Automotive AI Cagematch With 4 Top CEOs: Podium, Numa, Toma, Mia | Daily Dealer Live
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Automotive AI Cagematch With 4 Top CEOs: Podium, Numa, Toma, Mia | Daily Dealer Live
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We're doing better as a result of social media presence.
It doesn't do those three things, then it's on the chopping block.
It's in return on investment discussion.
Hey, everybody, welcome to this first-ever Daily Dealer Live Automotive AI page match.
I'm your host, Sam Dark, and I'm pumped to be here with you today.
So let's talk first, auto dealers.
AI is everywhere.
Every day we're promised more leads, higher CSI, faster response time, and fatter margins.
Behind those closed doors, many of us admit, and I as well, we don't fully get how it works.
We have trust issues, or how to measure real ROI, and what about the privacy, legal risks?
Or what happens if AI goes off the rails?
Well, you've asked and we've answered.
Today we're cutting through the noise, no hype, no smoke and mirrors, just straight answers.
Which AI tools actually put the net profit on the books, and which are still just shiny demos?
Join the conversation today.
We want your comments.
We want all of them as we stream live across every CDG social media channel.
Post your comments.
We'll bring them into today's show.
But before we get to this unprecedented roundtable, again, four CEOs of automotive AI companies,
let's go to today's news.
All right, everybody.
This Tuesday, Cardiola Ship Guy broke the news that Tri-Color, a subprime lender in one of the country's largest used car retailers,
was facing imminent bankruptcy within the next 24 hours.
The paperwork was filed.
After we received reports last week of mass layoffs at Tri-Color, CDG followed up with some inside sources
and learned there were rumors spreading throughout the company, alleging Tri-Color's financials were in some serious hot water.
Now, more sources are coming forward claiming Tri-Color misled some of its banking partners, including 5th, 3rd, Bank Corp, and JP Morgan Chase,
leading to a fraud investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York.
But between the lines when demand is high in the auto asset backed securities market, where Tri-Color was heavily involved,
lenders often resort to looser, riskier underwriting to sustain their growth.
Whether or not that lead to Tri-Color's downfall remains to be seen.
But there's no doubt that this situation is a huge blow for the subprime environment.
And because of a roundtable, that's a wrap on this Friday's auto news.
Hey, before we go into our panel today, I just want to remind everybody about up-and-coming NADA.
Cardiola Ship Guy is back with our second annual NADA party happening in Las Vegas on Thursday, February 5th.
It is truly the hottest ticket at NADA 2026 with special guests and top automotive personalities.
To be considered for a formal invite, just hit the link in the show notes, request to join, and fill out a questionnaire.
Spots are limited, and unfortunately, we can't invite everyone, but I guarantee you it is the place to be in Vegas during NADA.
RSVP today, and we hope to see you in Vegas.
Alright, let's turn to the show, and our automotive AI roundtable.
We've got four of the biggest names today in automotive AI totaling over a half billion dollars in raised capital and thousands of dealerships served.
As I introduce you, I'd like to have each of the CDOs joining our show today take 45 seconds or less to share what AI solution your company delivers to franchised auto dealers.
Let's go in alphabetical order. Let's start with Brian Huang, CEO of MIA Labs.
Brian, welcome to the show.
Awesome. Glad to be here. So we are MIA Labs. We are positioned as the most customizable and human-like agent for phone and text.
And this is across not just fixed, but also variable ops as well as the front desk.
So we're really positioned to be your generalist receptionist that you can throw anything at.
And you know, a good way to think about us is like a staffing firm, not just a normal software vendor.
We actively partner with you, our clients, to train new employees who knows all of your little preferences and processes and stays forever.
And so we have over 150 possible configurations and really mold to your dealership.
All right. Thank you, Brian Monick. You were on the show last Wednesday and a lot of the feedback we got prompted this round table from that.
Monick, give us 45 seconds on what you and your company do.
Sure. Thank you so much for having me back.
So at TOMA, we build the AI agents for the automotive industry.
We automate inbound and outbound communications over different channels, so text, voice and for different departments.
So sales service FNI.
And in the background, while automating these conversations, we also facilitate the internal communication that happens within the store, creating this complete loop.
So we generate demand and we also help convert it.
Excellent. Thanks Monick. TASO, Rumeleotas. How'd I do TASO? Did I do it? Let's have you, your founder and CEO of Numo.
Would you share 45 seconds on us? Then we'll go back to Eric.
Absolutely. So at Numo, we're an AI company that focuses on what we've seen is the biggest problem at a dealership, and that's the communication crisis.
It doesn't just include like missed calls, but also the fact that the average dealership takes 23 hours to respond back to a customer.
So we are building AI agents that help the workflow across the entire dealership.
Our initial focus is on the service department, but to provide exceptional customer service using AI agents that give your employees superpower, and then are also able to step in and do some of the numbing work that you struggle to find people to do.
Excellent. Thank you TASO for that. Eric, let's try you again, co-founder and CEO of Podium.
Hello, Echolus Eric here. I love it.
Yeah. So Podium's been around for 12 years. We started it with $1,500. My co-founder and I in 2014, because my dad had a problem with reviews and then fast forward 12 years we've built.
Basically, three years ago, we were a communication and marketing platform for dealerships and a couple other verticals.
And if you used our platform, you converted customers at a higher rate and it was great, but there were these humans that we needed to train and have them use our platform in order to get those results.
And three years ago, we realized that GPT 3.5 was good enough that you could actually have AI take some of these inbound leads and convert them into test drives.
And at first, it was very narrow what we could do. And over the last three years, we've built out probably the best BDC AI agent that converts leads into test drives better than humans, better than anything else out there.
And it's just like the tip of the iceberg.
All right. Thank you, Eric. Let's get into today's show then. All right, we're going to divide today's show up into five rounds of this cage match.
And here are the rounds to give everybody an idea. Round one, ROI, round two, promises versus performance. Third is people in execution.
We're going to talk fourth, compliance data and trust. And our fifth round is future in disruption followed by a lightning round, which will have one word, sentence only.
Gentlemen, welcome to this first automotive AI cage match.
So here's one thing that's interesting to me is I talked to different dealers about artificial intelligence, AI.
Dealers don't value buzzwords. They value net profit on the financial statement.
And many dealers would say AI has become a buzzword at NADA dealer meetings and even by salespeople inside brick and mortar.
So let's talk AI generated net profit.
Who here can prove today that your AI delivers net profit ROI in 90 days or less?
Evidence not anecdote. And then how do you literally think about calculating that ROI? Who wants to go first?
