Greg Uland on Making AI Work for Dealerships

Greg Uland, Vice President of Marketing at Reynolds and Reynolds, explains how dealerships can approach AI adoption strategically by starting with business problems rather than technology for its own sake.

On the latest episode of Inside Automotive, Uland discusses why unified dealership data is essential for AI to deliver reliable results and how disconnected systems can create more problems than they solve. He also breaks down the difference between generative AI, which assists employees with individual tasks, and agentic AI, which can take action across workflows and systems.

Key discussion points include:

• Problem-first AI adoption and identifying where technology can create measurable value
• Unified data as the foundation for effective AI implementation
• Generative vs. agentic AI and how their roles differ in dealership operations
• Human behavior and workflow changes needed to realize AI’s full potential
• Rapid software development and how dealer feedback is accelerating AI innovation
• Operational efficiency amid rising labor costs and increasingly complex dealership processes

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Transcript

Welcome And The AI Question

Announcer 0:07

Welcome to Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick.

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:11

AI is everywhere right now, but for dealers, the question isn't whether to use it, it's where it can actually make a difference. Joining us now is Greg Ulin, Vice President of Marketing at Reynolds and Reynolds to talk about how dealerships can cut through the hype and put AI to work today. Welcome into the show, Greg. So good to see you again. It's great to see you, Jim. It's been a couple months, but uh excited to chat. Yep, absolutely.

Start With A Real Dealership Problem

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:36

So so when it comes to AI, Greg, where should dealerships be focusing right now?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Uh well, Jim, you know, I'm pretty lucky. I get to talk with uh a decent amount of dealers in my role. And uh the ones that have been implementing artificial intelligence and tools associated with it, effectively for for them, it seems like it always starts with a problem, right? Something they're trying to solve. They aren't just turning on a new tool because it's it's neat technology, right? They have a problem they're trying to solve. And that that's the starting point. And when you think about our industry, we have plenty of plenty of problems to solve, right? When you think macro, um, we're we're in a pretty flat growth industry right now. Yep. Uh labor costs continue to go up. I was talking with a dealer a couple weeks ago. He said that his labor costs have gone up 40% over the last four years, and his output's effectively flat. And when you you know you look at that chart, it's that's a big problem that we need to solve. Um and just the complexity of the day-to-day operations become more and more uh intense. So there's there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle out there that that we're trying to solve. Uh, but when you can identify that that problem, that's when dealers, at least what I've seen, are are seeing the

Data Silos And Unified Data Layer

SPEAKER_01 1:46

most success. You know, one of the other one of the other things that that is important when I talk with dealers that they're telling me is you know, it's the AI alone, like the tool itself, isn't what's gonna drive necessarily the results or the value, right? It's it's how much uh information it has access to and how that information is structured. So when it's siloed, it can create problems, but when it has access to all the information across the dealership and can pull it together, that's when they're seeing real business value.

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:13

Yeah, and dealers are seeing real value from implementing AI today, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, but it's important to keep in mind it's not just the technology, it's the utilization too. So you can't just flip something on and expect it to go change the world. Um, you know, you need to have this holistic view and understand that you have to use the tools, and then by doing that, you're able to really change how you operate. It's it's not just uh doing the same things faster, but changing the the workflows, changing how decisions are made. Uh there's a lot of pieces to it, and that's when the technology can succeed, is when when behavior changes and how we look at things changes.

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:53

Sure. Are implementing these different systems and tools actually helping to simplify operations, or are they creating more complexity for dealers?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

It's a great question. I mean, for years you think about the software world, and and we've always had uh plenty of tools to use, right, for a long time. And I think Jim, we may have talked about it before, but when you have these different tools, they typically have different data sets and they're not always connected. So you have a bunch of different people who need to move information from place to place to place, or if they're not moving it, they at least need to verify that it's not duplicated and it's it's accurate and nothing's missing. Um when that happens, it slows down workflows and it slows down our people, right? But in an AI world, um, you know, when you have that scenario, the AI is not gonna slow down. It's it's gonna go fast and it can do the wrong thing fast. So that that idea of not having more complexity is an important one. Um, and it's why having a unified data layer behind all of your AI tools is so important, and really having that complete and trusted data set uh is what's gonna make what's gonna make the difference. Yeah, sure. Um, and another important point, Jim, I just want to bring up uh as we see, I mean, we've seen innovation at a breakneck pace here when it comes to artificial intelligence tools, and the more and more sophisticated they become, the more and more work they're able to actually go do. I think how these tools are being built is really gonna determine their usefulness and the successfulness of uh their implementation in the store. You know, a chatbot that's running an army of different agents uh across the dealership, and they're all trained to do one thing, is gonna be far less useful than a single agent with access to the entire unified data layer. Um, and that single agent, I think, is much harder to build. Uh, it takes a little more time, but we're already seeing the differences in kind of what's possible. And that that gap's only gonna grow every single day. Sure, sure.

