April 16, 2019—Openbay, today announced the launch of Otis. According to a press release, Openbay Otis is an automated artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning application designed to serve as a powerful and knowledgeable virtual automotive service advisor.
“We’re trying to modernize the website of a shop without replacing it with an entirely different website,” Rob Infantino, founder and CEO of Openbay told Ratchet+Wrench.
Openbay describes Otis as, “supporting the needs of vehicle owners interacting with automotive aftermarket businesses and automotive dealership service departments, by delivering important intent-matching capabilities and information about a business.”
“We came up with this product because we feel that there is a need for alignment with automotive service professionals and millennials,” said Infantino. “Millennials don’t like to speak to anyone, they like to text or message.”
Otis understands and responds with human language, Infantino told Ratchet+Wrench, but is “entirely different” from chatbots.
“We have the ability to feed information to Otis real-time from many different data sources to generate service quotes, book appointments, and text back and forth,” said Infantino.
He explained chatbots as having “static information” and only able to respond to questions it knows the answers to, like the hours or location of the shop, and generally, will eventually need to be handed off to a person because of their limited ability.
Otis runs on dynamic information, and has multiple data sources feeding it at every second.
“It’s similar to Alexa, Alexa self-learns everyday—Otis self learns everyday,” Infantino said to Ratchet+Wrench.
At the end of every conversation, Otis asks the customer if they would like to come in and set up an appointment.
“What we're seeing is that appointment bookings for these locations where Otis is deployed has gone up through the roof,” Infantino said.
According to a press release, Openbay Otis is available as a subscription service having multiple tiered plans to meet the needs of a variety of businesses from single location, multi-location and enterprise.