We're going to open it up.
Sure. I can go first.
Dealers really use us to increase their operational efficiency and to scale their volume in operations and leads and calls coming in and text as well without incurring a large call center or cost center in general.
We don't typically see dealerships that are like, oh my God, I have so much cash weighing around that I can fill into a huge VC and imagine that on top of it.
And so part of the way we think about it is that if a dealership is a ship, one of the first things we'll come in and do is patch this leaking hole at the bottom of the ship before we help the ship move faster.
And that preserves and protects all of the missed traffic that is already organically coming into your dealership.
And so it's a big theme here with AI is taking these many small repetitive tasks that are still important like they add up.
The numbers are there, but it's not necessarily the best way to utilize your staff anymore.
And so like some of the numbers that we've seen it does vary by dealership and, and, you know, their preferences, the processes, their call volume, the area that in but like we've seen case where you know we're handling thousands of calls and now text as well each month.
And so from making sure that, you know, we never miss a digital lead again that's coming into the store from there. So like, you know, we've seen stores that from the moment that they sign on to say about six months later, like a 50% increase in a number of calls that are handled and resolved.
Okay.
The story so you keep breaking this down, you go to containment, the ability to resolve the call itself which has improved as well we've seen, let's say 20 to 30% improvement.
It's now phone agents and text agents are able to do a lot more to your conversation or it can perform key functions. And if you bleed this down even further into the appointments.
We're setting, you know, our dealership anywhere from, from, you know, hundreds to thousands of appointments per month again depending on your volume. We've seen that at least by 50 to 60%.
Brian, you talk about enhancing it is the intent of AI to eventually replace some of those functions BDC and some others. Will it completely erase the BDC department.
I view, so I would not take the extreme approach of like, okay, AI is going to eliminate all these jobs. So what you usually see like when there's an industrial or technical revolution.
And, and you are truly disrupting an industry you see the industry evolve. And likewise the structures the organizations that people are operating industry similarly evolved as a result.
So I think there is a future where, where you can, you can remove most of not all of the BDC, but that doesn't mean that the people in the BDC are necessarily fully replaced out of the job.
Again, it's, it's about evolution. How do we make utilize more of the people in your store have them do tasks that are more unique to their abilities as humans that the AI is just not in a position to tailor this creativity, their ability to interface and build relationships with other people.
And so I don't think there's going to be a homeless place.
So Eric.
So Eric, what would you say to BDC managers and dealers that would say hey AI is looking to replace all the functions and the dealership and basically run us out of a job right I don't totally understand I trust my people my processes that currently exist.
Why should I turn my operations over to AI not understanding it.
Well, I mean first off, auto dealers are 2% net, net margin business. Is that right?
Correct. Yeah, yeah.
2% is a good number.
2 to 4%.
Yeah.
This is a massive industry as a 2% net profit margin. That's crazy. I mean, all four of us run software AI companies and I would, it makes my mind explode.
So here's the thing, AI was built for AI was built for these dealerships.
And so if you're an owner, if you're a if you're a dealer principal or owner, this is the best thing that's ever happened because AI is at least what we're seeing on the the BDC side.
You increase your test drives, you decrease your BDC team.
And I think that at some point in the near future, you won't need a BDC team anymore, which is phenomenal.
Because guess what, I haven't met that many BDC reps that freaking love their job.
So like, what are we talking about here? It's okay. Like, sorry, last thing.
You know, 60 years ago when you made a phone call, there was some person on the other line like moving the things around and they don't do that anymore. That's okay.
Yeah.
Life is on.
Eric, at your company at Podium, how do you calculate ROI? When you meet with a dealer and you say, hey, we want to come in and implement this AI BDC call text chat tool.
How do you how should a dealer think about ROI on the dollars invested?
So for the easiest thing for me is how many cars you're rep selling a month right now and average, you know, nine or 10 or whatever.
And let's try to get that to 20.
And then let's also try to reduce the number of BDC reps that you have.
And if we can do that, then and and what we're seeing what we can do that, then then I think every dealer principle agrees that it's a great investment, great ROI.
And we do that by increasing the conversion, increasing the number of test drives and decreasing the human labor that's required to do that.
It's pretty simple.
That's a simple way to think about it.
It's the most difficult thing we've ever tried to do in the 12 years we're in business because you're literally replacing a human that's using a brain to do all these things all the time.
Why is there what's the biggest resistance you see to that?
I mean, when you calculate ROI that way, you reduce your complexity of staffing and whatnot.
You reallocate people to things that light them up, get them more excited and you're more efficient.
Why are there trust issues and automotive between this AI?
Well, I mean, first of all, our first version of Jerry as we call him was like very rigid.
And so we built, you know, we built this thing three years ago and it could schedule a test drive under very specific circumstances.
And, you know, the thing you learn very, very quickly is every single dealership in the United States in the world is different.
They want to operate differently.
And so if these guys cannot train their agent and see it actually implement those changes, then yeah, you're not going to trust it.
And so that's a huge thing we've worked on.
So yeah, yeah.
Is part of it that the technology is so rapidly changing that if you saw your first iteration of Jerry, you don't understand what it can do today.
Like as a dealer, do we have to keep looking at this to keep understanding it and where do we go to understand the evolution of it?
Yeah, so I mean, like the big thing that we've done recently is we have this Jerry v2 we launched and basically it allows any dealership to fully customize full and train Jerry on the fly.
And we've built what we call trainer agents that take that feedback and actually update the policies and procedures of the of the A.I. BDC of Jerry.
And that alone has created so much more trust for the GSMs, the BDC managers and the dealer principals.
Because if you have an employee and you can't give it feedback or you give it feedback and it doesn't actually change, you're going to be firing that employee pretty quickly.
I got to tell you something, Eric, and then we're going to go to Tasso.
Here's where I think part. So you have auto dealers that are multi generation that are my age and older. So I'm 50 years old, right?
I started in the car business up the road from you many decades ago.
We're used to writing things down on paper, tracking things on a log.
When you talk about training an A.I. agent to do something and do it as well as people, that's a tough thing to understand.
Like when you talk about training this agent, how should we as a deal?
What's the message to the car dealer listening today about what does that mean?
What does that entail practically?
Training?
Yeah.
In terms of training?
Yeah.
Like we're basically what we've learned doing this for now almost three years is we are replacing a human.
It's incredibly difficult.
Primarily we're doing just text based stuff right now.
Voice, which I know some of these guys do a little more than we do is like 100 times more difficult.
Like I actually don't even think the technology is in a place where you can replace the full goal oriented humans.
But anyway, my message to the dealers is this is happening.
