Kyle Pisani, a partner in Drive Point Auto Group, is a believer in artificial intelligence.
“We use it in every aspect of the business,” he told WardsAuto in a Zoom call. But while it has created efficiencies and even boosted profitability, AI doesn’t yet meet all of a dealership’s needs, he cautioned.
Drive Point Auto Group has seven rooftops, all in Ohio, representing nine brands including Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Chevrolet and GMC. The group “really dove in” to using AI in April of 2025, Pisani said.
Some areas where Pisani sees AI making a real difference include:
- Leveraging data to maximize sales. Drive Point has AI produce sales reports that include a dealership’s sales history, incentives and inventory levels, all on one large sheet. Those reports go out to general managers and help sales teams find opportunities based on inventory levels and incentives.
- Gaining insights into dealership operations. For example, AI discovered Drive Point Auto was taking payment on repair orders before they were closed. That is “a question I wouldn’t ask,” Pisani said. He would never have caught the practice without AI, he said.
- Evaluating management calls for training purposes. “We record every one of the performance management calls to help coach and teach and train,” Pisani said.
- Pulling Key Performance Indicators from multiple sources. Drive Point uses AI to pull KPIs from its Dealer Management System, Customer Relations Management and Digital Retailing Solution platforms in areas that drive profitability and customer experience to help make operational decisions. The AI tools suggest new ways of thinking, he said. “Before, would we have looked at all those scenarios? Probably not,” Pisani said.
Pisani also is piloting Vinessa, Cox Automotive's customer communications virtual assistant AI, which he describes as a "massive distance" from similar products.
While Pisani is a big AI fan, he sees a problem in the customer experience transitioning from AI to human. That gap is “extremely painful,” Pisani said. “I would rather see AI handle the whole thing or a human handle the whole thing.”
One solution would be an AI tool that had vision into all touchpoints a dealer has with a customer, he said. Full Path, an AI-powered integrated customer data platform and marketing automation company that Cox Automotive launched on June 1 fits that bill, Pisani said.
He has begun using Full Path. It is “huge” in helping a dealer navigate the “maze” of data, he said.
On the aftersales side, Pisani is using Drive Solutions, which identifies missed finance and insurance sales opportunities and contacts customers to offer those products, handling the entire transaction. It has produced up to $80,000 in missed net profit monthly, including all his stores, Pisani said in a phone call.
Become more “dealer-esque”
While he considers AI “100% the direction the world is headed,” Pisani cautioned that dealers should ask any AI vendor many questions before using an AI product, given the investment required for most.
As for AI vendors, they must be upfront about an AI product’s capabilities. “As dealers, we aren’t technology people and we get a lot of information from vendors,” Pisani said. “There is a responsibility for them to be honest with us.”
He has had “plenty” of vendors promise things “that would never be executed,” Pisani said.
AI companies need to become more “dealer-esque” in understanding the many car shopping and buying steps, Pisani said. For example, if a vehicle is not available, what else might meet the customer’s needs? AI should understand things such as what are the key features a customer considers important on a vehicle, he said.
As AI use in the retail automotive space expands, the way it is shaped is ultimately in the dealers’ hands, Pisani said. The power in the relationship has “flipped,” he said. AI needs to adapt to what dealers need rather than expect dealers to adapt to an AI product, he said.
Between “what the customer desires and where we are today, I mean, there’s some distance,” Pisani said.
