USAA Debuts AR-Enabled, Car-Buying App
As Tematica Investing subscribers know, we are big fans of Amazon and one of the key reasons is how it removes friction from a transaction. We are seeing others adopt aspects of our Disruptive Innovators to follow in those footsteps. More often than not the adoption of such new technologies, like Augmented Reality (AR), can come from areas we least expect. Case in point, while we’ve seen makeup companies like Sephora and home shopping companies such as Ikea add AR to their apps, we are seeing financial companies do the same to ease the burden and friction of car shopping. Pardon the pun, but it’s an open road ahead for these and other technologies housed inside our Disruptive Innovators theme.
In addition, the app allows a member to quickly access USAA’s Car Buying Service to find local dealers and loan rates, as well as provide cost and availability information.
USAA isn’t the first company to come up with this type of app. According to American Banker, Capital One announced in March that it was working on an AR app for car buying, but there is no word on when or if it will be released. USAA also launched a car-buying app in 2010 called Auto Circle, though that one didn’t deploy AR.