You got to figure it out and you should choose a vendor that allows you to train and hone your agent just like you would an employee.
And the beautiful thing about AI is, yes, it can hallucinate.
Yes, you know, there's all these things you have to control.
But the best thing about these LLMs is when you train it, it will make the change and it will do it always versus humans.
Like you can train your people every day and they still are going to make mistakes.
They're still not going to do what you want them to do.
Tassel, how do you think about ROI?
All right, so if you look, I mean, we try, when we first got in automotive, because I'm myself, I'm not from automotive now, we have a Monster Automotive team.
Look at what a dealership is.
The dealership doesn't manufacture, design these beautiful cars, BMWs.
They are the customer service element, physical customer service of the OEM.
So the singular thing that you need to be focusing on.
I think if you're running a dealer and all the successful ones that we've spoken to, the real studs out there, they focus on exceptional customer service.
So we've oriented our entire product, not around an AI tool hammer looking for a nail, but how to provide exceptional customer service.
Okay, does that require human sometimes?
So we are incorporating in a way where the customer is having an exceptional customer experience, supplemented with AI,
sometimes done completely with AI.
But a lot of what we see on the ROI side is beautiful.
First of all, we're able to, when a human can't do something, we can pick it up.
If there are some jobs that are mind-numbing or after hours, we can help and rescue a whole bunch of inbound that you get as a dealer.
But if you look at from a customer service perspective, because yes, we can book appointments and answer these calls and bring in more business.
But look at the dealership from an operating perspective, from a peer operations perspective.
And if you study kind of the business like a dealership, which is like a system and a process, there are bottlenecks that restrict.
So you can book a bunch of appointments.
But if the bottleneck is actually in many cases, in most cases in dealership, a service advisor is severely overwhelmed.
They can't handle the amount of customers.
And if you look at the Google reviews, the number one reason for one-star reviews on Google, 40% of reasons are poor communication with your service advisor.
40%. It's by a full order of magnitude greater than anything else.
So if I'm able to not just book appointments, but if those appointments can't be dealt with from a communication perspective with your service advisor,
who's running around, who's got the busiest job, all of a sudden you've got a sugar rush of additional revenue and appointment.
That's a nice thing to have in the short term.
But that long-term revenue goes away because you lose that customer.
82% of customers have left the dealership because of a bad customer experience, typically because the service advisor is too busy.
So look at root costs from your operations.
So in addition to, yes, booking appointments, where we look at value is how we bring up the bottlenecks in your system.
Technicians, service advisors, very much in primarily, and even your BDC to be able to increase their output.
Yeah.
That is clear ROI, and it is interesting. Your company specializes in voice.
And Eric just moments ago made the comment about voice might be a little bit beyond. They don't focus on it as much.
There are some dealers that agree that the technology and voice isn't quite there.
We don't focus on voice.
Text. In fact, our service, which is when we install it into dealership, we have on the average service department 10 people that use NUMA 16 times a day over a couple of hours.
We are the workflow tool that they use.
So a service advisor now is twice as productive.
We take your superstar service advisors and we make and we 10X them.
Combining that with the tool that allows you to kind of handle the flow.
So we increase the capacity of what your dealership is able to do in addition to like capturing lost calls.
So that's why we're focusing for now on the service department across the entire operation.
So not just more appointments, but also the throughput.
Very good. So Monic, you were on the show Wednesday.
So in a short, the folks know you, how would you calculate ROI with your tool, Monic, at Atoma?
So we automate voice and text, you know, outbound and inbound.
So I think the answer is nuanced because you have stores that have a big BDC.
They will see value in a different way and it is measured differently as opposed to stores that either have an outsourced BDC or, you know, like an in-house one, or maybe they don't have one.
So for the larger ones with maybe 20, 30, sometimes even, you know, 100 people.
For them, they see about 50% of, you know, phone call volume reduction because the as handling it.
Another question is what do you do with that 50% of the volume?
Do you repurpose them to doing outbound, generating more demand?
That's how like some of the larger groups, and we've actually done like case studies and published it on our website as well with a top 150 group.
I think they've been able to improve their operational margins and, you know, by like 40% on the BDC side.
So Monic, talk to us briefly again about the voice text comments.
And we're seeing many comments on social media.
There are some that would say voice AI at this point is half-baked.
It's not quite there yet. Dealers agree.
Like there's a difference between really interactive.
What's your response to that if you're in the voice AI world right now?
So again, there are two parts to voice AI.
One is what does it sound and feel like, like the cosmetics of it?
And then the second portion is like, how smart is it, right?
And I think I mentioned this last two days ago as well that there have been like tremendous improvements on both ends.
One makes the consumer more likely to engage with it.
And the other pieces like it actually gives them what they want, right?
And it's not just voice.
I think it translates to text or emails or because the thinking is happening, you know, independently of the channel.
So yes, it was, this is the worst it has ever been.
And it will continue to improve and it has and you see it in like conversion rates, number of appointments booked, things like that.
Like number of cars that, you know, even outbound and inbound both are measured differently.
Thank you, Monic.
So Brian, what would you say to dealers that say voice AI at this point is half-baked?
And if you believe that and you think it's true, at what point do you jump in in the evolution of AI?
Because it is moving quickly.
Yeah, I think the first comment I would make is that you would be surprised just how fast voice in general is moving and the rate of improvement.
But that said, what I would say to dealers is you should also look at the big picture because the ROI is very overwhelmingly proven.
Like from zero to six months, like pre-post near, like we take dealers that are seeing from usually like 15 to 40% appointment booking rate to 60 to 75% that we've seen.
And like it, you know, to Tassel's earlier point, like this is about managing and automating the full customer lifestyle.
It's not just about the upfront appointment booking.
So it's like, you have this vast number of records, you know, in your DMS and your service advisors and they're focused on sort of the right now.
And it's like all these, not just calls that you're missing and you're not following up on the leads you're buying, you're not following up on like 43% of them.
And customers that are that already, let's say they purchase a car, but you don't follow up with them on a regular basis each year after you probably either weren't working on those leads already anyway.
So there's no more that you can lose or you are to some extent, but your staff is doing it consistently or, you know, I think dealers will always say you want more.
So again, on the voice side, is it time to jump in or does it make sense for the voice technology to develop a little bit further?
Because again, thinking about it from a dealer standpoint, dealers want quick execution.
They want to be efficient and effective.
And we've been telling customers for a long time that look this digital retail thing, doing a deal start to finish online, like COVID proved to many of us that customers don't want that.
