12:11 pm, April 27, 2026
Autotrader has revealed that 85% of its car dealers are now using its AI-powered Co-Driver tools with more than 2.5m vehicle descriptions and smart image re-ordering in the last 12 months.
Co-Driver uses rich vehicle classification, pricing and market data to generate vehicle descriptions, significantly reducing the time it takes for dealers to advertise vehicles on Autotrader.
The figure is around 11,000 businesses and Autotrader says this has saved them an estimated combined 200,000 hours of manual work in the year since it launched.
The company added that it has also introduced it’s AI capabilities into the consumer search function too, meaning that they can now search with phrases like ‘first cars’ or ‘big boot’.
Edward Westlake, group buyer at MM Bellinger & Sons, said: ‘Before Co‑Driver, our team spent a significant amount of time writing out lengthy vehicle descriptions; it was a huge administrative bottleneck.
‘With the new technology in place, the AI helps do the heavy lifting for us in seconds, and the adverts are just as detailed and engaging as when we wrote them manually. It’s really helped our daily operations by being a great time-saving tool.’
Karolina Edwards-Smajda, chief product officer at Autotrader, said: ‘Whilst everyone wants to talk about their latest AI gadget, Co-Driver is the real deal – it delivers the full scale of our data and technology capabilities, and the pinnacle of more than a decade of AI investment into our retailers’ hands.
‘We’ve spent years building this suite of tools from the ground up to solve the real everyday frictions our retailers face, whilst also ensuring that we deliver more value for them – and we’re continuing to refine and improve it, with retailers feedback, with the product already on its seventh major iteration.
‘To see close to 11,000 businesses adopt this tech in just a year shows that AI is no longer a competitive edge; it’s become the new operational baseline for automotive retailers.
‘Our partners are able to create more complete and effective adverts so that they have more time to focus on what really matters to them—sales – which in turn also results in a better car buying experience.’
