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joe.pistell · 2026-06-28T20:46:59-0400

AI power users, I don't know if this is me, but I swear it's not.

When a new release is dropped by a frontier LLM like Claude or OpenAI, the new release is razor-sharp and the upgrade is marvelous, but then as the weeks pass, the quality degrades. Just before the next new release, it really gets bad. Claude 4.8 is dumb as a box of rocks right now, and I want to kick it lol.

joe.pistell · 2026-06-28T20:37:07-0400

carguyfiles said:
ai whiz kids and subject matter experts are two totally different things. anyone can write slop

I said "Wiz Kids in Dealers are building custom apps" and you took it out of context due to my brevity. This is what I meant:

Some of the dealerships' most intelligent minds, who have been working inside the chaotic madness called a car dealership, have come to realize that if they take their domain expertise and all of the structured and semi-structured data that surrounds them, they are able to work with AI choreograph solutions that have never been made before.

I have a dealer group client with a wiz kid inventory merchandising manager in charge of a standing inventory of > thousand VINS (that turns 8 times a year). This wiz kid was smart enough to see a problem, and see all of the disorganized & siloed data and create a system that no vendor nor any of his leaders could figure out how to do. He built the system at home.

Alex Snyder · Saturday at 8:14 PM

Let's connect in the next week or two, Chris.

joe.pistell · Saturday at 11:41 AM

Chris Cachor said:
Here's the marketing site I'm working on:

Dealer Commerce — Turn Online Shoppers Into Showroom-Ready Customers

DUUDE! I cant wait to dig into your mad scientist work!

Chris Cachor · Friday at 4:02 PM

So what originally started as a proof-of-concept from this thread kind of spiraled into a full blown commercial offering. I’ve been using different AI tools over the past 18 months or so to build out a vision for what a modern dealer platform *should* be. And so many of the things we’ve talked about here with other thought leaders is now a reality. I wouldn’t have the energy to make it all possible without AI. But I think the end result is pretty cool.

Here's the marketing site I'm working on:

Dealer Commerce — Turn Online Shoppers Into Showroom-Ready Customers

I have the platform feature complete now, and I'm going to spend the next month or so on polish and talking to dealers about it. More exciting things to come!

Dan Sayer · Friday at 3:54 PM

Steve Stauning said:
Okay, I made up the 92% statistic, though I doubt I am too far off.

"Hold my beer," said OTT.

If there was anything media agencies learned from SEM, it was the longer you keep something a mystery, the longer you can maintain profits. I don't want to take away from your continuation of the SEM alarm, but can you at some point run a series on OTT and the fleecing of automotive retail in that space? I doubt I'd be that far off if I made up a statistic that 98% is fraud!

elmagito · Friday at 3:24 PM

Baron Ringler said:
I caught this thread late, but for your sake I'm glad you didn't go with Reynolds. Reynolds adapted a caveat in their dealer contracts from when they merged up with UCS, that they own rights to all dealer data to use as they choose. For UCS, this would manifest when they discovered a store would be migrating to a different DMS, they would basically shut off all access to your own dealer information, making you pay to unlock it. I was a Reynolds installer for three years and the number of times we'd be in a Ford store at 1am, 2am, or later, to not give UCS a heads up on what were doing, was insane. And again, Reynolds adopted that business tactic once they merged with UCS.

I wish I would have read this earlier. Our owner and bean counter decided to switch from Drive Centric to Reynolds Focus in order to upgrade our current DMS of UCS / Power to Ignite. I am doing everything to convince them to stay with DriveCentric but it seems they already made the decision. I work as the Sales & Marketing Director at a Ford Dealer for over 15 years and DriveCentric has been the best CRM we have ever used. We have been with them for the past five year after being with ELeads.

Alex Snyder · Friday at 2:58 PM

Hey Steve, thanks for doing this!

How often do you find a PPC company pushing the dealer to purchase their own brand name? And about how much of the budget does that usually equate to

Alex Snyder · Friday at 2:55 PM

The simple answer here is workflow.

Most dealers already pay for an inventory syndication service and just have an image overlay as part of it. Some might charge extra for that feature. But the flow and the fact that the dealer doesn't have to do anything extra per vehicle make it worth it.

In my dealership days, I was dealing with 700 to 1,200 used cars at any given time, and having an automation that applied my image overlays made a huge difference. There was no way I was going to go through and put one on every photo one by one.