Generative Versus Agentic AI Waves

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:45

So let's take a quick look at where AI in our industry is currently and where it is headed.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah, it's gonna be a fun, fun ride. We'll see how uh how big the waves are. You know, I think there's a couple. The first one is sort of a generative AI wave. Um most are probably somewhat familiar with it. Uh, you know, I think about crafting an email for you or taking notes and summarizing a meeting. Um the second wave is is agentic, um, and which is when the the tool is starting to go and do do work for you, and that one's starting to gain a little traction. And you can kind of think about a nice mental framing is that generative AI is kind of like an intern, right? You you kind of tell it what to do, and it can go write things, summarize things, maybe predict some things, and it'll certainly automate activities, but you're still ultimately doing the work. Um, the next wave that agentic AI is really gonna help orchestrate the entire workflow. It's gonna take action across the system, uh, gonna help you make better decisions and do that faster. So the the conversation is really, you're starting to see it, especially at least I do when talking with dealers, it's really shifting from AI that assists in doing things to AI that really participates on a daily basis.

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:57

Yeah, yeah.

AI Impact Across Fixed And Variable

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:58

There's not an area of the dealership operation that won't be impacted by AI, right? Whether it be fixed ops, variable ops, whatever. It's it's gonna play a role, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, it absolutely will. And and again, it goes back to define that problem, right? And no matter what part of the dealership you're in, don't just implement a tool, but understand what you're trying to solve for. And it doesn't have to be a specific workflow, it can be um I need to find figure out how to maximize my throughput in the shop, or fill in the blank. It can be that type of high-level problem, but you have to have that problem to focus on, and you're gonna be able to leverage these next level tools uh to have a big impact for you. Yeah, that's right, that's right.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:36

And the more you use it, the more it gets to know you, the more you count on it, right? The more you depend on it.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, no, absolutely, and and uh I think that's similar to technology and software that we've seen over the last handful of decades, but the difference is how much we can really lean in uh and how much the the tools that we have available to us can can help us accomplish and frankly are gonna be able to do for us.

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:02

Yeah, it really is uh astounding as to uh how far it's come in just a relatively short period of time. I mean, we started taught I mean obviously AI has been around for a little while, but but really at the level that it's at right now, you can imagine where we're gonna be in just three to five years from now, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yeah, and and honestly, Jim,

Faster Development Cycles Change Everything

SPEAKER_01 7:22

we've stopped measuring time in years, and we've started measured when it comes to development, that we used to have these development cycles, as everybody did, where yeah, you would measure in kind of years or uh at a minimum months. Yeah. Um but you know, I'm starting to see our development team being able to work in you know days and in some cases hours to turn things around. And it's pretty impressive um what's possible in today's world and the way things are being built. And uh, you know, it to be fair, we've we've our teams put in a lot of work to make it easier to make updates, but um, it's been really fun to watch uh how customers have helped us grow and can help us grow because of that work that's been put in and how how quickly things are be able to be iterated and developed.

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:03

That's right,

NADA Plans And Closing Thoughts

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:04

that's right. We just got talking before we we started recording today. Uh NADA is around the corner. Um it's gonna be here before we know it, right? You're and you guys are making a pretty big splash this year.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Feels like it's always around the corner, I think. But uh, we're we're looking forward to it as we always are, definitely planning for that. Um, but uh you know we we kind of split our calendar uh with with NADA and our own conference Amplify, Amplify's in California this year, uh just north of San Diego and Carlsbad. Yeah. Um so extremely uh extremely proud of both and excited for both. So uh looking forward as always to uh getting the chat with with more of our customers, and then we'll see a lot of a lot of folks obviously that are looking at us um as as a new partner as well. That's right, that's right.

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:45

Greg Ulan, Vice President of Marketing for Reynolds and Reynolds, thank you so much for stopping by CBT News. Always great catching up with you. And uh I'll I'll go back now to the our our office and start talking about NADA and prepping for that.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Jim, always a pleasure. Uh thanks so much for having me with my channel.

Announcer 9:03

Absolutely. Take care. Thanks for watching Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick.