Cox Enterprises Innovation & Technology Culture

What types of products or services does your engineering team work on/create? What problem are you solving for customers?

Our entire product and technology group is encouraged and expected to use AI in their respective roles. So, we’re big AI adopters; we’re very committed and on the cutting edge of using AI. 

My team is actually the AI accelerator team, and we’re within the data science org. Our customers are really internal partners at this point who are building products for our customers. We have been tasked with going around the business and identifying opportunities either to build AI into products or to create new workflows to help automate processes with AI. We’ve got a few different agentic AI solutions.

Tell us about a recent project where your team used AI as a tool. What was it meant to accomplish? How did you use AI to assist?

One example is what we’re doing for our fleet services team, which repairs heavy duty trucks and trailers that break down on the side of the road. We’re helping them create repair estimates using AI to search through parts availability information. So, if an 18-wheeler broke down, our tools can search and tell them, “For this kind of vehicle, you’re recommended to use these parts, which cost this much and are available at this place.” That allows them to quickly create these estimates and send them off to the shop so they can actually start the repair. It’s automating that whole process of identifying what the issue is and figuring out what actual parts they should use in order to make that repair.

What would that project have looked like if you didn't have AI as a tool to use? How has AI changed the way you work, in general?

AI not only makes the processes faster but also helps really improve them as well, because we’re able to use data that they wouldn’t be aware of otherwise. For the fleet services estimates, we’re able to search through and see where their deals are for different shops or how much these parts cost historically. So, they have access to more data now, too, just because we’re connected to all that with AI.

Our best work happens when people come together across teams, disciplines and locations. Real connections grow from trust, collaboration and a willingness to support one another. 

In her day-to-day work as an events and campaign marketing specialist, Madison McKemie Dale sees collaboration in action with every event she helps bring to life.

“For every event I plan, I partner closely with live production, catering, facilities and marketing teams,” Madison said. “Each group brings unique expertise, and the way we problem-solve together feels seamless. The success of our events isn’t just about logistics; it’s about the teamwork that truly defines Cox’s culture.”

In most circles, hackathons bring to mind scrappy teams pulling all-nighters, chasing big ideas with small budgets. But breakthrough thinking doesn’t just happen in the startup world. Inside a large enterprise like Cox, that same spirit of innovation can be even more powerful—especially when hundreds of technologists from across the country rally around a shared challenge.

Cox Automotive’s annual hackathon gives employees across the company’s product and technology group a dedicated space to innovate, build relationships and deliver solutions that drive real business impact.

”Our leadership consistently encourages us to explore and adopt emerging innovations. AI is the latest example, but before that, we led a major cloud migration, moving all our applications to AWS. That’s what’s so appealing about our company: our leadership will always encourage us to stay on that cutting-edge technology.” 

We are committed to leading the way with AI and not sitting back waiting for others to pave the way. We know AI is moving fast and so are our competitors, so we wanted to focus on making sure we laid the groundwork for not just one product, but for many products.

On how Cox's culture supports integrating AI:

"Cox is in a genuine learning posture around AI — not just adopting it as a talking point but actually wrestling with the hard questions about how to build it responsibly, how to evaluate it rigorously and how to scale it thoughtfully across a complex organization."