More and more car dealers are turning to artificial intelligence to help streamline operations and customer service, but the choices can seem overwhelming. Now, some dealers are foregoing vendors and building the AI tools they need themselves.
Joining us on this episode of Inside Automotive is Kevin Pitts, General Manager of BMW of Reading in Pennsylvania. He’s taking a hands-on approach to AI for his dealership and building his own AI tools in-house.
The DIY AI approach
The main reason Pitts decided to build his own AI tools is cost. Pitts says the automotive industry already suffers from “vendor bloat,” with a vendor ready to sell you a service for every side of the business. Rather than hire another outside vendor, Pitts decided to take on the task himself, with a little help from like-minded dealer friends.
Pitts’ background was operations, not coding. But that didn’t stop him.
“It’s really gotten interesting and fun being able to create workflows and being able to create agents that you can get them to do whatever you want,” Pitts said. “And you really don’t have to have a lot of coding experience.”
Streamlining Social Media with AI
One of the first things Pitts wanted AI to do was to help him with his social media content. Pitts says the old process meant sending someone out to the lot for pictures, spending time writing copy, and then finally posting. With AI, Pitts automated that entire workflow. Now the images captured during reconditioning are fed directly into an AI-powered system that pulls inventory data and automatically posts to Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites.
"We've taken (AI) to internal processes ... to marketing efforts, anything that we feel could benefit from some increased workflow."
Each morning, an AI agent also searches the internet for dealership and industry-specific articles and sends them to Pitts by email. From there, he can reply with a simple instruction and have a finished blog post waiting for him minutes later.
Pitts also uses a vendor-provided AI receptionist to help route incoming calls, but he still has a real human in BDC. Previous attempts at an all-AI phone system were met with customer backlash, Pitts says.
Treating AI as a tool, not a threat
Pitts says he expected some pushback from his team, but for the most part, he says it never came. He credits that with the way he framed the AI tools to his staff. Pitts says he made it clear that AI wasn’t a threat to their jobs, but rather a tool to help with tedious tasks and keep them focused on the customers.
“Look, we’re not trying to eliminate jobs. We’re just trying to create efficiencies with workflows,” Pitts said. “Instead of sitting behind a desk doing the things that we don’t want to do, we get to be out, be in front of customers, be customer-facing.”
Pitts admits that AI could eventually eliminate some administrative roles in the industry as a whole, but he draws a distinction between large enterprises and operations like his, which runs roughly 200 employees across four stores.
“There will be admin jobs that I think that could get eliminated by it,” Pitts said. “But there’s other things that can always be done … There’s enough work for everybody is my theory on it,” Pitts said.
Handling AI-educated customers
The AI shift isn’t just happening inside the dealership, Pitts says he sees it happening on the customer side as well.
Pitts says some consumers walk into the showroom armed with research that goes well beyond a Google search. In some cases, he’s even seen customers take a picture of the buyer’s order on the spot and ask an AI agent whether it’s a good deal, what’s necessary, and what’s negotiable.
Pitts says that with the recent FTC ruling cracking down on deceptive pricing at dealerships, it’s even more important to be fully transparent with customers who can quickly and easily check the details of their deal with AI tools.
Pitts says he’s trained his salespeople to ask customers early in the process what AI tools they are using in their research so the conversation can meet the customer where they already are.
Staying relevant in responses
As more customers turn to AI in the car-buying process, Pitts is using AI and other tools to find them.
When customers use tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Gemini to research where to buy or service their vehicle, Pitts works to ensure his dealership appears in those AI-generated responses. He says it’s just as important as ranking on Google. The challenge, he says, is keeping up with the technology.
“That is probably the most challenging part of it right now because it is ever-growing and the rules aren’t really defined because they’ll change as the new versions come out,” Pitts said.
Pitts says his team uses Semrush, an all-in-one digital marketing platform, to drive brand visibility across multiple platforms.
Start slow and simple
For dealers looking for ways to use AI, Pitts says to start small, but start now.
“Start with a small process that you think might be something that AI could do, and go find an AI tool, find whichever one. There’s a bunch of them out there,” Pitts said.
From there, Pitts says to just start asking the AI agent questions. The learning curve, he says, is less steep than most dealers assume.
“Do a little educating. There’s all kinds of free training that you can do. Jump on the free training, educate yourself a little bit on it. And just try it,” Pitts said. “You can’t harm anything.”
