Webinar explores potential uses for AI in collision repair shops

During an Nov. 12 TechTalk360 webinar, CCC shared data trends they think could be improved by AI use in collision repair shops.

Mark Fincher, CCC’s product management vice president, said customer pay is at the highest level in over 30 years.

“We see the opportunity for AI to help capture more of that customer pay to help address those customer needs as part of that upfront marketing process when you’re trying to get that customer repair scheduled into the shop,” he said.

Kyle Krumlauf, CCC’s industry analytics director, explained some of the reasons behind that.

“We continue to see, at the bottom, a continued erosion in claims that are $2,000 or less,” he said. “They represented about 42% of repairable claims going back to 2020. They now account for about 25% of repairable claims volume. Now in 2025, this is especially true for first-party claims — those would be your collision and comprehensive claims — where about 20% of repairable claims volume is less than $2,000. That’s down from about 35% going back to 2020.”

Krumlauf noted that average vehicle age continues to increase, and as people hold onto their vehicles longer and values decrease, they’re more likely to drop full insurance coverage. Also, consumers might be more reluctant to file claims for fear of rate increases, he said.

“At the same time, we see a trend in consumers taking higher deductibles,” Krumlauf said. “Repairable collision claims have seen an almost 6% decrease in $500 deductibles, which are the most common, and a corresponding increase of almost 6% in $1,000 deductibles. In fact, deductibles of $1,000 or more have increased from about 20% to 26% of repairable collision claims since 2021.”

Also, 69% of all repairable estimates in Q2 2025 included a scan, up about 3 percentage points year over year, Krumlauf said.

“The greatest increase year-over-year is the share of repairable appraisals that include calibrations, that’s up from 17.6% in 2024,” he said. “That is rapidly expanding in the share of vehicles that include calibrations, and in many cases, those take place during a supplement.”

Fincher and Krumlauf said they believe AI could maximize throughput so customers receive their repaired vehicles on time by making scheduling decisions, assigning labor to technicians, and providing status updates.

Fincher said AI can also “optimize capacity, the physical plant, and capital.”

Images

Featured image credit: Drazen Zigic/iStock

Data slides provided by CCC during the Nov. 12, 2025, webinar.