And so I think sometimes we co-mingle the idea of AI and tech, and we say, hey, therefore, turning it over to a digital voice, an AI voice or 100% AI chat or turning our BDC over to tech is not as good as having those people in there, right?
What would you say about the voice piece?
Is it there yet?
And if not, at what point do you jump in?
I'd say it's very largely there.
Again, like we have the ROI stats to show, like, you know, we're, me it's accounting for 20% plus percent of ROs and some of our stores.
And these, again, like you work up the whole funnel, like the RO or the, when they purchase a car, for example, all the way up to the conversion and then we coming in and you're going to follow up on it.
Like we're already voice alone.
We do text as well.
We see a lot of results there as well, but like just voice, which is our soul bread and butter, our one focus to make this the best voice experience possible for like the first two plus years of this company.
Like it's, you're already saving all this traffic that's coming in that you would have missed already again, and you are probably not following up on and you don't have the cash to blow it on scaling this and managing this BDC.
So like it's already a very clear and rapid break even and positive ROI from voice alone. Then you type on everything else, like texting and out inbound outbound on top of it to follow up throughout the whole life cycle.
Okay, it's an operator.
Okay, so let's go ahead.
I think you're asking a pretty biased group here.
Obviously, I will say this.
We are we try and be really careful about how we do it. So we run full sentiment on conversations with the customers and see whether we're trending up or down and try and compare it to a human conversation. These are things that we need to tweak.
Look, I understand the margins of a dealership are low, but they do have kind of some territorial kind of access so they have like that was built in margin in this business.
So it's not the life or death thing whether they kind of deploy something like this. I will say this on the voice side.
What I don't recommend is outbound outbound. I mean, I show hands of people here who like getting, you know, kind of spam calls from humans.
Now, how would you feel if it was an AI if the company that called you didn't even have the decency to have another human to waste your time.
So we were very big believers that you have to be smart about it and like the outbound is should be you should be very like you're going to get really pissed off customer if you do that.
Yeah, so I think we have a similar philosophy there and and I think where where we all agree is that useless outbound is bad if there's zero context around the consumer and what they need and why you're reaching out to this specific person.
Yeah, none of us like that. But if we have the context of the consumer and let's say like it's a recall campaign like we know the vehicle you have we know there's an active recall you probably want to take this thing in.
Then, as long as we're doing this in that thoughtful of a manner and timely as well, like that's where we see most of the value from an outbound standpoint.
So Taso, I agree with you that this is a pretty sympathetic group but here's the challenge. I think that there's a large group of companies out there that hurt you as CEOs of AI companies, because they walk into car dealerships and they promise things that just don't exist yet.
And they're aspirational more than they are practical and in automotive work practical. I'm going to give you an example. One of our GM's in our group signed up for a deal.
It was like it was multiple thousands of dollars to install it multiple thousands of dollars a month that bolted into the BDC and it created five, six times worth of leads.
It unwound the operations at that one particular location because what it promised to do it could not and the CEO came in he's like hey give us a chance just work with us we'll fix it we'll figure it out.
But he was developing his tool on our diamond on our time. How harmful is it not you but in your space having other companies come in and make promises that they just can't or won't deliver on.
They're aspirational and Eric since you let's have you start there you talked a little bit about voice AI how harmful is it to get promises that aren't real.
Well I mean like back to voice I think if you're missing 30% of your calls and on the fixed off side, then obviously AI is going to be better answering versus it going on answer.
So I think there are awesome use cases for voice AI we're doing it in other verticals we're starting to do in auto.
But here's the this is the biggest problem with AI out there is you can have such a sexy demo and like yes, it's so good.
Every you can build one in like one day to that's the crazy thing is you guys have all you I'm sure I'm sure these other guys are like yes because there are these like fly by night companies or even funded companies that have like backing financial backing.
They show up they show it they show just Emma sweet demo that's completely controlled.
The person's like this is the best thing I've ever seen yet of course is gonna be better than whatever and they sign up and then like you said, there's 20,000 edge cases and these sexy demos don't translate into solving those edge cases and then and then they lose trust and then they're like this AI stuff is bullshit.
So yes, I think it's this is what this is, I think this is a tails all this time new technology disruptive technology, all of the, you know, I think these four companies are great and we're trying to build something of value for these dealers.
And and we don't you know, none of us are like expert dealer folks like like you but we're trying to merge technology and this dealer industry into something awesome, but then you've got 80% of the others.
And they're just like hey this is a great way to make a buck because I can go and show these flashy demos and I can get a bunch of revenue.
So how do I tell the difference Eric, if I'm a dealer sitting in a brick and mortar who's been burned by the promises of tech and delivered and it's disrupted my operation.
How do I weed it out the good from the back.
I mean, for us, I mean we just have you talk to our customers and like by the way, we've been doing this for a couple years now.
We don't hit it out of the park every time for every customer and we've really like we've had to work our butts off to make our just our BDC agent. Excellent.
And we were going for like full goal or full start to finish somebody walks in your door and a human didn't touch it.
So I think talking to talking our talk to your customers and if they have no customers for you to talk to you that's a bad sign.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Go ahead.
Tassel.
So, um, in given that you're in other verticals, are you seeing the same because I just had my board meeting and my like all companies and all verticals are seeing these kind of vibe coded really simple solutions and we're facing this kind of attack from these companies that really don't have anything.
Are you seeing that in your other verticals?
Yeah, it's everywhere.
It's at home services.
It's in retail.
It's in health and wellness.
And I mean, it was like personally a company with two people and I'm not saying a company with two people can't can't be good.
We were two people at one time.
You all heard of those two people, right?
But it is, it's, it's everywhere.
And I mean, the good news guys is dealers are smart.
They are shrewd and they will not tolerate this stuff.
And we've learned the hard way to we've launched products that have been total flops and the dealers more than any other industry, they will cancel that like at the drop of a hat.
I think, I think the industry is going to go through this maturing phase where the, the wannabes and the ones that aren't actually doing trying to do the right thing are going to get flushed out.
And then there will be a couple of great companies that survive and because the stuff is real.
Like we have a dealership that increased their test drives by 40% using our product.
I'm sure you guys have similar examples.
AI is real.
The technology is real.
It's not, it's not BS, but there is a lot of noise out there.
All right.
Now to the panel then what is the biggest promise not competitors in this group but outside this group. What are the biggest promise promises competitors make that you know today is not possible.
And you can even go into other verticals that people are trying to sell monetize make money off of but it's just not there yet.
I think one of the things that they mentioned is like you just said it and forget it.
You will never have to touch it and it will just print money for you.
That, that does not work.
