Cars24 commits AED 75 million to AI with the launch of Cars24 Labs

Dubai, UAE | 29th June, 2026:

Cars24, the global auto-tech platform, has announced the launch of Cars24 Labs, a dedicated AI build, partner, and investment arm backed by a AED 75 million commitment. The initiative marks the company's most significant strategic bet to date, and its clearest signal yet that it intends to be an AI-native business, not just an AI-enabled one.

Cars24 Labs operates across three pillars. It builds proprietary AI products across the company's stack, alongside open-source models available for public use. It partners with companies working at the frontier of AI, with OpenAI, ElevenLabs, and AWS already signed on as foundational partners. And it invests in and incubates early-stage AI startups, offering capital, operational expertise, and the infrastructure of a company that has scaled across some of the world's most complex markets. The AED 75 million commitment funds the infrastructure, compute, and talent required to pursue all three.

"We have been watching how AI changes the work we actually do every day, and the honest answer is: it changes all of it. We are operating in a market that has already decided AI is not optional. That makes the question simple. The question for us was never whether to commit. It was how fast we could move and how seriously we could build. Cars24 Labs is that answer. The AED 75 million is not a hedge. It is a decision."

• Abhinav Gupta, CEO, Cars24 Arabia

The partnership structure gives Cars24 Labs immediate access to capabilities that would take years to build independently. OpenAI, ElevenLabs, and AWS bring frontier models, voice AI, and cloud infrastructure respectively. In return, Cars24 offers something equally valuable: eleven years of operational depth, proprietary data across millions of transactions, and a scaled distribution network spanning some of the world's fastest-growing automotive markets.

The announcement comes at a moment when most companies are still working out what AI means for their business. Industry data shows that 95% of AI pilots fail before reaching production, and 42% of companies abandoned the majority of their AI projects in 2025 alone. Cars24 is making a different kind of bet: that the companies willing to commit fully in the next two to three years will not just outperform, they will make everyone else irrelevant.

For Cars24 Arabia, Labs represents both a global mandate and a regional opportunity. The UAE has established itself as one of the most AI-forward markets in the world, and Cars24's presence here positions Labs to operate at the intersection of frontier technology and a market that is actively built for it.

Cars24 Labs is now operational. Startups and researchers interested in the incubator programme can apply at labs@cars24.com.