Carvana gifts AI-generated video histories to car-owning customers

Used-car retailer Carvana is showing love to its customers by issuing them unique, AI-generated videos of their vehicles.

Each animated video, roughly one minute and 47 seconds long, is intended to highlight the bond between an owner and their car, from the perspective of the latter. The cars reflect on the date and location of when they “first met” their owners (i.e. purchased), as well as cultural moments from that time.

For example, a sample video for a customer named Quintezl, who bought their car on November 29, 2021, recalls that day being National Chocolate Day.

“AI is so topical right now, so it’s cool to take our own swing at it,” said Ryan Keeton, co-founder of Carvana and its chief brand officer.

Carvana’s use of AI hinged on its pool of images for each car that it sells, which was digitally rendered using computer vision to create 3D copies for each owner’s video. Computer vision is a kind of artificial intelligence in which systems derive information from images and videos.

AI also was used to generate supplementary images that corresponded to unique aspects of each video, such as time of the year and cultural moments, as well as customize the voiceover. Much of the technology was proprietary, Keeton said, although some publicly available models were also used. Video production service 1stAveMachine collaborated on the campaign.

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Some 1.3 million Carvana owners will receive an email with their unique video, Keeton said. While no larger advertising push will fuel the campaign, dubbed “Joyride,” Carvana will promote it via social media, as well as encourage owners to post their videos on their own social channels.

“The biggest thing is having someone advocate for your brand,” said Keeton, alluding to how the effort contrasts with traditional marketing approaches that center promotion from the brand’s side.

AI technology has upended the ad industry as marketers look to enhance their creativity with highly capable tools, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney.

There is still much to be desired from these efforts, however, and Carvana’s is no different.

Owners who pay close enough attention to their videos may spot a factual inaccuracy. Quintezl’s video, for example, mentions that in November 2021 (the time of purchase), everyone was talking about the boat that infamously blocked the Suez Canal, but this event actually happened in March 2021 — some eight months earlier.

Keeton acknowledged that some videos would likely have inaccuracies, by virtue of the sheer number of iterations, as well as the fact that AI needs to be continually trained in order to be as accurate as possible. Critics of AI have lodged the same complaint at ChatGPT, especially after its initial launch.

Carvana’s campaign comes on the heels of its first-quarter results, which included a smaller net loss than a year earlier. The report detailed a 64% cut in advertising compared to the year-earlier period, as well as a 25 percent drop in the number of cars sold. Carvana's stock price surged 24 percent after the report was released.