Lease End Launches ‘Payoff Intelligence’: an AI Agent That Battles ‘Dark Patterns’ to Save Americans Millions of Hours Per Year

• The newest addition to Lease End’s AI Constellation tirelessly navigates opaque phone trees, support chats, and online portals to secure auto lease payoff amounts, so drivers don’t have to.

BURLEY, Idaho & SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lease End, the fintech company transforming the auto lease buyout process, today announced the launch of Payoff Intelligence, a groundbreaking AI agent designed to overcome one of the most persistent hurdles in the auto industry: getting a lease payoff amount.

Payoff Intelligence is the latest addition to Lease End’s AI Constellation, a proprietary suite of AI agents redefining how drivers transition from leasing to ownership. While other agents in Constellation focus on sales and compliance, Payoff Intelligence is built purely for perseverance.

It’s the first tool in the world designed to tirelessly navigate the dozens of fragmented support channels set up by lease providers—including chatbots, email chains, complex online portals, automated phone trees, and even human support representatives—to secure the essential data drivers need to move forward.

“Payoff Intelligence cuts through the roadblocks leasing companies put in place to make it difficult to get a payoff,” said Lease End Co-Founder and CEO Brandon Williams. “It gets payoff information for drivers so they don’t have to jump through all the hurdles and return to a dealership at the end of their lease.”

The High Cost of “Efficiency”

For many drivers, finding a lease buyout number—the exact price to purchase their vehicle—is intentionally difficult. Lease providers often utilize systems designed to frictionally retain customers or delay cancellations. These practices, often referred to as “dark patterns,” rely on consumer fatigue.

The scale of the problem is significant. According to a 2024 review by the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN), 76 percent of online services employ at least one dark pattern to manipulate user behavior. Additionally, Americans spend an average of 13 hours per year in calling queues, according to the Harvard Business Review. For the two million Americans exiting auto leases each year, that’s tens of millions of hours wasted.

“These systems are often framed as efficiency measures, but in reality, too many are engineered to take advantage of consumer fatigue,” said Lease End Co-Founder and CRO Zander Cook. “The longer a customer waits and the more hoops they jump through, the more likely they are to give up. That’s why we built Payoff Intelligence. It is part of our laser focus on creating great experiences for drivers. We want to remove the friction entirely so they can make the best financial decision for themselves without the headache.”

How Payoff Intelligence Works

Payoff Intelligence guarantees an accurate payoff amount without a single touch from the user. It is not a passive tool; it is an active agent that logs into portals, navigates automated phone systems, and even speaks on the phone with human support representatives to get the job done. Key capabilities include:

• Comprehensive Navigation: Handles everything from web portals to live text and voice chats.
• Voice Negotiation: Capable of traversing complex phone trees to reach live agents and conversing with them directly.
• Automated Escalation: Detects delays and pushes through stalling tactics to ensure the number is secured.

This capability saves drivers hours of active work spread over several weeks, compressing a frustrating manual process into a background task that resolves automatically.

Built for Resilience

Developing an AI agent capable of navigating such a diverse and often adversarial landscape required a unique engineering approach.

“Building Payoff Intelligence required us to map the vast, unstructured web of support channels across the entire auto finance industry,” said Lease End CTO Dave Williams. “We had to train the model not just to understand language, but to understand bureaucratic persistence—to know when a bot is stalling, when a portal is hiding information, and how to push through to a resolution. It’s not just about automation, it’s about giving the driver a tool that works as hard as they would, without them having to lift a finger.”

About Lease End

Lease End is a fintech company empowering auto lessees with the AI tools and technology they need to easily exit their leases. Founded in 2021 in Burley, Idaho with a mission to simplify the lease buyout process, Lease End provides drivers with the tools and resources to make decisions that are truly best for them. By replacing the dealership-driven leasing cycle with a transparent and accessible alternative, Lease End delivers a modern, driver-first experience. Through seamless technology, competitive financing options, and trusted support, Lease End helps drivers avoid unnecessary fees, unlock equity, and transition from leased vehicles to ownership without the headache. Learn more at LeaseEnd.com