Tekion, the AI-Native Platform, Sets a New Standard for Agentic AI in Automotive Retail at NADA 2026

Founder and CEO Jay Vijayan unveiled three new AI agents as part of its agentic AI Suite, previewed Tekion’s 2026 product roadmap, and announced the company’s inaugural Tekion One automotive conference.

PLEASANTON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tekion, the automotive industry’s leading AI-native cloud platform, unveiled its AI platform vision and latest agentic and embedded AI capabilities during Founder and CEO Jay Vijayan’s keynote at the 2026 NADA Show in Las Vegas. Building on a strong year of growth and customer adoption, Tekion outlined its next chapter: a unified, AI-native platform that uses accurate, real-time data from across its end-to-end system to provide the richest business context — enabling dealership employees to sell more, operate more efficiently, access valuable insights instantly, and serve customers a seamless consumer experience.

During the keynote, Vijayan shared a business update highlighting Tekion’s continued momentum in implementing its Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC) platform to dealers around the world, reporting over 60% ARC revenue growth in 2025. He also reinforced the company’s significant investment to become the industry’s only AI-native, end-to-end automotive retail platform purpose-built for enterprise-scale operations and governed by a single, rigorous security framework. Building on their successful Service Advisor AI agent and other AI solutions, Vijayan announced Tekion’s 2026 product roadmap, centered on expanding AI agents driving measurable business outcomes.

“Real progress is moving far beyond incremental improvements,” said Jay Vijayan, Founder and CEO of Tekion. "Key industry KPIs have been stagnant for decades in spite of the plethora of new software available to dealers in the market. For the first time in years, there is a real opportunity with AI to show a significant increase in these KPIs. Tekion is excited about delivering a highly secure, unified platform where AI connects every process and role, elevating performance and productivity. We’re proud of the value we’re delivering with our agentic and embedded AI purpose-built for real-world dealership performance and consumer experience.”

From AI-Augmented to AI-Native

At NADA 2026, Tekion reinforced its differentiation as an AI-native platform, developed with intelligence embedded directly into core dealership workflows rather than added as an overlay. Designed from the ground up on a unified data model, security framework, and cloud architecture, Tekion enables consistent insights, eliminates operational silos, reduces the complexity that has long slowed dealership innovation, and supports enterprise-scale performance across every rooftop and role.

Tekion’s AI-native platform delivers a growing portfolio of AI Agents across sales, service, parts, accounting, and retail experiences as part of its Agentic AI suite. Operating on a single platform and shared business context, these agents leverage real-time dealership data to deliver outputs that are relevant, accurate, and actionable — at scale.

New AI Agent Announcements and Platform Expansion

Tekion announced several platform updates and product advancements, including:

• Scheduler AI – A consumer-facing AI Agent that handles appointment scheduling end-to-end; booking, rescheduling and canceling appointments automatically with a clear connection to a 360-degree view of existing customers, reducing call volume and elevating customer experience.
• Technician AI – The first in the industry, an AI agent that takes simple voice and/or visual (video, pictures) inputs, interacts and assists technicians by analyzing past and real-time vehicle data, service history, and repair trends to pre-fill comprehensive inspection information, significantly improving consistency, efficiency, and accuracy in the service lane through real-time, data-driven insights.
• T1 – An interactive/ conversational AI interface into an entire dealership’s data with deep business context. Users can interact with customers, deals, repair orders, inventory, accounting, and more—and get instant, role-aware answers or have tasks executed through Tekion AI Agents.
• Announcing Tekion App Store, as part of Automotive Partner Cloud (APC) 2.0. Tekion App Store enables faster innovation through easy availability of the growing partner ecosystem and simplified app discovery, contracting, operating and billing.

Together, these updates reflect Tekion’s agent-based, AI-native approach, delivering intelligence through a unified platform rather than introducing new systems or fragmented tools, enabling dealerships to scale innovation without increasing complexity.

Trust, Security, and Responsible AI

Trust and data privacy remain foundational to Tekion’s AI strategy. During the keynote, Tekion announced it is one of the first automotive retail platform providers to be certified with ISO/IEC 42001, the global standard for Responsible Artificial Intelligence Management Systems – reinforcing their commitment to secure, ethical and responsible AI across the platform. Built on one platform, one security model, and one audit trail, Tekion enables dealerships to innovate with confidence while maintaining the highest standards for compliance, data integrity, and responsible AI governance.

Looking Ahead: Tekion One 2026

In closing, Vijayan announced Tekion One 2026, the company’s inaugural customer conference that is positioned to become the automotive retail industry’s premier Data & AI event. Tekion One will take place June 15–17, 2026 at Resorts World Las Vegas, bringing together dealers, OEMS, partners, and industry leaders for hands-on demos, customer success stories, and a deeper look at Tekion’s expanding AI agent ecosystem.

The event builds on the momentum of NADA and reflects Tekion’s focus on adoption, execution, and long-term partnership with its customers.

About Tekion

Tekion is redefining automotive retail with its end-to-end AI platform purpose-built for the industry. By embedding AI into every workflow, Tekion delivers intelligent automation, real-time insights, and advanced decision support - driving efficiency, revenue, and modern consumer experiences. As the first and fastest cloud-native platform for automotive, Tekion brings OEMs, dealers, partners, and consumers together through its revolutionary suite: Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC) for retailers, Automotive Enterprise Cloud (AEC) for manufacturers and large automotive enterprises, and Automotive Partner Cloud (APC) for technology and industry partners. With AI-powered, cloud-native technology, Tekion enables the most seamless, transparent, and profitable retail experiences in the industry.

For more information, visit www.tekion.com.