Like you have to put in effort into the tool into, you know, for example, if you're personalizing it, you understand your business more than anyone else.
The tool needs that information and context to perform well.
If you give it, you'll see crazy results, you know, there's just the blow your mind and if you don't, it's just not going to work and then you can blame the tool you can blame whatever right like so I think there's there's some amount of effort required and nothing if there's no free lunch.
I think that's like one of the biggest promises that people make which I think, you know, it sounds great to three days, 10 days and then you start seeing edge cases and problems and then they're like what about that.
Like where's your night drop box so like the agent doesn't know that you even have a night drop box.
Right.
So just things like that.
Yeah, Brian any any thoughts on that on on promises made that are aspirational not deliverable today.
I would be skeptical of any company that says something like you can onboard our product and then entirely wipe out this this whole team, or a large substantial portion of your company.
Right away it's kind of like there's a similar movement or or thought in in startups in general where it's like well we think that we can see like the first one person unicorn before very long I think it's obviously going to be a lot more complex and you
like, you know, to the earlier points that AI is is developing really quickly but it's it's not perfect yet.
I already the point right now is that the big picture data is there it's it's so even if it's not perfect it's it's very clear and fast ROI but but still like there's a process to this and there are things that humans still do very much better job at
than AI so so we know the potential for these roles to evolve is is kind but it's not quite there yet so if someone comes in and they kind of feed off of your hunger to just eliminate all the staff and save up on this SG&A I would be very careful with how you evaluate the product.
So let's talk dealer pay.
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Now let's get back to it.
All right so let's shift gears.
Even the smartest AI depends on execution.
So who's really responsible for success as it relates to AI.
So it's interesting.
I mentioned that that experience we had in our own auto group the field support.
I'm going to make a statement.
Tell me if you think this is true and then what is the role of your employees in helping to implement it.
I think the better the AI claims the less trained the less qualified the less good.
I know that's not correct English but the less good the field staff is who's responsible to execute as it relates to AI tools in our world.
So yeah so I mean we've been doing this for 12 years 30% of franchise dealers in the United States use podium.
Half of those are using our AI so we have a lot of customers and auto up until we launched Jerry we actually didn't go on site a lot.
We sold this communication tools reviews tool review tools like they're not insignificant parts of the dealership operations but we didn't go on site a ton.
We now it is our responsibility it is our responsibility we sell you an agent.
It is our responsibility to do what we need to do to get it to make it successful because it is I mean think about it we are.
You're basically telling these dealers that you are going to replace the human labor to a certain degree at their dealership and that you're you know a lot of our customers are Jerry's talking to their customers more than their human sales reps.
And so yeah we go on site now all the time we're on the road we're racking up the sky miles and guess what though when this stuff gets implemented properly and you get it operationalized and everybody's trained.
You really I mean that this is the sad thing is I think the AI is getting a bad rap because of everything we just talked about but when it is actually implemented well and the technology is sound and the dealership and the people are on board.
It is magical.
It is awesome.
And but I think it we feel more like we're consultants now than we ever have been which is which is great.
TASO if AI fails in one of your dealerships who takes responsibility a dealer for not adapting or you for overselling.
I know it's it's on us I 100% 1000% agree with Eric.
We in fact like part of a good product you know you talk about other folks that sell more fly by night if you don't have the infrastructure in place to monitor your AI how it's doing how it's performing how employees are using it not using it abusing it
and having meetings very very diligently and frequently with your with your dealership partners to make sure that things are being tuned continuously that's where you're really failing.
The monitoring and management of it is kind of half the battle.
So I'm 100% with that we take full responsibility for it like like we have we are creating these like digital employees and we're like employing them for you and you don't have it's our code you don't have the capability to understand
how things are going until you get a one star review on Google which we obviously wanted to have the opposite the five stars so it's all on us.
So have you encountered situations where your teams go in to install these tools into a BDC let's say and BDC the BDC employees start to compete against the tool.
They'll sabotage they'll turn it off they'll say hey it doesn't work it's to my point it's quadrupling leads.
How do you how do you deal with that how do you react to that.
I think you've you've seen this nature like throughout history when anytime a new tool comes in I think initially it's met with skepticism.
Then there's like competition and then there's this acceptance that it's okay it's actually making our jobs easier.
How do you deal with it I think you provide full transparency because you know nobody's going to work with something that they don't understand.
So for example if it's phone calls right you get full visibility into that you see the transcripts.
You see when you develop when it didn't do well when it was handed over to a human and how that was handled right by that person.
And then you get great reporting you know it's basically numbers data seeing it work and then also having the ability to change it when it doesn't work.
I think all of these couple together it makes you know for example BDC members there instead of answering calls sometimes they're coaching these agents.
So the role has changed and they are playing a big part of it and you know through a collaborative effort you can convert them.
Now obviously there will be some people who don't want to be within like 10 feet of technologies like this and that's fine right.
But I think over time there's this adoption curve right so it's like the early adopters I think we're right now like now going mainstream and then there will be like this piece where you'll reach out to everybody else who's left out.
So it's just natural progression and as we move through it.
You try to educate as much as you can and offer transparency.
I'm a use car or I'm a BDC manager it doesn't work your tools destroying our BDC.
What's your response how do you bring me back to the table so that I see the value of it and I realize if my job changes it's for the better.
Yeah I think the answer is data so first is you benchmark and baseline what you had before you use the tool right.
Then you have data where you see OK how are how is the sentiment changing compared to where it was before how are the bookings changing compared to where it was before because that is the truth.
Right like we can talk as much as we want about our opinions but the numbers tell a story which is accurate and I think we should have a discussion on that because if you see the numbers lower then the question is OK.
There happened to be the 60 calls that should have converted but didn't and then you look at the calls and you can see exactly why right.
So it's always going to be based on data and comparing it with that.
Sometimes data sometimes lies Monic does it ultimately you're providing the data right.
You can you can you can take that you can create the data and the answers that you want to create as a as a as a vendor company right because you create the data you provide it to us as dealers.
Yeah I mean I think the question is are we selectively showing certain things that's a you know that you know that's easy to catch and I think dealers are just great at catching that.
Is the data being fudged is a different thing right like one of the things we care about personally as a company is more than sounding right like we actually want to be right.
You know about whatever we're offering and we want to improve and I think just having like different levels of transparency right when you say here are we did 50 bookings can you click on it and see the actual 50 bookings.
Can you see the people show up for that. So you know just being clear and having you know more data to back up the data that you have like that's just really how you win trust and I think I think Eric also mentioned it like talk to our customers and see
like people who've been using it for maybe three you know a month is fine but like people use it for a year.
