DAYTON, Ohio – August 21, 2025 – The Reynolds and Reynolds Company announced the release of Rey, an artificial intelligence agent designed for dealership professionals at Reynolds Retail Summit: Amplify 2025. By leveraging the Reynolds Spark AI data layer, Rey can do everything from providing strategic recommendations, to running reports, to providing help, to contacting the Technical Assistance Center (TAC), and it will be available across every tool in Reynolds Retail Management System.
“We are one of only a handful of companies on the planet attempting to deliver this level of AI,” said Chris Walsh, president and acting CEO of Reynolds. “The response from dealers has been fun to see. I have been with Reynolds for four decades, and I don’t remember a new release with this much excitement around it.”
Reynolds has invested heavily in helping dealers be successful with its Reynolds Performance Managers, a team that is in dealerships every day helping drive utilization and efficiency. And with Rey, those efficiencies have the potential to increase exponentially.
And Walsh says the next step for the AI is even more exciting, “We are implementing ways for dealership employees to ask Rey to handle actions inside the software on their behalf.”
In addition to the announcement of Rey, other innovations and best practices presented by dealership professionals were celebrated with the Automotive Amplifiers Contest. Five finalists presented their ideas on stage at Amplify with Kamir Martínez Díaz and Chris Ponte, winning the contest. The winners received a personal trophy and $5,000 donated to the charity of their choice.
Ponte won the Automotive Amplifiers Impact award for his work improving the off-the-shelf fill rate at Scranton Chevrolet. He said, the ability to bring his ideas directly to the owner of the dealership played a significant role in it being adopted.
“I’ve worked for bigger dealerships where you say your idea to one guy and you hope he tells the next five guys, and then you never hear back. So, it’s great to just walk right into the owner’s office, just say ‘hey here’s what I want to do,’ and he says yes or no. You get your answer immediately, and if you can prove that it works, he will help you with your next idea.”
Chris chose to donate his winnings to the Wounded Warrior Project.
Martínez Díaz, of Pepe Abad Auto in Cayey, travelled to Dallas for Amplify from Puerto Rico. She won the Automotive Amplifiers Innovation award for reducing internal document processing times and saving her company tens of thousands of dollars annually.
For Martinez, winning this award was extremely special. She chose to donate her winnings to the American Cancer Society of Puerto Rico. “It is in honor of my accounting manager that is a cancer survivor, and my sister who is fighting cancer now, so it’s very emotional for me.”
Details and descriptions of the winning ideas, those of the other finalists, and other best practices submitted for the contest will be shared later this fall.
“There is nothing more encouraging than seeing industry professionals embracing new and innovative practices that help push retail automotive forward,” concluded Walsh. “This is what Amplify is all about – sharing ideas, learning from one another, and leading the industry into the future.”
