The Invisible FunnelHow AI agents evaluate real brands · by Accord
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Tesla

The agent chose Tesla without reading a single Tesla page.

Four journeys, four Model Y recommendations, zero readable Tesla pages: every fact came from Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, search extracts and the Internet Archive.

Named-offer check Model Y under stated price, warranty and service constraints · tested 2026-09-20

4 customer-agent journeys

Decision trace (one journey)

no memorybrand page requested, refusedrefused by tesla.comobserved2026-09-20
  1. 1Customer missionTesla decision — customer with no relevant memory
    • purchase price incl. destination+order fees, before incentives, must not exceed customer's…
    • basic vehicle warranty >= 4 years
    • battery/drive unit warranty >= 8 years
    • manufacturer service location within 30 miles of central Phoenix
  2. 2Evidence10 searches, 12 pages: tesla.com, kbb.com, motor1.com
    • purchase price usd: 41630 (Standard RWD trim; figure reported as already including $1,390 destinatio no source
    • basic warranty years: 4 years / 50,000 miles, whichever first no source
    • battery warranty years: 8 years / 100,000-120,000+ miles depending on variant, whichever first, min. 70% no source
    • service center within miles: Tesla Service Deer Valley, 21030 N 19th Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85027 - within Phoenix kbb.com
  3. 3BeliefCould not establish: service center within miles (exact driving-distance figure from central Phoenix not confirmed by a single authoritative source; only convergent estima
  4. 4DecisionSelectedTesla Model Y (Standard RWD)The Model Y Standard RWD's all-in price (base + destination fee + order fee, before incentives) was consistently reported across multiple independent sources as $41,630, …
run-cdccff3dOpen decision trace →

What remained unresolved

  • order fee refundable1/4
  • service center within miles (exact driving-distance figure from central Phoenix not confirmed by a single authoritative source; only convergent estimates)1/4

Selected in every journey; conditions the agent recorded as unresolved at the time of the decision.

Same task, different memory

2/2selected, no memory
2/2selected, with memory
0 ppdifference

Memory did not change the outcome in these journeys; see what it changed on the Memory page.

Journeys without a readable brand-owned page

4 of 4

All journeys ran on 2026-09-20; a time series needs more than one day of testing.
Selection by day

4 of 4

All journeys ran on 2026-09-20; a time series needs more than one day of testing.

Where its facts came from

19

decisive beliefs about Tesla taken from a page that is not the brand’s own, or from a brand page that refused the agent; 4 journeys met a bot wall on the brand site.

What this does not establish: that Tesla generally wins or loses customers this way, or that changing one page would change these decisions. It establishes what happened in these 4 journeys.

The numbers

4journeys
4considered
4selected
0not selected
0/4reached a readable Tesla page
Selected in every journeyno elimination recorded

4 customer-agent journeys. Tesla entered consideration in 4. It was selected in 4 and not selected in 0. In 4, no readable Tesla-owned page was reached; in 4, a site refused the agent.

View strongest trace → Open story and traces →

What remains unresolved

  • order fee refundable left unresolved in 1 of 4 journeys
  • service center within miles (exact driving-distance figure from central Phoenix not confirmed by a single authoritative source; only convergent estimates) left unresolved in 1 of 4 journeys
  • 19 decision-shaping beliefs about Tesla taken from pages that are not the brand’s own

What could be tested

The same customer missions, run again with the open condition readable on Tesla’s own pages, against these 4 journeys as the baseline. That is a comparison, not a guess: same customer, same requirements, one change.

Investigated with Accord

Accord holds the customer requirements, Tesla’s published conditions and this journey evidence in one Decision Case, runs the comparison, and records what changed. For brands and CX teams →

Work at Tesla?

Send us the source the agent couldn’t find. We’ll rerun the same customer and publish the before/after. Send the source How the rerun works

