Ally Financial is continuing to invest in technology and generative AI to offer improved car sale recommendations and inventory options for dealers. 

The Detroit-based lender is looking into how to use technology to offer real-time car sale recommendations through the bank’s digital wholesale platform, SmartAuction, Sathish Muthukrishnan, chief information, data and digital officer at Ally Financial, told Bank Automation News. 

SmartAuction supports franchised and independent dealers by providing “inventory at [their] fingertips” using filtered search features that allow them to find cars based on vehicle type, year, make and model, according to Ally Financial’s website. 

Since Ally launched SmartAuction in 2000, the financier has continued to invest in the online platform’s capabilities. The bank is also leaning into AI to improve business operations, Muthukrishnan said. 

“We see generative AI giving us more capabilities that solve unmet business needs and are applicable to many functions within the company,” he said. The lender is also investing in technology to streamline internal processes and address fraud concerns, Muthukrishnan said. 

“We are exploring many avenues for the next use case,” he said. “Internally, our [anti-money laundering] and fraud units are thinking about ways to use AI to identify suspicious activity and evaluate trends in customer records to support casework.” 

Other investments by Ally include technology that will allow the financier to explore vector databases and use generative AI to assist with research, article search, scanning and summarization, Muthukrishnan said. 

Ally Financial’s auto portfolio inched down 1.2% sequentially and 1.1% year over year to $93 billion in the first quarter of 2024, according to the lender’s April 18 earnings supplement.  

Originations totaled $9.8 billion following a record 3.8 million consumer auto applications with a 29% approval rate. 

— Additional reporting by Vaidik Trivedi 

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on Auto Finance News, a sister publication to Bank Automation News.