They they can feel it and they see it in other numbers that they track regularly.
Yeah. So Eric you talk about the importance of your account managers. I agree many of within our auto group we've worked with many companies that are in this panel podium has great field staff.
Isn't the success of podium more about people having the right people good people willing to engage with our stores than the tech or how do you think about tech versus your employees staff.
Well about three years ago we had we had some real issues with our customer experience or and so at that point the product actually didn't matter that much because we weren't you know successfully onboarding our customers to a to a high enough
degree and so all that mattered was service and we've now you know the last three years built what I think is one of the best you know field field operations out there and we're our customers love it and we you know everybody
person at podium so it's it's awesome but now the product matters more than anything because we can deliver the service we can you know we take care of the customer so it's both it's both.
You got like we know we've also had awesome enterprise customers over time that they love us and we have great people but the product wasn't doing the job and so you know like that you know they still cancel because they're like hey we think you
are great but we're going in another direction and so I think it's got to be both. Yeah. Okay so we're going to speed this up just a little bit. Execution is one thing trust is another.
Dealers want to know in the world of AI and tech is my data safe and automotive is a highly regulated industry as it relates to customer information as it relates to even financial and best practices.
So dealers think about who owns customer data in this world of AI as you're collecting so much do you and are you monetizing that data Tassel let's start with you.
Okay.
So,
I mean the dealers data is the dealers data and there are, you know, issues beyond companies like us there's DMS is and a whole bunch of folks that you know want to have kind of claim to data there's OEMs.
So, you know, our core is the dealer and making sure that they're able to, you know, max overall maximizing the profits that's that's that's foundational for us.
So, what we look to do is whatever a models AI models we're building are built on any kind of data that we're using from them is like it's like obviously we build, you know, a huge amount, you know, a lot of our investment that we've made
on the technology team is on the security and on the data privacy and all these kinds of things. So it's your data, you know, we keep it that way.
I will tell I will share a story with you which is a very, very scary one where one of our dealer partners was, you know, kind of on a couple of their stores tried one of these and it was nobody on this panel of course.
Kind of one of the what I'll say maybe kind of more fly by night two person shop I think it was a two person completely vibe coded solution.
And we said huh let's check it out and our CTO went in there log into this AI from their website anybody could do this log into their web into their website and was able to get in and see all the records that the dealership
including the including the GM's personal information that was in there home address phone number, you know, VIN number on his you know, so it was very, very, very scary.
So I think for us it's like you have to this is scary stuff as well.
So you should work with people that are well funded that take care of these things that have other accounts that you can get reference calls from and make sure that that happens that way.
Yeah, it's interesting. So, Brian, are dealers exposing themselves to risk by plugging in unregulated AI.
As Tasso mentioned, I think I'll echo Tasso's direction there and you know it, it really does depend on which vendor it isn't and how unscrupulous the people behind it may be.
Again, like I like to take a more optimistic view of things and I think you know the four of us here are pretty responsible in the way we think about it but that's not going to be the case for every company and you know, especially so the extremely new ones with no proven track record from the team and or
from funding like and the more proof points you have the better there obviously but like, you know, one thing you could do as the dealer is is ask questions about the underlying infrastructure.
And even like as far as what am I looking for in that Brian, what am I looking for in that answer.
I want to see okay like what is what's driving this technology under the hood and you don't really need to know like every single detail but like, you know, like we've partnered with with technology providers that have like the best reputations and the whole tech industry in
terms of security that that that education and organizations are using for example, and like the more the more out of the way a company goes to to work with them just like this and like voluntarily and saw their own their own processes in place and
like even down to like what language is in the contract is like, you know, in our case like we have never monetized data we will never monetize data even then like the the data that we have from taking your costs and text for a dealership
I won't use it to refine your dealers experience but we don't take that in and trade like the rest of this broader core with it so you want to do your diligence on on the team for sure.
Brian good response Eric. How should I think about data privacy and security in this world where automotive is so regulated but TASO talks about this. All that data was out there that's a breach under the safeguards act. How do I prevent against that with all this new technology.
Yeah, I mean we work in health care so it's even more regulated. I mean, a good. If I'm a, if I'm a gsm or dealer principle I'm going on LinkedIn and I want to see if this, if it's a, if it's a young company, do they have a security team, do they have do they have people on there,
the people on LinkedIn that are have titles that are security now that doesn't guarantee that you're, you're partnering with somebody that is going to be responsible with your data and do everything they should but I think that's a good first step.
And as we know like even some of the biggest software platforms in automotive have had like CD terrible. Yeah, it's terrible reaches and so I mean it's just, it's hard. I think it's the number I think if I if I were a dealer group or an independent store I would be looking
online and making sure that the team actually this company actually has sick people that are thinking about security.
So let's talk about chat GPT it just came out with this 5.0 this may be a little bit outside your all area but maybe you can help us with this. It is all the rage and automotive because anybody can go to a terminal anywhere they can ask a question they can input a document you can
get incredible feedback from it. There was a best practice shared by a dealer on Yossi show Cardi worship guy podcast recently, and he said hey he uploads his financial statement but it gets benchmarks back great feedback.
That terrifies me. How concerned should I be about uploading personal information or financial information into tools like chat GPT.
I think you should be very concerned. I think there was a thing where someone said that I think it was Sam Altman or something that happened in a press release they somebody had published some data and I think opening I actually use that to train the models and somebody else tried to get some information and actually
spit out some information that somebody else had written into their chat GPT so you should be concerned there are definitely tools out there that actually preserve that privacy.
What are the rules.
