AI Shopping + Car Dealerships

[arnas]

Perplexity (over 15M MAU) just launched AI shopping, a major leap in AI-powered search and commerce.

It’s a clear signal for industries like automotive to rethink how they connect with customers.

Imagine users asking, “What’s the best electric car for my budget?” or snapping a photo of a car to instantly view buying options, pricing, and nearby dealerships.

How do you think the AI Search + Shopping will impact car dealerships? How are you getting ready?

 

[Alex Snyder]

Been using it this morning. It isn't so great for the kind of searches I'm doing "best price for JBA upper control arms on a GX460," but I may be asking too much too soon

However, it would behoove dealers to make sure their pricing discounts are easily crawlable by bots. If you have things hidden behind lead walls (understand some OEMs require that) or hoverovers (FTC doesn't like that) your site may be missed by people utilizing these tools. It only takes a handful of good deals found for people to begin using AI first and telling all their friends about the deal they got using it.

It starts with "find me the best snow shovel" or "I need a fun gift for my mother in law" and by the Spring, it turns into "which dealer has the best price on a Tacoma?"

 

[arnas]

Alex - Totally agree!

The version released yesterday seems like an MVP aimed to generate some early buzz and gathering user feedback, especially since competitors like ChatGPT and Claude don't have shopping integration YET. It’s a smart move to capture attention early and open doors for wrapper applications! The Perplexity team is great.

Building on your thoughts it got me thinking — how can car dealerships get ahead?

Right now, latency and data are required for mainstream AI models. With real-time search, dealerships must optimize their SRP filters and ensure their VDPs have clear, structured, and consumer-friendly data.

Otherwise:

• AI will skip dealerships with slow or poorly functioning SRP filters.
• VDPs with inadequate or poorly structured data will be bypassed entirely.
• ...

What a wild time to be alive!

 

[Eric Miltsch]

This reminds me of when I noticed mobile traffic was nearly 3% of our website traffic. Yes, a long time ago.

Every mention was immediately brushed off with, "So what?"

And, here we are again with AI's share of search creating a similar disruption.

Optimization for AI Overviews will be a significant priority for all types of search campaigns.

 

[Carsten]

This is going to be interesting.
Are consumers willing to trade a wide range of choices for per-selcted choices that are similar to google ads?

 

[Marri_Stokes]

This reminds me of when I noticed mobile traffic was nearly 3% of our website traffic. Yes, a long time ago.

Every mention was immediately brushed off with, "So what?"

And, here we are again with AI's share of search creating a similar disruption.

Optimization for AI Overviews will be a significant priority for all types of search campaigns.

View attachment 9242

Most website providers havent even begun to optimize dealership websites for this. I

 

[Eric Miltsch]

This is going to be interesting.
Are consumers willing to trade a wide range of choices for per-selcted choices that are similar to google ads?

Great question. It'll be a huge fight to see who can deliver the best answers and solve consumers' problems in new forms and styles.

 

[CarlAutofusion]

We've been tinkering with optimizing for AI such as ChatGPT. We've only glanced at Perplexity but we've been working with others for about the past year. I agree with many of you, that AI Engines will become a growing segment in traffic.

For dealers, there's a few places they can look at to ensure they show up for AI searches. I'd start with making more Q&A or FAQ style content and not just on your website but also on platforms like Facebook. Reviews also seem to be important as well. On the more technical side, look at your schema and make sure everything is filled in at a minimum. Schema is read by many of the engines.

Some Engines have specific mechanism so make sure you use those to your advantage. For example, Perplexity has their Pages feature. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say their engine probably reads through the content on Pages and adds it to their knowledge base.

 

[Eric Miltsch]

We've been tinkering with optimizing for AI such as ChatGPT. We've only glanced at Perplexity but we've been working with others for about the past year. I agree with many of you, that AI Engines will become a growing segment in traffic.

For dealers, there's a few places they can look at to ensure they show up for AI searches. I'd start with making more Q&A or FAQ style content and not just on your website but also on platforms like Facebook. Reviews also seem to be important as well. On the more technical side, look at your schema and make sure everything is filled in at a minimum. Schema is read by many of the engines.

Some Engines have specific mechanism so make sure you use those to your advantage. For example, Perplexity has their Pages feature. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say their engine probably reads through the content on Pages and adds it to their knowledge base.

Yes, each engine relies on accurate, current, and valuable content to show the best results possible.

AIOs show less than 5% of the time on mobile and 3.75% on desktop—& lower for the Autos & Vehicles categories.

Here are the stats for the past 30 days for mobile.

 

[zande299]

Perplexity (over 15M MAU) just launched AI shopping, a major leap in AI-powered search and commerce.

It’s a clear signal for industries like automotive to rethink how they connect with customers.

Imagine users asking, “What’s the best electric car for my budget?” or snapping a photo of a car to instantly view buying options, pricing, and nearby dealerships.

How do you think the AI Search + Shopping will impact car dealerships? How are you getting ready?

I think AI shopping could be a game-changer for dealerships. If customers can instantly find options, prices, and nearby locations, it might push dealerships to focus more on standing out with better service and deals.