Kia Technology Leads with Kian Bot
South Trail Kia (dealership blog), Calgary, Alberta - December 20, 2017
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Experience Auto Sales from the Future—Meet Kian!
His appearance may look a little like the sinister Dalek robots from Doctor Who, but his winking expression and the bright red Kia logo on his chest will reassure you that he’s not a villain. Plus, he’s just so darn cute.
Kian is the latest in Kia technology. Kian is a chatbot, or bot for short, and he’s here to help you find and buy your next Kia. Technically, Kian is an “artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant,” according to his co-creator, CarLabs of Calabasas, California. They partnered with Kia to debut Kian at the Los Angeles Auto Show in December 2017, and it was some of the biggest Kia news at the show.
CarLabs sounds pretty proud of Kian. According to their website, “Kian enables a mobile-first experience that feels like a conversation with a human automotive expert, only smarter, because it instantly analyzes millions of data points.” The idea is for Kian to help you research your next vehicle purchase. It will compare models, show you available features and options, and find you special sales or that exact car you want, all without any pressure, at any time of day or night. Think of Kian as that friend of yours who knows everything about cars and is happy talk about them—particularly Kias!
Where Does Kian “Live”?
For now, Kian is available only on Kia’s Facebook Messenger page. Eventually, Kian will be found on Kia’s North American websites. At this point Kian is still learning on the job, so to speak. CarLabs says Kian “has a sophisticated analytics engine that optimizes the experience based on user input and data.” The more you chat with Kian, the more he learns, and the better he can help you find exactly what you’re looking for.
Does it work? Well, Kia’s experience with Kian’s “ancestor” would suggest that it does. The earlier bot was called NiroBot, and it was launched in November of 2016 to help Kia promote its then-new Niro compact SUV. How successful was NiroBot? According to MediaPost.com, since NiroBot’s launch, “Kia realized more than 875,000 engagements from more than 33,000 consumers with more than 22,000 Niro crossovers sold to date.” It sounds like NiroBot had quite a knack for sales!
Kian Takes on New Territory
NiroBot had a single-minded focus on selling Niros, like that sales person at a dealership who has a gift for getting customers into one particular model. Kian wants to do it all, though. Kian knows everything about every Kia. What’s more, he knows everything about every Kia competitor and can tell you why a given Kia model is the best car or truck for you.
Give Kian a try. (You’ll need a Facebook account for this link to work.) Ask Kian to show you your local Kia dealer’s inventory, and it will give you a link to the dealer’s inventory page, the dealer’s phone number (ours is 1 888 439 5785, in case you were wondering), a map, and a link to the dealer’s website.
Now, try asking Kian how many horsepower the Kia Optima has. I just tried it, and Kian replied, “The 2018 Kia Optima LX makes 185 hp @6,000 RPM. The 2018 Optima SX has 245 hp @ 6,000 RPM. (Giddy up!)” Apparently Kian is learning to have a sense of humour, too!