New Delhi, May 18: In April this year, Vikram Chopra, Founder & CEO of Cars24 sent a message to every function head at Cars24. It read: “AI is not a tech project. It is how Cars24 runs now. Every function.” He then set a single target, that revenue, output, and metrics per employee across every team must double through AI automation. He called it a non-negotiable.
That internal mandate is now producing results that are showing up externally. In H2 FY’26, Cars24 reported a 50% increase in revenue per employee, a direct outcome of the company systematically replacing manual workflows with AI across pricing, inspections, logistics, customer experience, and risk. Cars24 is no longer in the process of adopting AI. It has been rebuilt around it.
Token ’26 is the next step in that journey. On May 28–30, Cars24 will bring 50 of India’s best AI engineers to Delhi for a 72-hour, winner-takes-all individual hackathon. One winner. One prize. ₹20,00,000.
From Marketplace to AI-Native Operating Company
As per Cars24, AI has contributed approximately 300 basis points to EBITDA as revenue grew & operating costs remained flat. But the more significant point is what is behind those numbers: AI is no longer a project sitting inside the engineering organisation. It is woven into how almost every part of Cars24 runs. Today, at Cars24:
Seller and Inspection: AI has reduced inspection time while improving pricing accuracy, resulting in a structurally lower share of inspection misses, a metric that directly affects the economics of every car Cars24 buys.
Refurbishment and Retail: AI-led daily hub audits now cover 100% of the retail network, running approximately 1,750 automated checkpoints per day. Sales workflows powered by AI orchestrate more than 40,000 personalised customer journeys across the network.
Customer and Dealer Experience: Cars24’s AI platform now handles over 1.5 million minutes of calls per month, across more than 7 languages and 20+ distinct workflows — a capability built in partnership with ElevenLabs. Dealer contact has been reduced structurally as a result.
Lending and Risk: Ten machine learning models now live across underwriting, fraud detection, early warning, and collections. The system processes more than 80,000 documents per month for fraud detection alone.
Workflow Automation: A significant number of workflows across marketing, design, and analytics have been automated, with coverage expanding to additional functions each quarter.
Engineering: Perhaps the most striking data point: engineering output is up 4x at Cars24. Every line of code shipped is reviewed by AI; nearly a third is now written by it. Non-engineers have already begun raising pull requests, a trend Cars24 expects to grow significantly.
Cars24 also has a strategic partnership with OpenAI, through which it has embedded AI models across its consumer, partner, and employee-facing systems. The Cars24 app is available on the ChatGPT Store, enabling vehicle discovery through conversational AI. The company works with ElevenLabs for voice AI and Amazon Web Services for cloud infrastructure.
Token’26 : the most unforgiving, real hackathon for India’s top 0.1% individuals
Token ’26 is structured to reflect exactly how Cars24 thinks about building: individual accountability, real problems, and outcomes that matter. There are no teams. Every engineer competes alone. Shortlisted participants must have a minimum of one year of hands-on shipping experience. Problem statements are drawn directly from Cars24’s live operations — spanning AI-driven pricing, vehicle inspections, customer decision-making, and risk assessment. Solutions are expected to be production-ready, not prototypes.
All participants will have access to frontier AI models via OpenAI, voice AI infrastructure from ElevenLabs, and cloud compute credits from AWS. Mentorship will be provided by Cars24’s AI leadership and partner experts throughout the event. The winner takes ₹20 lakh. No split. No second place.
“We have spent the last year rebuilding significant parts of how this company operates. AI is not a tool we give to teams — it is the operating model. The results are showing: revenue per employee is up 50%, and we’re only at the beginning. Token ’26 is about finding the engineers who want to build what comes next — people who understand that the companies that win this decade will not be the ones that adopted AI, but the ones that were rebuilt around it. That is what we are doing at Cars24, and that is who we want in the room.”
– Vikram Chopra, Founder & CEO, Cars24
Why the name Token’?
In large language models, a token is the smallest unit of input the system processes. Individually, a token carries limited meaning. In combination and at scale, tokens become the foundation of systems that can understand, reason, and act. The name reflects Cars24’s belief that individual builders — working with the right tools and the right problems can create systems with consequences far larger than themselves.
Applications for Token ’26 are open at token.cars24.com
The event takes place May 28–30, 2026, in Delhi The shortlist is being finalised.