AI = Awesome Intelligence

[Dan_PrintSent]

My brother and I both work in IT. He works at a large dealership that uses DealerTrack.

Certain departments had to physically print docs just to scan them back in and email them. DealerTrack (and possibiy other older apps that “require Lexmark printers”) forces a physical print job to get the right logos and forms on things like statements of account and tech cards. It’s simply due to the application was built back when the norm was send logos/forms to Lexmark printers cache, then for all future prints just send the text and a code for the form, the actual printer adds that during the print.

We already knew how to program from earlier jobs, but both are in more of an IT leadership role now. With Claude AI we built something that captures any of those print jobs out of the DMS and turns them into a PDF instead of sending them to a printer.

Several departments use it every day now. After about 10 years of print → scan → PDF because of a simple software limitation, they now get the PDF instantly because AI makes coding 100x faster.

Would have taken years without AI.

 

[joe.pistell]

DealerTrack (and possibiy other older apps that “require Lexmark printers”) forces a physical print job to get the right logos and forms on things like statements of account and tech cards.

Here it comes ppl.

From inside the stores, AI will power waves of disruption. Every software system you use, created by giant companies, will have new competition coming from little places, popping up everywhere.

AI is to Legacy Software
as
Craft Beer is to Budwiser.

An unstoppable wave of innovation that Budwiser could not copy.

 

[carguyfiles]

The craft beer line is right about the build. I think it understates what happens after.
I build the software a set of stores use to push their used inventory to Facebook Marketplace. 196 rooftops, 316 feeds, about 74,000 vehicles kept in sync, 17,778 posts in the last 90 days. Writing that took a fraction of the time it would have taken three years ago, so Joe is not wrong.
What AI did not change is that almost every surface we touch belongs to someone else. Facebook moves one field in the listing form and posting stops that hour. A website platform ships a redesign on a Tuesday and a batch of stores quietly stops syncing until we catch it. Dan's print capture is durable partly because a Lexmark job stream from 2004 is the most stable thing in that building. Most integrations are not that.
So the thing that separates the small shops is not build speed. It is how fast they absorb breakage. If you are a dealer buying from one of us, the useful question is not what it does in the demo. It is what broke last quarter, how you found out, and how long you were down.
Full disclosure, I build software in this space, so weigh accordingly.

 

[joe.pistell]

The craft beer line is right about the build. I think it understates what happens after.

Ahhhh... you've uncovered the 'magic variable' in AI, the POV (Point of View) of the user.

Joe, you went into the intricacy of the building blocks and the technical connectors, the architecture of the system, the surfaces, etc. I was seeing an executive's view of disruption coming to a legacy enterprise, where employees create new products, new solutions, new ideas that the enterprise legacy system can't se -or- create on its own.

@Alex Snyder recruited me to come to Burlington Vermont, back in the day when craft beer was a baby. I saw firsthand how brewmasters would peel off and start their own company, creating craft beer that nobody else could make.

In 2026, the luckiest dealerships will have the resident nerd, the brainiac, finally having the resources, the tools through AI, to see problems and fix them on the fly, fast. The framework is the same: you have a master system, and then an employee inside the master system sees problems and can't get it fixed until AI shows up. Then, voila, a fix is made, a solution is created, and a new product is born.

For 2 decades, Dealer Refresh has a magnet for the smartest and brightest people in the dealership world. Look at our roster of amazing minds.

If you're new to DR and you want to know if this is the right place, Read this statement:

"Why isn't there a fucking API?"

If circa 2005 architecture makes your blood boil, then welcome aboard! A tidal wave of disruption is about to playout in real time, and DR will be the best seat to watch it play out in real time.

-Uncle Joe