LIVE
Those of that have been following the dealer playbook for a while, you might recognize
this guy right here, Dan Collingridge, my CTO at Flex Dealer and Lift Kit.
How many NADAs is this for you?
I started counting probably like three years ago when I actually started coming consistently.
I think the first one was like more than a decade ago and I didn't have a passage.
I just kind of was here hanging out with you from time to time.
Oh yeah, I remember that.
I remember that.
We've come a long way.
Yes.
Oh yeah.
What the heck are we doing?
What is happening here?
I want to ask you, I mean, leading into this just from a technical perspective while we're
getting ready for our next panel.
All this talk about AI, what's your take?
What are you looking for?
What are you specifically looking for that's around the corner?
What's that around the corner stuff that Dan Collingridge is looking at from the lens
of a CTO?
Wow, that's a loaded question.
I'll start by talking about what I'm seeing now with AI.
Obviously, I'm using it a lot for a lot of different things.
And as everyone knows it by this point with AI is it's good up to a certain point.
And it's interesting, like I've been using it for coding, AI is great at coding.
As we know, AI is great at writing, it's great at interpreting writing, it's great
at translation, all that stuff.
But it's like it can only get you so far.
And so if you are focused entirely on getting something done with AI and not focused on
your own skills and abilities, you're going to get 80% of the way there maybe.
And that last 20% is always a grind.
So my first word of advice, I guess, is make sure that you're brushing up on your skills
still.
Like I'm a developer, I've done a lot of software development and I still can't trust
AI to do it all.
I have to rely on my skills to know that it's doing it the right way because it gets you
to that point where you feel pretty good about it and then everything just falls apart in
the end.
Is that the intersection of technology and earned wisdom, experience, empathy, the vibe,
like gut checking, knowing whether or not that may not work because it's not factoring
in the mindset of that person who doesn't care about that.
I just see this big spider web that I have a hard time articulating, but I'm wondering
if is there a time where the job of a software programmer is that of an overseer only and
not.
And I think that's the caution there is if you relegate yourself to be an overseer only,
you're going to be greatly disappointed because and then the other thing I was going to say,
kind of looking around the corner is what you asked.
It's like what we're starting to see is in technology, if you look back on history from
the 1970s onward, you've seen technology grow at this exponential rate and improve at this
exponential rate.
AI has been so different in this and that we saw this huge boom what four years ago or
so and then it feels like it's kind of plateaued since then and where all the innovation is
coming from now is just throw more computing power at it and it'll get smarter and smarter.
Throw more training data at it and it'll get smarter and smarter, but we're not really
seeing that as much.
And so it's the use of AI that is the novel use case of AI, not AI in and of itself.
So yes, overseers, but you can't, I mean, you can't get rid of the human element in
this at all.
Like programmers are not going away.
You need a good programmer.
And what we've seen in our technology division is the guys that are using AI effectively
have become much stronger developers than they ever were before, but they're still essential.
We still need them.
This is something we talk about this all the time because we're developing products right
now.
We're doing some really cool stuff, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
You're going to hear about a lot of the stuff we're developing soon, but that is something
that I think we, we, I would say is our fundamental position, which is scale the human.
Scale the human like as long as human beings are integral to the success of the planet
and just why we exist here, you know, how many people are like, why am I here?
You know, philosophical, as long as that question keeps me asked, as long as people keep being
born, then humans have to have like, you know what I mean?
Like I can't reconcile a different path.
Yeah, AI is there.
And I think that was the intention from the very beginning.
It's there to make our lives better.
It's not there to replace that.
The crowds agree with us.
You hear all the cheering, they're cheering for us.
See, they agree with, guy, they agree with what we're saying.
Okay.
Because it's right.
Scale the human.
Okay.
Sorry, I cut you off.
Oh yeah, it's keep using it by all means.
Keep using it.
Just use it smartly.
And yeah, the innovation is going to come.
I mean, AI is going to keep evolving.
It's going to keep getting better, but I think it's going to happen slower than we all think.
I think we all just got really excited and we're like, well, this is, this came out of nowhere.
But really, I've been studying computer science for 25 years and they were talking about this stuff
25 years ago and we finally got there.
The future is now ish, but we've got a long way to go still.
So the human element is still the most important.
My greatest fear is that we turn it all over to the AI and then our lives fall apart.
And I mean, for some, you do kind of see that thread where they become so consumed with it.
It's excitement.
It's whatever.
But I just think like our human nature, we get so excited about something that it actually,
to your point, consumes our life.
And discernment is going to be a really big thing for people to develop the ability to discern
what is real, what is authentic, what will enhance your life to your point.
You know, I don't think a lot of people know that they started playing with AI 80 years ago.
Right.
Right.
Well, isn't that, it was like 80 years ago when somebody fact-checked me on this.
And if you're watching live and you're in the comments, fact-check me on that.
When did they start developing artificial intelligence?
The beginnings were that far ago.
I think it really kind of started exploding in the 60s and 70s is when I really started
figuring out what it all was supposed to mean.
But even then they had no idea.
