Ebbon Group is to start developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions for automotive sectors, including fleet and rental, via a new tie-up with Oxford University spin-off Zegami.

The Zegami team’s AI expertise will help Ebbon Group enter new fields that help the entire automotive sector

The two firms have created a joint venture, dubbed Ebbon Intelligence and 80% owned by the Ebbon Group and 20% by Zegami.

The partnership will see technical experts and developers from both parties working together, enhancing Ebbon’s existing and future platforms but also working on new solutions.

The first development is likely to be in the field of smart repair and damage identification and focused on the accurate assessment of the depth and detail of the damage to vehicles during lease or rental periods. It will be complementary to Ebbon’s existing moDel platform, for which damage images play an important role under current industry guidelines.

A team from Zegami will also work with Ebbon on an ongoing basis to help adapt the technologies for the fleet, rental, risk, compliance and other related automotive sectors.

Zegami, which has its origins within Oxford University’s research faculty, combines advanced image analysis and AI algorithms to manage and unlock the value of large and complex data sets; it’s already been used for machine learning-based healthcare and life science.

The business was born out of a collaboration led by Roger Noble, Zegami’s CEO and Oxford University scientist Steve Taylor, Zegami’s chief scientific officer.

Ebbon Group director Robert Pilkington said: “We are very excited by this new venture with Zegami.

“Our focus initially will be on vehicle damage systems and identification of the changes in condition of vehicles between hires for rental, movements for leasing and for potential applications to commercial vehicles from our DAVIS compliance platform.

“We also believe the new venture will allow us to identify and exploit many future opportunities, especially in areas such as vehicle and driver risk and safety management.”