700 used cars x 24 photos per car = 16,800 overlays... now divide that by your 20 batch = 840 times
1,200 used cars x 24 photos per car = 28,800 overlays... now divide that by your 20 batch = 1,440 times

Alex Snyder · Friday at 2:49 PM

It all depends on the definition of "FREE." Some like to call it $0. And others like to call it twelve-year contracts.

Alex Snyder · Friday at 2:47 PM

The funny part is, I agree with both of you. And both of you agree with each other. We all agree :lol:

elmagito · Friday at 1:54 PM

Mitch Gallant said:
Sorry bro, you're in for a bad time. Bean counters often win. The only arguments that will put Focus ahead of DriveCentric have absolutely nothing to do with customers and/or staff and their happiness, tool effectiveness or any performance metric that actually matters and sells cars. Full disclosure, take that with a pinch of salt, i've not actually used both day to day.

"Well Mitch, you called it. The bean counters won, even though they aren't the ones using the tool day-to-day.

We had a rep from Reynolds come in to pitch the 'New Focus.' The very first thing out of his bag was that the platform won't even be complete until a tentative September launch, so he could only show us screenshots of the current version (which lacks any AI capabilities).

I brought up the fact that Focus sits at a 2.0 rating across 91 reviews, while DriveCentric boasts a 4.7 from over 7,900 reviews. When I asked him to explain their abysmal score, his answer was one for the ages: he claimed that most reviewers are just 'complainers.'

I almost choked on my coffee. I pointed out that our dealership has a 4.7 rating on Google with over 3,500 reviews, and it’s hard to believe those thousands of 'complainers' are accidentally saying nice things about us. He looked at me like he wanted me to vanish from the conference room.

Needless to say, the other managers and I are pleading with ownership to at least wait until January. Let someone else be the guinea pig for this new Reynolds launch. Ultimately, the bean counter prevailed because Reynolds is throwing Focus in for 'free' with the Ignite upgrade. But as anyone in this industry knows: why would a company give their product away for free unless they couldn't actually sell it?"

Zhendrix · Friday at 12:56 PM

DjSec said:
This is where it gets interesting.

What you’re describing sounds like a layer that sits above all of it:

Pulls in signals from every system (inventory, CRM, ads, comms)

Structures that into usable context

Pushes it back out so every platform is operating from the same intelligence

So the website, ads, BDC, etc. aren’t trying to figure things out independently, they’re all reading from the same source.

I'm taking a swing at solving for this right now with an open source project.

I think it goes beyond signals from inventory, CRM, ads, comms. Structure it. Push it back out so every platform reads from the same source instead of guessing on its own.

VCTRS.IO is my attempt at that. Three layers: what's declared, what's observed in the systems, and what's stuck in people's heads and never written down anywhere. That third layer is where it actually gets interesting. Most context plays stop at layer two. This industry has operated on gut for so long. That gut instinct or tacit layer might have to be a managed service.

Still early. Don't know what it becomes yet. The part I care most about is the open plugin layer. Dealers or anyone else can build their own and monetize it instead of guessing every use case for them. So far - beta users have come up with interesting things like creating employee schedulers, commission plan automations, employee onboarding, vendor digital rooms, or plug-ins as canaries in the coal mine so they dont have to have 30 windows open at a time.

Almost ready to open it up. It will be free. Bring your own keys and/or AI.

elmagito · Friday at 12:01 PM

Brian Michael West said:
What CRM are you currently using at your dealership, and what’s your honest opinion of it?

We’re seeing a lot of movement in the CRM space lately, with dealers switching platforms, stacking tools, or sticking with what they’ve always used just because “that’s what we’ve always had.”
I'm working on a blog for Dealer Authority about "Best CRMs in 2026" - I'd love to hear some real opinions and insights.

What CRM are you on today? DriveCentric

What do you love about it? The Conversations Tab, user friendly for sales agents. The emphasis on "Engagement"

What drives you crazy about it? - Reporting can sometimes be overwhelming but new AI Reporting is making it easier.

And if you could switch tomorrow, what would you switch to? I would not switch.

Appreciate any insight

joe.pistell · Friday at 5:38 AM

carguyfiles said:
Yea I mostly agree with this. The future is going to be where ai experts level all the competition but the key will be also thoroughly understanding the problem statement in order to drive the value. 95% of businesses fail I think I heard somewhere. The same will probably also be true for ai companies and the gap will be subject matter expertise. If some kid dishes out some slop and claude tells him "great idea" it may sound good at face value, but will the market care? Probably not.

dude, read before you write.