I mean I don't want to name them because I don't want to take risk on behalf of those tools that you'd have to do your homework but they
But you could but Monique you can go into chat GPT and you can link your email you can link your SharePoint you can put your outlook and it will scour all that that's is that a problem in automotive and we have so much NPP I
There is a thing called zero data retention. I mean if if that's a policy that you sign up for and you can explicitly ask providers for that. So we offer that for example to our customers and also there are like other standards like
You know like as Eric mentioned for healthcare that you know you can be as always can be compliant for so you can ask for those things explicitly if you are you know interested and I think the the the software providers have to you know show that to you that they're
So that's one way to
Brian or actually TASO you talked about this breach chat GPT it's it's a huge tool within automotive are there good best practices for usage of it we were just in a GM meeting a lot of them use it to get vehicle descriptions right to put on their pages and what not that seems pretty innocuous and easy to go to
I mean look it's an incredibly powerful tool you don't want to restrict your team from using it what I would do if I was running a dealership I would have guidelines which is you know if you want to you know celebrate job better and you want to get advice from something like that
You should use it if you're if you're going to put in data from our set and try and want some analysis on it like that's that's a note that's a no go so I think it's I think you start setting some policies that you know people going to use is really powerful
I don't have the like don't use my data to improve the model though I mean I haven't looked into this I have that turned off
So what does that mean it's not out there it's not indexable it's not findable later
I don't know for sure but all I know is I turned off them using my data to make their model better because I think that what that means is my something I could type into there could end up in the results for somebody else at some point I don't want that
I mean I don't want to open AI doesn't need any more revenue from anyone but it probably is the rationale to like go get like a corporate wide license for open AI and because then you can control that at corporate level I'm sure like most dealership employees using their own like version of chat GPT and might not have those things turned on
Okay before we come out of the privacy piece and a fascinating conversation especially as it relates to chat GPT many of your tools will quote payments back AI will engage interact with a customer quota payment if it makes a mistake who's got the liability is it your company isn't the dealership who ultimately should be responsible for that
Well I think go for it go for it
I think whoever's saying it you're representing the dealership so I mean whatever the end word is coming out of like that you are responsible for that so if it's us then it is us and I think the responsibility of making sure that data is correct what recording is correct the design the way in which we're doing all of that is on our shoulders
Yeah so a comment from social Kevin Lopez says if you don't pay for the product you are the product only the enterprise packages explicitly allow you to deny the AI training on your inputs from what I've seen to Eric's point but you do pay for chat GPT I think 20 bucks a month I have the upgraded version I can do all sorts of crazy things in that right
Lauren Klein asked let's do this before we transition to the future of how do you see AI affecting things like CSI customer satisfaction in automotive does it increase it does it harm it because it's not a live person let's go to you Brian on that
Yeah we've seen like our dealerships like we've seen increases of like let's say 20 points in just a few months from deployment so like a lot of it comes down to again there's just sheer volume of inbound traffic that's going into your fixed stops
as well as again like there's the whole life cycle to to consider here and so like can you reduce things like your call abandonment right can you miss your calls it's also about speed to lead for example so again like it's all about how do you provide the best possible customer service right and so
like with AI fills in the gaps of what you're not able to do and your staff can only handle so much volume and this is on top of whatever else they're responsible for doing in person or like you know and you don't want to freak out if somebody takes PTO or somebody leaves in a really high turnover team as well
and so we've we've seen positive increases to to CSI across the board and overwhelmingly positive sentiment on average across our calls yeah and obviously this group is not going to oh TASO go ahead
no I just so our our actually mission we actually consider ourselves very much a CSI company that and this is why bringing in human and illusion the right decision as to who to speak to the customer so for example the average car dealership takes 23 hours to get back to a customer
when you voice mail and only half the voice mail is returned okay so when you're building AI agents that are like trying to solve those specific communication problems people get mad at you not because you don't pick up the phone after hours but because you don't call them back and when you do it takes you over the
day so when you're able to build AI agents all of a sudden that 23 hours becomes 20 minutes and 95% of voice mail get returned your CSI goes through the roof so that the true true to ROI is exceptional CSI and then about that manifests itself into retention other revenue things so whereas we see on average 25% increase in CSI within four or five months of watching
okay and that is usually part
in my world I see
from like bottom 5% tile to like top 10% tile in six months when they work really close with our performance managers and get the system tuned right that is the core of what we believe AI should be doing for you
not a hammer looking for a nail the cost randomly
so how much of how much of an opportunity does the younger generation that is tough to teach and train on the phone create for AI like it is when I think about this logically you know I think about my kids right like they're more comfortable texting snapchatting
doing other things than picking up a phone and having a phone conversation right it creates an opportunity for AI because it's going to have a conversation with us older folk better than younger kids will right
yeah I mean I think the channels will always change but the main thing is that the quality of conversation has to improve and that is something we strive to improve
you know maybe you're wearing augmented reality glasses and metal Ray vans and doing something else tomorrow in the store I don't know right like what that will look like but the core of it is that you know how to run your business you want to be perceived and you want to you know act in a certain way
and as long as the agent can take that and express it in different channels you have the best experience so so Eric thinking about the future
AI is developing so quickly I love the fact that you said hey we learned some really tough lessons in the beginning as it relates to field staff and the tool and you've pivoted you've learned you've overcome those challenges
what does the future bring with it evolving so quickly how do companies like podiums stay relevant in this fast fastly evolving market
yeah our number one our top principle at the company like the founding principle that is speed like we might not be right every time we're going to be faster than everyone else and that is just the culture of our company and in a world with AI
there's always been a premium on that like you look at Elon Musk's companies Tesla SpaceX etc and like speed has been a huge advantage for them there's always been a premium with AI that premium has a huge multiple on it and so I mean we're just
we have 180 software engineers and basically our job is to make sure that we're using the bleeding edge models the bleeding edge tools that enable those models and and and yeah we need to keep we want to keep our dealers on the cutting edge of this technology
because if we don't somebody else like we have three other guys right here that are more than willing to take our place can I add something to it and this goes to trust in the industry we talk about all these other let's call them bad actors they're
in this room there are so many people that make promises that I just can't yet deliver on but maybe they're aspirational than than reality I think one of the things you guys do really well Eric is you will own what you can do
and you'll share the shortcomings and what you're working on very vulnerably transparently you're not trying to sell us and as the CEO of a company when I bring a company in and and we're doing something new where there's going to be a
I need to know all the stuff you can't do I need the warts I need to know the worst side of the company so that I can teach train and communicate to my team if I don't have that and I lose credibility I can't get anything done in my auto group right
and so I that would be my one ask of all AI related companies is just tell us everything the good the bad the ugly just own it Eric thoughts on that
I mean, if you guys, I know some of you've been around for a little while, you eventually get punched in the face with the challenges of scaling your product and your service out to lots of customers.
And I think it's exactly what Sam stated. And so I think we learned over 12 years because I think early on, you are, you have this desire to like be the solution all their problems as a as a as a vendor, or a partner and and like I think we just
do what we do is really valuable we believe in it and we're going to be really straight up about what we can do and we can do what the technology can do and it can do though. You know, I'm, as you guys can tell a pretty animated guy, high energy.
You do not want to see me if I hear any of our sales reps say things that we do on a demo that we cannot you do not want to see what happens it bothers me so much because guess what, it's a it's a road to
failure. Eventually we have to pay the piper and if we say we can't we say we can, you know, turn something into solid gold and we can't then like, it doesn't value we have there's no value in it.
