Since its founding in 1993, CarMax has evolved from an industry-disrupting startup into the United States' largest used car retailer. Despite this success, the company continually seeks new ways to innovate and enhance the car-buying experience. Leveraging Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, CarMax has streamlined the creation of text summaries for its car research pages, providing customers with valuable content while improving the site's search engine rankings. Building on this achievement, CarMax plans to further integrate AI-generated content across its website.
With OpenAI Service, we are disrupting our industry once again by providing cutting-edge digital tools, transforming CarMax into a true omnichannel retailer.
Shamim Mohammad, Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Technology Officer
CarMax
Disrupting the Used Car Industry
While many companies claim to be industry disrupters, few have succeeded as CarMax has. The company revolutionized the process of purchasing a used car, leading to its position as the top pre-owned vehicle retailer in the U.S.
CarMax's success can be attributed to its customer-centric approach and relentless drive for innovation. It offers a hassle-free, customizable car-buying experience, whether online, in-store, or a combination of both. Since its inception, CarMax has sold over 11 million vehicles.
"We disrupted an industry that people disliked and introduced integrity, trust, and transparency," says Shamim Mohammad.
To meet customer needs, especially during their pre-purchase research, CarMax must provide detailed, accurate, and easily accessible information for over 45,000 cars nationwide. The CarMax website features comprehensive sales tools, detailed vehicle comparisons, and customer reviews. Managing and updating this vast amount of data led CarMax to adopt an AI-powered solution.
Choosing AI to Revolutionize Car Buying Research
To enhance its online customer experience, CarMax selected the cloud-based OpenAI API, which powers various solutions using large-scale models such as GPT-3. These models, trained with trillions of words, support applications ranging from writing assistance to data analysis.
As CarMax sought to scale its operations, the company transitioned to Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. This move provided enterprise-grade security, compliance, and regional availability, ensuring the protection of customer data and alignment with CarMax's core values.
“Security is crucial to us because we deeply value our customers,” says Mohammad. “Azure’s Responsible AI capabilities also ensure that the service upholds our ethical standards.”
The switch from OpenAI to Azure OpenAI Service was seamless. Kevin Hopwood, Cloud Solutions Architect at CarMax, describes it as "almost comically easy," noting that they simply updated an endpoint without any disruption.
Enhancing Customer-Centric Content Creation
The collaboration with Azure OpenAI Service has allowed CarMax to generate customer-relevant content for its research pages more efficiently. For instance, the 2018 Kia Sorento page now features AI-generated text for sections like “New this year” and “2018 Kia Sorento trims.”
CarMax initially used OpenAI Service to summarize customer reviews, a critical part of the decision-making process for many buyers. With thousands of reviews available for certain models, the AI system condenses them into easily digestible summaries.
“Customers increasingly rely on peer reviews, but there can be thousands to sift through,” explains Sean Goetz, Director of Application Systems at CarMax. “With OpenAI Service, we can summarize reviews at scale across our inventory.”
Using traditional methods, creating these summaries manually would have taken over a decade. However, OpenAI Service enabled CarMax to reach its goal in just a few months, with an 80% editorial approval rate after some fine-tuning.
In addition to faster content creation, CarMax enjoys the flexibility and cost savings of scaling its AI deployments. "It’s easy to scale out a custom model, run language tasks, and then dispose of it, when necessary,” says Hopwood.
Disrupting the Industry Again
Ultimately, CarMax’s focus remains on delivering an exceptional experience for both customers and employees. “We’re empowering customers with the information they need to make confident decisions,” says Mohammad. “With OpenAI Service, we’re disrupting the industry again, becoming a true omnichannel retailer through innovative digital tools.”
By streamlining content creation with AI, CarMax frees up its editorial staff to focus on more strategic, creative projects. “Our content creators add tremendous value, and OpenAI Service allows them to concentrate on what they do best,” adds Mohammad.
Moreover, the AI-generated content improves CarMax’s search engine rankings, drawing more traffic to its website. “Our SEO metrics are trending up,” says Goetz. “OpenAI Service is playing a key role in that improvement.”
Looking ahead, CarMax plans to explore additional AI use cases, such as generating comparisons between different car models.
CarMax also values its partnership with Microsoft, recognizing the importance of innovation in both companies. “We teamed up with Microsoft because they never stand still and are always bringing new ideas to the platform,” concludes Mohammad.
I want us to be the most innovative company in our industry, and I trust Microsoft will keep providing the tools we need to do that.
Shamim Mohammad: Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Technology Officer
CarMax