PART 1:
You write: "but the key will be also thoroughly understanding the problem statement in order to drive the value. "

This is the foundation of what I said:

PART 2:
You write: "The future is going to be where ai experts level all the competition "

I disagree. "AI Experts" is sooo 2026.
The future is going to be where subject matter experts, will be finally free to tackle really big problems. They'll pump their knowledge & experiences into AI, and, they'll create stunning solutions that legacy systems can't see, can't produce, can't support and can't monetize.

joe.pistell · Thursday at 11:34 AM

I just watched the video, finally, a fresh new way to look at a personal vehicle that isn't two-thirds technology.

I see this as a spark to create a wonderful new wave of product innovation in our industry. This platform that is nearly infinitely customizable, and make it affordable will cause our sleeping, stuffy OEMs to realize that the Harley-Davidson model can work in automotive. Its much more than electric colored wraps, it allows the buyer to, through a modular system, customize the platform or not.

Buy the slate in March, get a work bonus later, and put on those running boards and the stereo. Get some extra cash saved up and plug in a remote start preconditioning unit. A well-designed platform will be plug and play.

This has home run written all over it, and it's a complete reset on the unaffordability of new cars.

Alex Snyder · Thursday at 8:49 AM

joe.pistell said:
Is Slate going to copy the Harley Davidson model and build a platform with the intent for users to spend big $$$ on customizing and accessorizing?

It looks that way, but far more reasonable pricing than Harley. I think their aim is affordability over chrome.

joe.pistell · Thursday at 8:15 AM

Is Slate going to copy the Harley Davidson model and build a platform with the intent for users to spend big $$$ on customizing and accessorizing?

joe.pistell · Thursday at 8:11 AM

jon.berna said:
lvlupauto.com is being cited by AI now on vendor related requests!

WIN!

jon.berna · Wednesday at 7:30 PM

Sent from an industry friend today - lvlupauto.com is being cited by AI now on vendor related requests!

Chris Apostalides · Wednesday at 4:54 PM

I built one for shits and giggles. With reasonable accessories, plus wall charger, you're at $31k. Add in a few more upgrades that "current pricing is unavailable" for and you're likely at $33-$34k.

That's for the blank slate model. The fastback starts at $32k.

Alex Snyder · Wednesday at 4:37 PM

Slate

Slate Auto | The Customizable EV That Works for You

www.slate.auto

If you haven't seen this $25,000 EV that you can customize into... nearly anything, then you should check it out. We have needed a cheap new pickup (remember the old Isuzu PuP - we used to sell them for $4,995 + $495 freight + a $199 processing fee) to have on our streets and it is an EV. What could better for local businesses?

Or be cool and make it look like a Bronco :bow:

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Alex Snyder · Wednesday at 8:33 AM

We have had the Vendor Deals section and it has been great to see the vendors placing their promotions there, and now they have a place to bring their newest updates or accolades to the forums: Vendor Announcements

Do you have a new product release?
Did you have a killer client success story that our community would find value in?
Are you hosting an event?
Did you hire someone from our community?

These are the kinds of things we'd love to see you talk about. I'm especially looking forward to product release updates and if you hired someone from the DealerRefresh crowd.

What not to do:

You hired someone we don't know... nobody cares, don't tell us.
Your client's success story has no practical story that shows another dealer how to succeed.
You integrated with some other company, but don't tell us the details of the integration.
Your company made an acquisition or you were acquired and don't give us the details of what that means to us.

Cardinal Rule: if you want to add good content, always fashion it in a way that your audience can get value from it.

You live deeply in your own world. Things are important to you that others do not understand nor care to try understanding it. When you want to tell the world something try saying it out loud and substitute another company name or person's name to see if you would care if you heard that. If the answer is yes (be careful with your bias), then it should be good content. If no, don't post it.

If you ever have a question about posting, @Jeff Kershner and I can help. Just direct message us.

Brad Burlingham · Tuesday at 7:58 PM

cressidi65 said:
How to can look at pmax campaigns by channel?

you need to go into google ads, then click on pmax and then choose channel performance under insights

Alex Snyder · Tuesday at 2:06 PM

Jeff Kershner said:
Pretty crazy to experience two such monumental shifts in an industry and LIFE.

The Internet (capital I) proved it wasn't a fad. I think we would be smart to embrace the technological changes and start considering that we may see 2 or 4 more of these in our lifetimes.

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