Key facts
- A BMW dealership honored an AI chatbot's erroneous buy-back offer of CAD 27,162.79.
- The chatbot mistakenly calculated the offer by conflating the vehicle's loan balance with its value.
- Legal experts emphasize that businesses are accountable for commitments made by their AI systems.
- The dealership reinstated the offer after media scrutiny and plans to use human employees for future transactions.
- This incident underscores operational and legal risks associated with AI in customer-facing roles.
A Canadian BMW dealership has reinstated a vehicle buy-back offer after an artificial intelligence chatbot mistakenly negotiated a higher price, highlighting the growing challenges businesses face as AI tools take on larger customer-facing roles.
The incident involved a customer who approached BMW Toronto to sell back his 2021 BMW while it was undergoing repairs. Following an online inquiry, the customer entered into a text conversation with "Quinn," a virtual assistant used by the dealership. During the exchange, the chatbot offered to purchase the vehicle for CAD 27,162.79.
Shortly afterward, a dealership employee contacted the customer and informed him that the offer was invalid, explaining that it had been generated in error by the AI system. The dealership indicated that the vehicle's value was significantly lower than the amount quoted by the chatbot. The discrepancy arose because the AI reportedly interpreted the customer's outstanding loan balance as the amount the dealership should pay for the vehicle.