Unlock your dealership’s potential: move beyond AI tasks

Jack Clark, one of the co-founders of Anthropic, the business behind Claude AI, gave the analogy that AI is like the introduction of electricity. Some businesses that were steam-powered put light bulbs in their businesses to make it easier for their workers to see what they were doing. But the businesses that fully grasped the implications of electricity created their businesses to fully run on electricity and accelerated away more strongly.

It was 10 months ago that I asked, “How do you use AI in your dealership today?”In my dealer visits since then, the answer is that most dealers use AI occasionally for tasks, without structure.

There is a critical inflection point for dealerships right now. You have a powerful tool and yet you are uncertain how to best implement it. For example, ad hoc tasks done in an ad hoc way will result in duplicated effort and inconsistent output, little shared learning, data and privacy risks, as well as missed opportunities. The result is little measurable business improvement and plenty of risk.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

So, the question changes from “Should we use AI?” to “What outcomes should AI help us deliver?” This requires a shift from task-based thinking to outcomes-based thinking. This pathway has stepping stones; it is not one leap, and so each stepping stone might have its own set of goals—a shift in thinking and execution as your team builds confidence and capability. It’s a big internal shift to move from task or project-based AI use to strategic AI use, complete with all that that entails.

There is no doubt that AI for your dealership is a powerful tool. If you are yet to set out an AI policy for your business, perhaps right now is the time to do this; create a Dealership AI Operating Model. Determine who should have paid for AI subscriptions and draft some guardrails around privacy and what information can be shared and must not be shared (you don’t want customer information in the AI learning cloud). Determine where prompts, SOPs, templates, and outputs should be stored. Who will review customer-facing output, and how do departments share learning?

At its best, your AI policy should be about teamwork. This is a powerful collaborative tool; if used right, there is little point in team members working in isolation and duplicating effort. We must avoid one team member seeking a solution to their issue without considering which other team members could also benefit. As I say when I run workshops with cross-functional teams, the answer is not a new process created in isolation; it is a solution created in collaboration that will yield the greatest results. This is true of AI implementation.

But how do you prioritize where to start? Consider this; if you had a budget of 100 tasks per month for your business, what would be the 100 tasks that you would ask your AI tool to do?

If you pulled five department managers together and you gave them, say 20 tasks per department, what would they work on? If you said ten of those tasks would be things that were most critical to you as a Dealer Principal, what would you focus on?

A number of AI tools use token-based pricing; the more complex the task or the deeper the thinking, the faster you spend your tokens. In other words, not all tasks are equal. Ensure you don’t squander tokens on low-level tasks.

Your AI is a highly intelligent new graduate, with no work experience, who really doesn't understand your business (but is also prepared to work 24/7).

What are you doing to train that new grad, and how will you know that they've been focused on the right tasks? Consider for a moment that your new grad is a shared resource. How do you make sure that their learnings for one department are shared with another? How do you help them understand your business and what your business priorities are? Who's checking their output before it is deployed to customers?

If you've got the best-qualified and brightest graduate, or even a handful of them, working in your business, you had better make sure that your graduate training program is good. At the end of the first three, six, or even 12 months, you want to be able to have something to show for their efforts. This graduate trainee program is your Dealership AI Operating Model. Oh, and AI can help you draft one. It’s time to shed some better light on your business, rather than just on the work tasks.

Here are 6 actionable next steps for your dealership to help you on your AI journey.

1. Create a simple AI policy

   Define approved tools, privacy rules, customer-data boundaries, and review requirements for customer-facing work.

   
   

2. Nominate a cross-functional AI working group

   Include sales, service, parts, admin, finance, and leadership—not just the most tech-confident staff.

   
   

3. Run the 100-task test

   Ask each department to identify the 10-20 AI tasks that would save time, reduce errors, improve customer experience, or support profitability.

   
   

4. Capture knowledge from key staff

   Interview experienced team members to capture their know-how—some of your longest-serving staff will have amazing insights into how the business works, but they're also likely to be less tech-savvy. When they eventually leave your business, that knowledge walks out the door. Use Copilot, Teams transcription, Wispr Flow or similar tools to interview them and then turn their know-how into SOPs.

   
   

5. Build a shared prompt and SOP library

   Store useful prompts, markdown files, templates, and completed examples where the whole team can reuse and improve them.

   
   

6. Set review standards

   Decide who checks AI-generated work, especially emails, customer communication, compliance material, and anything using business-sensitive information.

©2026 Boost Auto.

www.boostauto.co.nz/read-blog

Boost Auto is a New Zealand automotive consultancy based in Auckland. Founded by Anthony MacLean, a senior automotive executive with over 30 years of experience across the UK and New Zealand, Boost Auto works with car dealers, vehicle distributors, and OEM brands on sales performance, dealer network development, sales training, workflow automation, and market entry strategy. Boost Auto has supported brands including Ford, MG, JAC, and Turners and works with dealer groups including Colonial Motor Company, Ebbett, Andrew Simms, and Tristram.

You can contact us at anthony@boostauto.co.nz