Decisions

All journeys

with memorybrand page requested, refusedrefused by tesla.comobserved2026-09-20
  1. 1Customer missionTesla decision — same customer with relevant memory
    • purchase price incl. destination+order fees <= $48,000 (required)
    • basic vehicle warranty >= 4 years (required)
    • battery/drive unit warranty >= 8 years (required)
    • manufacturer service location within 30 miles of central Phoenix (required)
    Remembers: “A friend's electric car waited eleven weeks for a service appointment in 2025 because the nearest centre was 90 miles aw”
  2. 2Evidence6 searches, 11 pages: tesla.com, kbb.com, geocords.com, mapsof.net +1
    • purchase price usd: 41630 no source
    • basic warranty years: 4 years / 50,000 miles no source
    • battery warranty years: 8 years / 100,000 miles (varies slightly by trim) no source
    • service center within miles: ~20.6 driving miles (Tesla Service Deer Valley, 21030 N 19th Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85 mapsof.net
  3. 3BeliefCould not establish: order fee refundable
  4. 4DecisionSelectedTesla Model Y (Rear-Wheel Drive, base trim)Using the customer's own thresholds: the base Model Y Rear-Wheel Drive lists at $41,630 total including destination and order fees (well under the $48,000 ceiling), the B…
run-e1718662Open decision trace →
no memorybrand page requested, refusedrefused by tesla.comobserved2026-09-20
  1. 1Customer missionTesla decision — customer with no relevant memory
    • purchase price incl. destination+order fees, before incentives, ≤ $48,000
    • basic vehicle warranty ≥ 4 years
    • battery and drive unit warranty ≥ 8 years
    • manufacturer service location within 30 miles of central Phoenix
  2. 2Evidence7 searches, 8 pages: tesla.com, web.archive.org
    • purchase price usd: 41630 (base RWD trim; $39,990 + $1,390 destination + $250 order fee, before taxe attributed to a page that refused the agent
    • basic warranty years: 4 years / 50,000 miles attributed to a page that refused the agent
    • battery warranty years: 8 years / 100,000 miles (RWD & AWD; Premium/Performance variants get 120,000-mil attributed to a page that refused the agent
    • service center within miles: ~15 miles (Tesla Service Deer Valley, 21030 N 19th Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85027) attributed to a page that refused the agent
  3. 3BeliefRequirements met on the evidence found
  4. 4DecisionSelectedTesla Model YAll four required facts were established via Tesla's own pages as reflected in search-engine extracts (direct tesla.com fetches were blocked with HTTP 403, so facts are a…
run-48ae2442Open decision trace →
with memorybrand page requested, refusedrefused by tesla.comobserved2026-09-20
  1. 1Customer missionTesla decision — same customer with relevant memory
    • purchase price incl. destination+order fees ≤ $48,000
    • basic vehicle warranty ≥ 4 years
    • battery and drive unit warranty ≥ 8 years
    • manufacturer service location within 30 miles of central Phoenix
    Remembers: “A friend's electric car waited eleven weeks for a service appointment in 2025 because the nearest centre was 90 miles aw”
  2. 2Evidence7 searches, 6 pages: tesla.com
    • purchase price usd: 39990 base + 1390 destination + 250 order fee = 41630 total, before incentives/t edmunds.com
    • basic warranty years: 4 years / 50,000 miles, whichever comes first attributed to a page that refused the agent
    • battery warranty years: 8 years / 100,000 miles (RWD trim; Premium AWD trims get 120,000 miles), minimum attributed to a page that refused the agent
    • service center within miles: ~15 miles (Tesla Service Deer Valley, 21030 N 19th Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85027) attributed to a page that refused the agent
  3. 3BeliefRequirements met on the evidence found
  4. 4DecisionSelectedTesla Model Y (Standard RWD trim)All four required facts were established with reported values that corroborate consistently across independent secondary sources (comparison/pricing sites and search-inde…
run-3031ee60Open decision trace →
no memorybrand page requested, refusedrefused by tesla.comobserved2026-09-20
  1. 1Customer missionTesla decision — customer with no relevant memory
    • purchase price incl. destination+order fees, before incentives, must not exceed customer's…
    • basic vehicle warranty >= 4 years
    • battery/drive unit warranty >= 8 years
    • manufacturer service location within 30 miles of central Phoenix
  2. 2Evidence10 searches, 12 pages: tesla.com, kbb.com, motor1.com
    • purchase price usd: 41630 (Standard RWD trim; figure reported as already including $1,390 destinatio no source
    • basic warranty years: 4 years / 50,000 miles, whichever first no source
    • battery warranty years: 8 years / 100,000-120,000+ miles depending on variant, whichever first, min. 70% no source
    • service center within miles: Tesla Service Deer Valley, 21030 N 19th Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85027 - within Phoenix kbb.com
  3. 3BeliefCould not establish: service center within miles (exact driving-distance figure from central Phoenix not confirmed by a single authoritative source; only convergent estima
  4. 4DecisionSelectedTesla Model Y (Standard RWD)The Model Y Standard RWD's all-in price (base + destination fee + order fee, before incentives) was consistently reported across multiple independent sources as $41,630, …
run-cdccff3dOpen decision trace →