9:24 am, October 20, 2026
A used car dealer has described the bizarre moment he realised he was speaking to an AI agent rather than a potential customer, prompting questions about how artificial intelligence could transform car sales.
Ben Holdaway, managing director of Abbey Park Cars based in Romsey, Hampshire, received a telephone enquiry from what initially sounded like an ordinary customer looking for a used BMW X3.
However, as the conversation continued, something didn’t seem quite right.
He told Car Dealer: ‘Like every car dealer, we get loads of telephone calls from Japanese import companies, energy companies from overseas, etc, and you can normally clock them in the first second.
‘There’s either a pause or something like that. So we had one of these calls come in and I was fully expecting the first words to be, “Your energy’s up for supply” or “Do you sell imports?” or something like that.
‘And it wasn’t. It went straight into, “Have you got any BMW X3s, just over £15,000, 80,000 miles, automatic?” Something like that.’
Holdaway said he knew immediately that he didn’t have anything matching the description among the vehicles at his dealership so the fact they’d called seemed strange.
‘It’s kind of odd when you get an inquiry and the first thing they ask is something that you just haven’t got,’ he explained.
‘That threw me a little bit anyway, so I said I haven’t, and then it went on, “Any other BMWs?” And again there was a slight pause in between asking me the questions.’
His suspicions grew when he attempted to find out more about the caller.
‘I said, “Do you live locally?” just trying to get into a bit of conversation because it was a bit odd, the questions.
‘And the answer was, “No, I don’t.” Then there was a slight pause.
‘I said, “Have you looked on our website?” and he said, “I can’t, I’m driving.”
‘I thought, this is really strange.’
When Holdaway eventually questioned whether the caller was an AI assistant, it confirmed that it was ‘an AI assistant doing research’.
The unexpected encounter has left him wondering whether the traditional process of customers searching for cars online, comparing adverts and contacting individual dealerships could be about to change.
Car Dealer has heard the call, which is convincing as a human but with some strange mannerisms and questions. Then when it confirms it’s AI and hangs up everything falls into place. We also tried to return the call that goes to a dead line.
Abbey Park Cars has been established for around 30 years and sells a broad range of used vehicles, typically priced between £5,000 and £25,000, with much of its stock costing around £12,000.
While Holdaway pointed out that the dealership didn’t have the specific BMW requested, the enquiry was far from unreasonable.
‘That kind of price range is what I sell,’ he said. ‘It might know that there’s a high chance I’ll have a 4×4 around £15,000.
‘If someone’s searching for a particular car, it’s not necessarily an unreasonable thing to come and ask.’
And the more he has thought about the call, the more convinced he has become that AI assistants could fundamentally change the way people find their next car.
He envisages a future in which motorists tell their personal AI assistant what they want, how much they can afford, which manufacturers they prefer and how far they are prepared to travel.
The assistant could then do the legwork, contacting dealerships to establish which vehicles are available and reporting back with a shortlist.
‘People are going to actually start saying to their AI assistant, “We want a BMW or Volkswagen. She only wants to run around locally. We were thinking about an EV, but we’re not sure. We’ve got about a £15,000 budget.”
‘It knows everything about you at this point in the future. In five or ten years’ time it probably knows what cars we’ve got from what we search on the internet, what we’ve previously bought, the comments we make on Facebook.
‘It can probably turn around and say, “Do you want me to see what’s available? How far are you looking to travel?”‘
For Holdaway, one of the biggest questions is what happens when those assistants can contact large numbers of businesses without the constraints of a human customer.
‘AI has no limits on how many phone calls or how many inquiries or how many text messages it might send,’ he said.
‘I’m starting to think to myself, what could the future look like? I mean, five years in AI is a long way away, isn’t it?
‘What’s to say they’re not getting hundreds and hundreds of AI-sourced inquiries, all gone from someone sat on their settee saying, “We fancy a new car”?’
AI could call 10 dealers at once
Pete Hanlon, chief technology officer at customer conversations specialist Moneypenny, believes the potential change is something dealerships need to take seriously.
He predicts AI car-buying enquiries could become increasingly common in Britain within the next year or two, particularly once major consumer technology platforms introduce more sophisticated personal assistants.
‘It’s starting to happen in the US now,’ he told Car Dealer. ‘My guess is we’ll see it become much more common in the UK over the next year or two. Once one of the big consumer platforms makes it available here, I think adoption could be pretty quick.’
Hanlon warned that dealerships could soon find themselves competing for the attention of an AI assistant contacting several businesses simultaneously.
