GAKO Technologies Emerges From Stealth With the Automotive Industry’s First True VIN-Level, ML-AI-BI-Ready Market Intelligence Platform

OXNARD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 21, 2026--

GAKO Technologies today announced its official launch from stealth, unveiling the automotive industry’s most comprehensive VIN-level intelligence platform for new vehicles. Built over two years and engineered for enterprise decision-making, the platform delivers real-time, vehicle-specific visibility into pricing, incentives, payments, vehicle specs, and inventory—while providing the structured, machine-learning-ready datasets required to power AI initiatives across the automotive ecosystem.

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As the industry accelerates investment in artificial intelligence, one challenge remains constant: AI is only as good as the data that fuels it. GAKO Technologies was built to solve that foundational problem—by creating a true VIN-level system of record that reflects live market behavior and can be deployed across AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics use cases.

Unlike legacy automotive datasets that rely on delayed aggregates or inferred proxies, GAKO’s patent-pending technology captures competitive dynamics at the individual vehicle level. The result is a precision intelligence layer that serves not only as an analytical platform, but as foundational infrastructure for AI-driven decision systems.

“Everyone wants to build AI,” said Jose Galvan, President and Founder of GAKO Technologies. “But without clean, structured, real-time data at the VIN level, AI simply amplifies bad assumptions. GAKO was built to be the intelligence backbone that fuels AI across automotive—giving our partners data they can trust, model, and deploy at scale.”

Redefining Automotive Market Intelligence for the AI Era

GAKO Technologies’ platform currently covers all new-vehicle VINs nationwide and is continuously refreshed to reflect live market conditions. The data is normalized, structured, and delivered in formats optimized for machine learning, predictive modeling, and anomaly detection—enabling customers to plug GAKO directly into existing AI pipelines or internal data science environments.

The platform supports high-impact use cases across automotive lease, finance, retail, and strategy, including:

Proprietary VIN-Level Indices Powering AI Models

At the core of the platform are two proprietary, VIN-level indices designed to convert complex market signals into standardized, AI-consumable features:

Consumer Value Index (CVI)
A VIN-level metric that quantifies how compelling a specific vehicle’s value proposition is relative to its direct competitors in real time—answering: “How competitive is this exact vehicle right now?”

GAKO Score Index (GSI)
A payment-efficiency index measuring how much vehicle value a consumer receives per dollar of payment—enabling true lender-to-lender comparisons at the VIN level and serving as a powerful input for AI-driven affordability and risk models.

Key Platform Highlights

A Breakthrough for Auto Finance, Retail, and AI-Driven Decisioning

For lenders and credit unions, GAKO’s VIN-level intelligence enhances AI-powered loan-to-value modeling, improves payment and risk calibration, and supports fraud and anomaly detection. OEMs gain a clearer, data-driven foundation to power AI initiatives around payments, incentive effectiveness, pricing strategy, and market competitiveness. Dealers, dealer groups, brokers, and fleets benefit from AI-ready data aligned precisely to their inventory and regional markets.

“The future of automotive decision-making is AI-driven,” Galvan added. “But AI without the right data is guesswork. GAKO Technologies exists to give the industry the data foundation required to build AI systems that actually work.”

GAKO Technologies plans to expand coverage to pre-owned vehicles by Q1 2027 and to enter the Canadian market shortly, thereafter, further extending its role as a VIN-level intelligence backbone for automotive AI.

About GAKO Technologies

GAKO Technologies is a data intelligence company powering the next generation of automotive decision-making. Through patent-pending technology, VIN-level analytics, and AI- and machine-learning-ready datasets, GAKO delivers unmatched clarity into vehicle markets. The company serves automotive OEMs, lenders, agencies, analysts, dealers, dealer groups, fleets, brokers, and mobility innovators with the intelligence required to build AI systems, navigate complexity, and outperform the market.

GAKO Technologies President & Founder Jose Galvan

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico sent 37 cartel members to the United States at the request of the U.S. Justice Department, with President Claudia Sheinbaum saying Wednesday that it was a “sovereign decision” by her government.

Sheinbaum responded to criticism from analysts and opponents who said that the transfers on Tuesday were the result of mounting pressure from Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to take military action on cartels.

Sheinbaum said that although the transfers were made at the request of the U.S. government, the decision was taken by the National Security Council after analyzing what was “convenient for Mexico” and in terms of its “national security.”

“Mexico is put first above all else, even if they ask for whatever they have to ask for. It is a sovereign decision,” she said at her regular morning news briefing.

Sheinbaum, who has been praised for her level-headed management of relations with Trump, has been forced to walk a fine line between making concessions to the Trump administration and projecting strength both domestically and internationally.

Observers say that the Mexican government has used the transfers as a sort of pressure valve to offset demands by Trump and show authorities are cracking down on criminal groups. Tension has only mounted since the U.S. carried out a military operation in Venezuela to capture then President Nicolás Maduro to face charges in the United States in an extraordinary use of force that set leaders across Latin America on edge.

Those sent to the U.S. on Tuesday were alleged members of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known by its Spanish acronym CJNG, and the Sinaloa Cartel, which Washington has designated as terrorist organizations, and a number of other groups. It’s the third such transfer of capos over the past year. Mexico’s government said it has sent 92 people in total to the U.S. in total.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday said that the transfer was a “landmark achievement in the Trump administration’s mission to destroy the cartels.”

The U.S. Justice Department said that the move was an “important step” by Mexico's government and that collaboration was in both countries' shared interest.

“These 37 cartel members — including terrorists from the Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG, and others – will now pay for their crimes against the American people on American soil,” Bondi said in a statement with other U.S. Justice Department officials.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department said it had already indicted at least one of the people transferred, Armando Gómez Núñez, who was accused of being a senior leader of CJNG. He is charged with drug offenses and the possession of weapons like machine guns and “explosive devices.”

In August, Mexico's security minister acknowledged that some of the cartel leaders sent to the United States at that time were continuing criminal operations from prison and that their transfer was agreed upon because there was a risk they could be released because of judicial rulings.

Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum speaks on stage at the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Dec. 5, 2025. (Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP, File)