‘Sign of the times.’
For some industries, the artificial intelligence bubble has burst before it even had a chance to inflate. Take OpenAI’s Sora, which canceled a $1 billion deal with Disney for video creation after further investigation revealed that the resource-heavy tools outpaced any monetization from creating clips from prompts.
But that doesn’t mean there still aren’t usage scenarios where AI has proven its usefulness. When it comes to quickly scanning, compiling, and synthesizing available data, it’s a powerful tool for folks who input specific prompts to answer their questions, like car buyers using it to find the best price on the car they’re shopping for.
That’s what a Volkswagen sales rep and TikTok user named Sofia (@sofialikescars) said one of her clients did after test-driving a vehicle. And she didn’t know how to react.
In a social media post uploaded on March 21, Sofia delineated her interaction with the prospective car buyer in question. She says that following the test drive, she gauged the customer’s interest in purchasing the ride. And his response left her unsure of how to react.
“I had a brand new objection today that I’ve never had before, and I’m curious what your thoughts are on it,” she says in the video. “So I test drove the car, went over every little thing, and then when I finally asked for their business and said, ‘Anything I could do today to make you happy to put a deal together?’ They said, ‘Well, no, I wouldn’t be buying a car today.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, OK, is there any way I can help you towards a decision?’ He said I need to take this quote and put it into my AI,’ and I didn’t know how to respond to that. But yeah, that was the first one to like really stump me in a long time.”
Folks who replied to Sofia’s video had varying opinions on the practice. Several folks commented on her client interaction from the perspective of a car seller, like this one person who demonstrated how they would have angled the customer’s AI response towards a potential sale.
“If AI confirms this quote is on target, when would you like to take the car home?” they wrote.
Another user on the app suggested that she urge the customer to assess the deal right then and there in the showroom, to at least try and keep the client in the showroom and “negotiating.”
Someone else stated that Sofia shouldn’t object to customers running their deals through an artificial intelligence program. That is, if she were confident she indeed gave them “good service and a good deal,” they penned.
And then there was a new-car buyer who said AI helped them save thousands of dollars. “Sign of the changing times. AI would tell him if your deal was fair or not. Purchased an extended warranty on a 2026 Palisade and AI saved me over 2K. Come out with your best offer and you will have a sale,” they said.
But another user on the application said that AI programs only scan dealership prices. This is inherently a problem because businesses post false car sale prices, wasting time. “So AI is very good at finding better prices at dealerships that posted a fake price – AI does not know it’s a fake price and dealerships like it that way,” the other TikTok user wrote.
This Reddit user, who posted in the r/ChatGPT sub, shared their experiences using artificial intelligence for car sales. They said that they “created an AI car negotiator with ChatGPT,” which culminated in “an insane deal.” The prompt creator shared how they are a professional car negotiator, so they knew which targeted questions to ask ChatGPT when developing the tool.
When testing the tool on a real-world car purchase, they claimed to have been blown away by how much money and time they saved.
“I was able to get a fully automated and amazing deal on a new car … same sort of deal that would take days of negotiation remotely … or a solid 4-6 hours hashing it out in person at the dealer,” they wrote. In the comments section of the same post, they reiterated that “prompt engineering is super critical when trying to focus” artificial intelligence programs into creating a negotiation tool.
Additionally, Go Banking Rates published an article in March of 2026 on how AI tools are empowering buyers to whittle “thousands” off vehicle sales prices. The piece highlighted the efforts CarEdge CEO Zach Shefska has put into developing an AI car-buying negotiator tool. This bot handles the frustrating experience of dealing with car sales reps to help net shoppers the best possible deal on their rides. And it seems that car dealerships are taking note and are working on how to adapt to this practice, as evinced by this Cox Automotive piece.
Motor1 has reached out to Sofia via email for further comment. We will update this story if she responds.
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