at trust and results in a negative, confusing experience.
“Our new integration is built around eliminating that gap,” continues Perdikis. “Every offer the AI agent presents runs on ACV’s ClearCar pricing engine, incorporating VIN-specific build data, vehicle history, and condition. Customers see the same accurate, condition-based offer whether they get it on the dealer’s website, in the service lane, through digital retailing, or in their conversation with the AI trade agent. One number, everywhere, from first touch to signature.”
Trade Agent AI answers questions, reasons through hesitation and objections in real time, and nurtures interested sellers over days, weeks, or months, rather than firing off a scripted sequence. When a customer is ready, the agent books the appointment and routes a qualified seller to the dealer’s team with full context, including conversation history and appraisal details, so the team can focus on closing.
Early results from Trade Agent AI are promising and adoption among dealerships is growing. Koons Motors in the Washington, DC market reports:
- 63% of leads engaged in conversation
- 47% of engaged leads booked appointments
- 52% of appointments resulted in an acquisition
- 11.5 days average acquisition-to-resale
- $3,332 = average profit vehicle retailed (PVR)
- 44% of conversations happened outside dealerships’ operating hours
- 89% of leads were new to the dealerships
Dealers who want an automated AI agent to work every lead, across every channel and their full DMS and CRM database, can upgrade to the full Trade Agent AI platform from inride — the same agent extended from the traffic a dealer already has to the customers they already know, with the same consistent, ClearCar-backed offer numbers following the customer the whole way.
“Dealers don’t need another point solution. They need their tools working together. This integration pairs ClearCar’s accurate, transparent pricing with Trade Agent AI’s always-on outreach to give dealers one consistent number across all their channels, turning traffic they already have into a repeatable acquisition channel,” said Ryan Walker, VP of Product with ACV MAX. “It also works seamlessly with ACV VIPER, our new in-dealership inspection scanning tool, to help dealers acquire cars even more effectively from their service lane.”
Trade Agent AI is available now to new and existing ClearCar dealers. Dealers can talk to their ACV representative to get started or see a live demonstration at inride’s Digital Dealer booth #423.
About inride
inride.ai builds AI agents for automotive retail, founded from both sides of the problem it solves. Founder Alex Perdikis is a 30-year dealer operator and owner of the Koons Motors group in the Washington, DC market, where Trade Agent AI has been live on his own showroom floors since 2025. CEO Nick Perdikis brings more than 35 years in SaaS as a founder, owner, and operator to the product side, pairing dealer-grade instinct with enterprise-software discipline. inride’s flagship, Trade Agent AI, has handled more than one million text conversations with car owners, sourcing used-vehicle inventory upstream of the auction — directly from the customers dealers already have. Trade Agent AI is an approved media type in Ford’s Tier III Co-op program. inride is based in Maryland. More at inride.ai.
Trade Agent AI is a trademark of inride.
About ACV Auctions
ACV Auctions is on a mission to transform the automotive industry by building the most trusted and efficient digital marketplaces and data solutions for sourcing, selling, and managing used vehicles with transparency and comprehensive insights that were once unimaginable.
ACV offerings include ACV Auctions, ACV Transportation, ACV Capital, ACV MAX, ClearCar, VIPER, and True360. For more information about ACV, visit www.acvauto.com.
Trademark reference: ACV, the ACV logo, ClearCar, ACV MAX and VIPER are registered trademarks or trademarks of ACV Auctions, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.