All right, so we got to keep going because we're getting in the lightning round but one last question before we do that because we're almost on time at thinking about the future of AI where does it hit its ceiling, what in a dealership
does AI never fully replace tassel let's start with you and then go to Brian.
I think it come I mean that's that's kind of a deeper almost like you know AI philosophical question.
I think there are elements of the experience that you're going to want kind of a human involved, something more, you know, tactile and emotional.
I'm looking obviously many years down the down the line. And I think at that point, you know, whether it's, you know, you're sitting there and explaining kind of the car and what makes it magical.
There's a design with this beautiful unique color or like what it can do for your family, which are very kind of human primal elements.
Most things you're going to need people for right and you have amazing people in your dealership and your goal should be to 10x those folks.
So that we view it from from that perspective. But there's a whole bunch of other things that are, you know, work that I forget who said I think might have been kind of Eric which is like your people hate doing that job, right?
You kind of do it for them so they can focus on the value attitude. I think you're going to see this kind of transition away from kind of these kind of drudgery tasks into high value, high EQ jobs.
And those are not just going to stay but it's going to provide an even better customer experience.
Brian, what's the one thing you can't replace? What's the ceiling of AI in a car dealership?
It's going to be the most intimate aspects of trust and creativity, right? So like, I don't, I don't think AI is going to make the most important strategic or creative decisions for the overall business and where you want that to head up.
It's very much going to be on the GM review principle. But you know, the easy example is down to it selling a car. Like, you know, there are going to be parts of it where like having AI as a supplement or a co-pilot, whatever you want to call it is going to be very helpful.
And we already discussed like beat the horse on automating the lead process going in. So, but once the consumer enters the store, like if I was the sales rep, for example, and I'm trying to sell this Toyota Highland, I can go on and on and on about why I'm fanatical about how like I put mine through so much shit and it's never, it's been a tank.
And it's done so much for me, my family, and like, I never have to worry about that. That level of enthusiasm, authenticity is hard to come by with from AI. And so there's this broader question and movement of like, well, is the sense of the definition of trust getting redefined?
And we're seeing this in, you know, non-automotive example, but with influencers and with so many of them, you know, being sponsored by paid by these companies sponsored product, well, well, the trust begins to deteriorate. So how do you define trust in this new era of AI?
And, you know, to your earlier question, I think the performance does is owned by us, the vendors, and but not only are we the vendors providing the software, we also have this responsibility of educating the industry like we are the AI consultants and experts.
It is not currently the dealerships expertise, it can be, but it doesn't have to be. And it's important that we're as transparent as possible. We encourage the dealerships to talk to us or our engineering teams, send us a security questionnaire, like whatever you want and know our own internal policy, just be as human as possible.
All right, Tasso, if a dealer should fire one department and replace it fully with AI today first, which department should that be?
That's a loaded question.
It is.
Yeah, like, I mean, I think, I think one of the areas where, you know, your, your, maybe I would, there are aspects of departments. Okay, so if you haven't, if you haven't after hours, BDC, for example, which I consider kind of a department because a very specific task.
I think, I think, you know, the products that are provided by the folks in the call here, you can, you can replace that. There are aspects of payments that provide a better customer solution, where you're doing it kind of digitally rather than having to walk in and wait and kind of pick up your keys and the like.
I think there's aspect of departments. I think it's a, it's a very.
So fair, fair, fair answer. And because we're right up on time, we just got two minutes left. I want to get this one in. I'm a dealer sitting in a car dealership. I haven't done much. I don't have AI in my BDC. It's not answering calls.
It's not responding to text. By the way, Bill Vaughn, thanks for texting. He said, I looked across campus just now and I see there are texts that are 17 hours old and three that are over two hours old.
So that's kind of an explanation. If, if I'm in brick and mortar right now and I look six months down the road, what is, what is one area of AI that I'm going to regret not having learned about and or implemented today.
Six months down the road and a year down the road. Monic.
One word, two words.
How's that?
Yeah, that's a tough one. Two words.
Yeah, just kidding. You want, I think, I think it's like, and it goes back to the last question. Yeah, it's like, it's like, there's work that is not being done. Obviously, there's this aspect of let me just fire this department and redo everything that people are doing.
But, you know, I think Bill Vaughn, he just mentioned, right? Like, there's all these leads that are going on answered, there are calls that are being answered. Like, if you didn't figure out a way to handle the stuff that was not being done and that should have been done, I think you're really.
Yeah. All right. A dealer has 5k a month for IA. Where's the biggest ROI for that 5k today right now if I don't do anything else? Last question.
Fixed stops. Preserved calls coming in.
Yep.
Yep. Fixed stops. Best ROI on it. Tassel, what would you say?
I think I agree. I think fixed stops.
All right, Eric.
I'm not going to say fixed stops because we don't have a product there yet. I'm going to say BDC, but I cannot wait to sink our teeth into fixed stops because I think there's so much damn opportunity there.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a huge area of opportunity.
Well, listen to this entire panel, Brian, Monic, Eric and Tassel. Thank you so much for being here for this first ever CDG daily dealer live automotive AI cage match.
I found today's conversation fascinating and I appreciate you all spending time with us today to go through it and to have it.
And I think ultimately the winner of this conversation today is every single dealer out there that sat and listened.
And as we wrap, I just want to remind everybody that I just want to thank everybody for being here and I lost my spot.
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About this episode
A lively roundtable discussion featuring CEOs from four leading automotive AI companies delves into the practical applications and challenges of AI in car dealerships. The conversation covers ROI, trust issues, and the evolving role of AI in enhancing customer service. Each CEO shares insights on their AI solutions, emphasizing the importance of transparency and adaptability in a rapidly changing tech landscape. The episode also addresses concerns about data privacy and the potential for AI to replace certain dealership functions, while highlighting the irreplaceable human elements in customer interactions.
Original notes
Today's show features:
Brian Hoang, CEO of Mia
Eric Rea, CEO of Podium
Tasso Roumeliotis, CEO of Numa
Monik Pamecha, CEO of Toma
This episode is brought to you by:
Dealer Pay – Designed to increase, productivity and customer retention, Dealer Pay is a "dealer-specific' payments acceptance solution with over 25 years of experience as a trusted payments partner for dealerships across the US. Visit https://dealer-pay.com/ to learn more.
Car Dealership Guy is back with our second annual NADA Party—happening in Las Vegas on Thursday, February 5th. It’s the hottest ticket at NADA 2026. Spots are limited and unfortunately we can't invite everyone —so RSVP today at https://carguymedia.com/cdglive and we hope to see you in Vegas!
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