Over the past few decades, technology has fundamentally changed the way dealerships operate. Today, every dealership has access to more data, uses more applications, and has more ways to communicate with customers.
But more technology doesn’t automatically make the work easier.
During the
Reynolds Innovation Roadmap at Amplify 2026, Reynolds leaders looked across sales, fixed operations, and artificial intelligence to show how technology can remove friction from the work dealership employees already do.
The solutions addressed different parts of the dealership, but they shared one idea: The best technology doesn’t add another step. It removes one.
One Customer, One Truth
Consider a customer who browses inventory, explores payments, and starts building a deal online before walking into the dealership the next morning. The dealership has plenty of information about that customer. The problem is that it may be spread across several systems.
The DMS knows the customer bought a vehicle six years ago. The CRM knows the dealership sent an email six weeks ago. Another system knows the customer was shopping online last night. Each system holds part of the story, but none has the complete picture.
“That’s not a customer problem, and it’s not just a technology problem either. It’s a data problem,” said Greg Uland, vice president of marketing at Reynolds and Reynolds. “And more specifically, it’s a data activation problem.”
That’s the direction Reynolds is taking with Curator and FOCUS.
Curator brings dealership data together into a unified customer profile, connecting marketing engagement, website activity, previous transactions, and current shopping behavior.
FOCUS brings that context directly into the CRM workflow.
Instead of asking customers to start over when they move from online shopping to the showroom, salespeople can pick up where they left off. That same context follows the customer story through the dealership, giving managers the information they need without reconstructing the story from several sources.
By connecting information behind the scenes, the technology can make customer interactions feel simpler. As Uland put it: “It’s not about giving your team more software to manage; it’s about giving them their time back.”
Put the Workflow Where the Work Happens
That same idea looks different in fixed operations. Service advisors work in the drive. Technicians work around vehicles and throughout the bay. Parts drivers spend their days on the road. Yet the systems supporting those jobs pull employees back to a workstation.
Reynolds Flex is designed to bring the workflow to them instead. With Service Flex Advisor, advisors can access appointment information, update details, document vehicle condition, and review scheduled work from the drive. Service Flex Technician lets technicians complete multi-point inspections and add recommendations while remaining with the vehicle.
And Parts Flex Logistics gives wholesale parts teams a connected digital process for routing, tracking, proof of delivery, signatures, and more.
Different roles and workflows, but with the same goal of Eliminating unnecessary steps.
“So what does meeting customers where they are look like in fixed ops?” said Brent McDorman, director of fixed ops product management at Reynolds and Reynolds. “It means being flexible, being able to do business anywhere and everywhere, at your desk, in the bay, in the drive, even at the customer’s home.”
Mobility isn’t just about putting dealership software on a smaller screen. It’s about removing the back-and-forth, waiting, and interruptions that take employees away from productive work and customer interactions.
From Getting an Answer to Taking Action
Artificial intelligence takes that idea one step further.
The first wave of generative AI showed how quickly technology could summarize information, generate content, and answer questions. Reynolds has applied those capabilities across the dealership with a number of useful AI solutions.
The next wave builds on those generative capabilities by helping employees understand what deserves their attention and what to do next. Rey is Reynolds’ AI assistant built on Spark AI, the unified data layer powering Reynolds AI solutions. Spark AI connects data across the Reynolds ecosystem into a single trusted source, giving Rey the dealership context it needs to provide more relevant answers and insights.
That foundation matters because speed alone doesn’t drive better decisions. AI without a unified data layer can get a dealership to the wrong answer faster.
With Spark AI behind it, Rey can work from a more complete operational view. A salesperson can ask for comparable inventory within a customer’s price range. A sales manager can identify the metric that deserves attention before month-end. Employees can even get product help without leaving their workflow.
“Rey is not just a chatbot,” said AJ McGowan, vice president of research and development at Reynolds and Reynolds. “It’s a built-in assistant that has been integrated very deeply inside of the entire Reynolds ecosystem.”
Instead of simply answering questions, Rey can help teams understand what matters and identify the next action.
Make the Complex Simple
Across each stop on the Innovation Roadmap, Reynolds showed a different part of the dealership. But the destination was the same: Connect the customer story so employees don’t have to reconstruct it. Bring the workflow to employees instead of pulling them back to a workstation. Build AI on unified dealership data so teams can move from information to action.
The technology behind those experiences may be increasingly sophisticated. But the employee and customer experience should be increasingly simple.
Dealership teams don’t need more technology competing for their attention. They need technology that connects the information, simplifies the work, and gives them more time for what matters most: the customer in front of them.
To watch the full Reynolds Innovation Roadmap presentations from Amplify 2026, visit our
Amplify On Demand page.