‘Dealers should take these calls very seriously. There’s a real customer behind each call, often someone who already knows what they want and has asked their agent to go and find it.
‘Dismissing those calls as spam would be a mistake.
‘What dealers need to understand is that AI agents don’t shop around the way people do. A person might ring two or three dealers, one after another.
‘An AI could ring ten at once, and as soon as it has three or four good answers, it’ll hang up on the rest.’
And although a single buyer might generate numerous AI enquiries, Hanlon believes those calls should not automatically be regarded as less valuable than traditional customer enquiries.
‘The extra calls aren’t a sign of time wasters, they’re one buyer asking lots of dealers at once.
‘That doesn’t make them worth less, but dealers will have much less time to win them.’
For dealers, he warned, the ability to respond immediately could become increasingly important.
‘An AI agent isn’t going to sit on hold or remember to ring back tomorrow. If nobody answers, or the dealer can’t provide a price or arrange a test drive, it’ll just move on.
‘That’s why being able to answer calls quickly, at any time, and actually deal with the enquiry becomes so important.’
Could AI end up talking to AI?
It’s a scenario Holdaway has already begun considering following his unexpected telephone call.
He said the experience had changed the way he would approach another AI-generated enquiry and that he would now be inclined to provide much more detail about any suitable vehicle.
‘Now I’ve had that one telephone call, my next one I’ll probably treat with a lot more respect.
‘When they ask warranty information, I’ll probably say we offer extended warranties, six months as standard.
‘I’ll be telling it, like a customer, with as much information as possible to make sure that AI reports back to the human with all the detail that might put me ahead of the competitor.’
He also questioned whether dealerships could eventually need their own AI systems to ensure that customer assistants receive all the relevant information about a vehicle.
‘Someone’s AI will call up your AI and be like, “I want to buy a car”, and they’ll be negotiating for you,’ he said.
‘That AI might actually lose the finer detail of what warranty, finance, what rate, do you do home delivery, do you do walk-round videos, MOT, service details.
‘It’s a lot to get across.’
And he believes businesses that find ways to communicate all that information effectively could gain a considerable advantage.
‘The companies that end up harnessing something to be able to communicate to AIs together with all the information on a specific car, they’re just going to clean up.’
Hanlon agrees that AI could become an increasingly important part of dealership communications, with automated receptionists responding to enquiries around the clock and passing more complicated conversations to human staff.
‘For dealers, the message is to start preparing now rather than waiting for this to become mainstream.
‘Just as businesses have adapted to customers contacting them through websites, live chat and social media, AI agents could become another important route into the dealership.
‘The businesses that make themselves easiest to contact and do business with will be in a stronger position to benefit.’
AI could start negotiating deals too
And the technology could eventually take customers much further through the car-buying process before they ever speak to a salesperson.
Hanlon said AI assistants are already capable of undertaking many of the initial stages of a vehicle purchase, including enquiring about stock, discussing prices and investigating part-exchange arrangements.
He said: ‘Starting a deal, definitely. An AI agent could enquire about a car, discuss the price, ask about part exchange and arrange an appointment.
‘We’re already seeing consumer AI agents emerge, with platforms such as Meta exploring how they can negotiate and make purchases on people’s behalf, with the customer’s approval.’
Completing an entire vehicle purchase without the customer becoming directly involved would be more complicated, he added.
‘Buying a car outright is a bit different. You’ve got paperwork, finance arrangements and identity checks etc to deal with, and most people will still want to see the car before committing.
‘I think AI agents will do much of the legwork, leaving the customer to make the final decision and sign.’
For Holdaway, the experience has also raised questions about how motorists might eventually search for cars in the first place.
Rather than starting with an advertised vehicle, a buyer could instruct their AI assistant to find a particular model from a well-reviewed dealership within a certain distance.
‘Let’s just say you want to buy a Volkswagen Golf in grey, must be petrol, from a reliable dealer. We’re prepared to travel 50 miles.
‘Could you imagine the inquiries that are going to come in?
‘Because AI is probably going to email or phone up to 500 dealers.
‘It wants to learn about warranty. Do you take part exchange? What’s the condition? Service history? Finance rates?
‘It’s going to make a shortlist and I guess then it will present it back to its owner.’
It remains unclear which AI service contacted Abbey Park Cars or whether the enquiry was made on behalf of a genuine buyer.
But for Holdaway, who had never previously experienced anything quite like it, the call has already changed how he thinks about the future of his business.
‘It’s quite scary, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘But I honestly can see that being the way it goes.’