But it's, I think if I could put another kind of warning out there, it's the younger generation,
I would say.
I mean, I've got kids that are older, that are teenagers now.
That's probably the greatest thing that they need to learn is, yes, how to use AI, but how
to, like you said, the discernment, right?
Is no, when it's lying to you, when it's making stuff up, when it, what it's telling you is
a good idea or not a good idea, that still has to come with it from within.
Yeah.
You and I play a lot with inventory.
We see inventory as the needle to be sewn, that the thread goes through.
I'm looking for some sort of biblical analogy, and I'm not coming up with it right now, but
it's like inventory is a critical pivot point for so many operations.
We see inventory as a catalyst, specifically through the lens of getting vehicles to market
cleanly, efficiently with full accurate information.
You mentioned we're talking AI there, but from your perspective, I mean, we've been
developing inventory products for clean data flows, you know, saving hundreds of thousands
of dollars in wasted ad spend for clients.
When we started with inventory, what has been your experience then?
We're talking 15, 20 years ago to now.
When why are, why are we still so passionate about the inventory conversation?
Oh man.
You need a water for this one.
I'm stuck on, I'm stuck on the biblical reference.
You got to be there.
I'm just thinking about like, how do I so there's something about the world was created?
How do we keep inventory of all this stuff?
And then, I mean, Noah had it easy.
He's like, all right, two of you, you.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's not a cart.
That's not what we're dealing with today.
It's not, it's not as cut and dry as that.
It's like, I think this has been a problem that has existed from the beginning that no
one's really solved yet.
And it's not one of those super exciting problems that everyone wants to solve.
Right.
But it's, if you're a dealer, you probably have this headache, especially if you're
involved at all in the sales and inventory side of things.
Where's my data?
Is it accurate?
Where's it coming from?
Where's it going to?
If there was a problem, what happened?
You having this problem every day.
Uh, how do we finally solve that?
Well, and think about this, it may not like, guys, we get it.
It's not sexy to talk about, except for the fact that there's hundreds of millions of
dollars in this exhibit hall of companies all coming together to help you sell.
What is it not helping you sell yourself?
They're helping you sell your inventory.
Everybody, I see a wholesale thing over here.
I see marketing companies were here at auto media marketplace, which is an advertising
marketplace assembling some of the best, the Roku's, the Hulu's, the Comcasts, the
Univisions, the experience of the world for what?
Just sell your cars.
Cause why?
Because sell car equals empowerment for a family, for an individual flexibility,
freedom, that flexibility and freedom equals contributing positively to society.
We hope equals community growth equals like everything we care about.
I can, that's, I'm, see, I'm still trying to get this biblical reference, but I'm
like, because that is the thread that is sewn through everything is inventory.
Like what happens to the Collingridge household when you go, you have to go
down to one car.
Oh, I missed those days when we were a one car family.
That was just life is so easy.
We got a humor behind the camera.
You were like, just shout it.
What happens to the Cenabria household when there's only one car available?
He said only one person.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, these problems, like I said, you asked the history of it.
I mean, these, these are the same problems we've been dealing with 20 years ago.
There's just a more high tech version of it.
And if we can solve this, take the headache out of way out of the management
of the inventory, the merchandising of the inventory, the verification of it.
AI is great at that stuff as well.
That's another thing AI is awesome at is data analysis, right?
It can do that work for you.
You can focus on what you're here to do.
And that's sell more cars and change people's lives.
You heard it from the man, Dan Collinger.
Just guys known me since I was seven years old.
Can you believe that seven years old?
But if, if anybody had something, some dark hairy secret about yours truly,
it's this guy right here.
Summers looked like living at his house, sleeping in sleeping bags out on the
trampoline, gallivanting around Vernon, British Columbia at three a.m.
And getting so scared because you hear a cat in an alleyway.
That was like the most violence that happened in that city.
Playing guitar up on the balcony, learning how to pronounce words backwards.
I mean, that's this kind of stuff we did as teenagers.
I'm not making this up, right?
There was an old guy that used to critique our guitar playing.
Right. Mr.
Hooper. Mr. Hooper.
If you're listening, he's probably not around anymore.
His kids, maybe.
Mr. Hooper has. He's been dead for 30 years.
Oh, yeah.
Rest in peace.
Oh, my gosh, this old man used to critique our guitar playing.
And I don't I think he was trying to be constructive.
But we were teenagers.
We were like, we're a crotchety old man like leave us alone now.
But the now that I replay this, I'm like, what the heck did what business
did we have sitting on your back?
Porch blaring guitars out into the park.
We thought we were famous.
Well, we're here having fun at NADA 2026.
We're at the Auto Media Marketplace booth.
We're here being hosted by Auto Media Marketplace and I Heart Media.
You just heard Dan Collingridge, our CTO at Flex Dealer and Lift Kit talking about
inventory, talking about artificial intelligence and the caution,
which I think is so poignant.
Hey, keep developing your skill sets.
Hey, thanks for listening to the Dealer Playbook podcast.
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Thanks so much for joining.
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