Cars24 Labs Launches With DHS75 Million AI Commitment And Partners

Cars24, the global auto-tech platform, has launched Cars24 Labs, a dedicated AI build, partner and investment arm backed by an DHS75 million commitment. The company says the move is its most significant strategic bet to date and a signal that it aims to be an AI-native business rather than an AI-enabled one.

Cars24 Labs operates across three pillars: building proprietary AI products across the company’s stack, including open-source models for public use; partnering with companies at the frontier of AI; and investing in and incubating early-stage AI startups. OpenAI, ElevenLabs and AWS are already foundational partners.

The DHS75 million commitment funds infrastructure, compute and talent for those plans. Cars24 says the incubator will offer capital, operational expertise and access to a business that has scaled across some of the world’s most complex markets. The company says the partnership model gives it immediate access to capabilities that would take years to develop in-house.

“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 DHS75 million is not a hedge. It is a decision.” — Abhinav Gupta, CEO, Cars24 Arabia

OpenAI will provide frontier models, ElevenLabs voice AI and AWS cloud infrastructure. In return, Cars24 says it brings eleven years of operational depth, proprietary data across millions of transactions and a distribution network spanning some of the world’s fastest-growing automotive markets.

The announcement comes as many companies are still defining AI strategies. Industry data cited by Cars24 says 95% of AI pilots fail before production, while 42% of companies abandoned the majority of their AI projects in 2025.

For Cars24 Arabia, Labs is both a global mandate and a regional opportunity. The company said the UAE has become one of the most AI-forward markets in the world, placing Cars24 at the intersection of frontier technology and a market built for it. Cars24 Labs is now operational, and startups and researchers can apply at [email protected].