Looking for honest feedback on an idea. Turns car snaps into professional car listing photos.

[Dyllan]

Hi All,

I've been building something that I think could save independent dealers a fair bit of time and hassle, but before I go any further I want to make sure I'm solving a real problem, not just one I've imagined.

The idea: you take a photo of a car on your driveway or forecourt, upload it, and it puts the car into a professional setting automatically. No photographer, no editing skills needed.

I'd genuinely love to know what you think, and more importantly, what's wrong with it. Is this a problem you actually have? Would you never use something like this, and if so, why not? Feel free to reply here, Ill keep an eye out for replies.

If you want to have a look at what I've built so far and give me some feedback, you can leave your details here and I'll get you access: https://carpicperfect.app/

No spam, no sales calls. Just looking for people willing to tell me honestly whether this is useful or not.

Thanks in advance!

PS Ive attached pictures of my "Classic" 2013 Mondeo (think they are called fusions over there) and the results. The backgrounds are interchangeable. And I can even generate pictures of it "moving" or indeed short videos of it driving.

 

[MattCopley]

Nice subtle improvements without glossing it up too much. Your litmus test is gonna be real world page performance analysis from a traffic and visibility perspective (don't get this confused with on-page performance- which frankly i'd expect you see marked improvements on) - Google is expressly targeting/penalizing ai augmented product representations right now, and the key is getting a scaled test of whether Google is penalizing these VDPs for that augmentation or not. Tough needle to thread but a solid start.

 

[Dyllan]

Nice subtle improvements without glossing it up too much. Your litmus test is gonna be real world page performance analysis from a traffic and visibility perspective (don't get this confused with on-page performance- which frankly i'd expect you see marked improvements on) - Google is expressly targeting/penalizing ai augmented product representations right now, and the key is getting a scaled test of whether Google is penalizing these VDPs for that augmentation or not. Tough needle to thread but a solid start.

Did not know that! Good to know. Thanks Matt.

 

[Vochi]

Nice subtle improvements without glossing it up too much. Your litmus test is gonna be real world page performance analysis from a traffic and visibility perspective (don't get this confused with on-page performance- which frankly i'd expect you see marked improvements on) - Google is expressly targeting/penalizing ai augmented product representations right now, and the key is getting a scaled test of whether Google is penalizing these VDPs for that augmentation or not. Tough needle to thread but a solid start.

Do you have evidence that Google is specifically penalizing AI VDPs?

There is a difference between Google penalizing AI content and Google demoting low-quality or scaled content that happens to have been produced with AI.

For example, if a dealer adds 5,000 new VDPs and organic traffic declines, how do we know the cause was the AI-generated content?

Those pages could be thin, duplicated, poorly internally linked, have little authority/backlinks, have indexing/canonical issues, contain the same generic descriptions as thousands of other sites, or simply not satisfy search intent.

Do you have a controlled test that shows AI itself is the variable causing the loss?

 

[joe.pistell]

if a dealer adds 5,000 new VDPs

I hadn't thought of this new form of AI slop.

 

[Vochi]

I hadn't thought of this new form of AI slop.

Exactly and that's the point I was making!.

If you publish 5,000 nearly identical, AI-generated VDPs with generic descriptions, little unique information, weak internal linking, etc., I wouldn't be surprised if Google treated that as low-quality scaled content.

But that's very different from saying “Google penalizes AI-generated VDPs.”

If the VDP or AI content has useful information, vehicle-specific information, ownership costs, common issues, maintenance history, specs, comparisons, etc. then I'd love to see the evidence that Google is penalizing those pages just because its AI!

That's the distinction I'm trying to get at: AI slop can absolutely be a problem. However claiming AI itself is the problem without testing it seems like a bit of a leap.