As AI continues to reshape the automotive retail landscape, Reynolds & Reynolds is at the forefront, helping dealerships unlock new levels of efficiency and profitability. Greg Uland, VP of Marketing at Reynolds & Reynolds, joins us on today’s episode of Driving Solutions to share insights into how AI is revolutionizing the industry and how their latest innovations, like the AI assistant Avery, drive real change for dealers.
First, as dealerships head to this year’s NADA conference, Uland highlights three major challenges that dealers are focusing on:
- Doing more with less.
- Increasing margins.
- Scaling their operations.
Uland explained that while dealerships want to serve more customers and maintain profitability without adding staff or space, they’re also fixated on finding new revenue opportunities and expanding their operations.
Next, Uland discusses the growing role of AI in automotive retail by acknowledging both its potential and risks. On the positive side, AI can increase efficiency and streamline operations, while on the negative side, it raises concerns about data fragmentation and inaccuracies. He stressed the importance of AI tools leveraging clean, unified data layers to avoid mistakes when automating decisions.
Reynolds & Reynolds is embracing AI through their Spark AI platform, which powers several AI tools already in use. These include Conversation AI for transcribing and summarizing calls, Engagement AI for text-based customer interactions, Prospect AI for identifying potential buyers, and Merchandising AI for optimizing vehicle descriptions and images. Uland also introduced Avery, an AI assistant inside AutoVision, which offers pricing and stocking recommendations and demonstrates its decision-making process to users.
As Reynolds & Reynolds prepares for the NADA show, Uland notes the upcoming launch of Avery and the company’s commitment to delivering practical, data-driven AI solutions to dealers. He also mentioned the focus on dealer panels and sessions at the Automotive News Best Practices event, which kicks off their activities at the show.
“We launched that at Amplify back in the summer. And it's really a layer that powers all of the intelligence behind our new and future AI tools that we'll be coming out with.” – Greg Uland
