Dealers are known for being meticulous when merchandising vehicles on their lots, with sparkling clean vehicles lined up in neat rows, all facing the same direction.

However, photo and video quality can vary drastically according to who is taking the photos, camera quality and other factors such as weather.

To rectify the situation, FlickFusion is now offering artificial intelligence-driven image enhancement and video creation services for auto dealerships, manufacturers and third-party vehicle marketplaces.

FlickFusion’s video marketing platform is built on an AI engine that can automate and streamline several time-consuming aspects of the vehicle merchandising process, according to a news release from the automotive video marketing provider distributed on Tuesday.

“While other companies use AI add-on tools to enhance images, AI is not the foundation of their platform,” FlickFusion COO Tim James said in the news release. “Nucleus was built on an AI engine designed to produce photos and videos that automatically ensure OEM compliance and quality control standards. Benefits include drastically lower costs associated with manual editing processes, improved image and video quality, and a better user experience.”

Merchandising processes that are automated by FlickFusion’s AI include the following:

Backgrounding

Inventory photos taken on lots can have distracting backgrounds due to billboards, traffic, or power lines. FlickFusion’s AI can remove unwanted features, knock out a busy background and replace it with a neutral background and logo, or replace it with another image such as a dealership’s storefront.

Image recognition and sequencing

FlickFusion’s AI can sort and process hundreds and thousands of images, from any source. It instantly scans and recognizes items such as image flaws, key vehicle features, vehicle direction, vehicle condition, vehicle cleanliness, visible warning lights, and many additional potential merchandising violations.

FlickFusion’s AI can select only the highest-quality photos and place them in the best logical merchandising sequence for auto dealers, manufacturers, or third-party marketplaces.

In addition, AI can ensure that the first photo featured in an image carousel, or on a search results page (SRP), is always facing a certain direction, just like vehicles on the lot.

Image upscaling and normalization

FlickFusion’s AI instantly can re-size and crop photos so that vehicles in every image appear to be a uniform size. AI can improve photo resolution, brighten, or dim lighting in photos for consistency, and correct for sunspots, glares and other minor flaws.

“AI automatically scans hundreds and thousands of images in near real time. It can flag, feature identify, quality score, and fix thousands of potential image violations in seconds, which traditionally takes weeks or even months with a manual QC process,” said Taylor Nelson, vice president of strategy at FlickFusion.

To learn more about how FlickFusion’s AI image enhancement capabilities and API, visit https://double4.ai/.