"I decided to create a company that helps people interrogate their quotes: a car quote, a veterinarian quote, a medical quote," says Fawkes. "The whole thing is AI." Service Buddy helps users decode confusing estimates by using computer vision and Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze service quotes. "Service Buddy checks the latest prices of parts every time a quote is processed," he explains. "Labor prices aren't changing so fast, but with the help of partners we monitor prices at a zip code level." But in addition to offering an AI-powered consumer service, Fawkes is using artificial intelligence behind the scenes to build and refine the product itself with an autonomous marketing approach. How to Use Reddit for Customer Research To get a handle on the needs of his customers, Fawkes uses Zapier to monitor Reddit threads related to car repairs and identify people asking for help. His workflow: Feedly RSS feed of reddit search Sends to ChatGPT to analyze and suggest response via email Fawks manually responses Commenter clicks through to learn more about ServiceBuddy "I use a mix of Perplexity and Service Buddy data," says Fawkes. "A recommendation is provided, and I use a Reddit Zap to auto-post the findings on the original post." Say the post involves the review of an auto shop quote, for example, then a separate process kicks off, involving the analysis of the quote and its transfer to the Service Buddy tool to provide a recommendation. "At first, I was auto-posting, but I started to get flagged by the moderators, so it is best to take the copy and adapt it on the page." Finally, if the identified post is about a repair but not a quote, the system queries Service Buddy data held in Airtable about repairs, and then a ChatGPT zap takes that information, crafts a thoughtful comment that is then sent to Fawkes.