Change isn’t new to automotive retail. But the pace of it is.
Artificial intelligence, affordability, new competitors, and evolving customer expectations are forcing dealers to reconsider how work gets done and where the next opportunity lies.
At Amplify 2026, Jeff Swickard, founder and dealer principal of Swickard Auto Group, Howard Tenenbaum, dealer principal of Keyes Motors Inc., and John Keohane, vice president and partner of Temecula Valley Buick GMC, joined a panel moderated by Steve Greenfield, general partner with Automotive Ventures, for The Road Ahead: How Automotive Leaders Are Steering Change.
Their message was clear: The dealerships that successfully navigate change won’t chase every new idea. They’ll focus on what makes their people, processes, and technology better.
Here are four lessons from the conversation:
1. Adaptation is part of the business.
Dealers have heard predictions about the end of the traditional dealership model for decades. But Tenenbaum has spent nearly 50 years in automotive retail, and his advice is simple: Keep moving.
“You have to adopt and adapt,” he said. “From what I learned in 1979 when I first sold my first car to today, you’ve got to keep moving.”
Today’s pressures are real. Swickard pointed to vehicle affordability and growing competition for used vehicles, and Keohane discussed the challenge of keeping pace with technological and regulatory change as a single-point operator.
But disruption also creates opportunity.
Dealers don’t have to predict every change. They need an operation capable of responding to it. As modern car-ordering companies gained popularity and threatened the traditional franchise model, dealers offering a fully virtual car-buying process turned that challenge into an opportunity.
2. Technology gives people more time to be people.
The panel spent plenty of time discussing artificial intelligence. But the conversation wasn’t about replacing dealership employees.
It was about removing the work that gets in their way.
“If there’s something that our employees don’t enjoy, we want to automate it out of the process,” Swickard said.
His group has put that idea into action. At its centralized contact center, technology helped increase fully automated call flows from roughly 40 percent to 92 percent. Swickard Auto Group is also using AI to price most of its used vehicles and automate parts of the acquisition process, helping increase used vehicle volume by roughly 20 percent.
When technology handles repetitive work, it gives employees more time for the interactions where judgment, expertise, and hospitality matter most.
3. Better AI starts with better data.
As dealerships put AI to work, another priority becomes increasingly important: the information powering it.
Keohane discussed moving from broad customer messages to more personalized outreach based on each customer’s situation. Tenenbaum emphasized the need for accurate dealership data that teams can use to reach the right customers at the right time. And Swickard highlighted automated processes that depend on information flowing across dealership systems.
Each example points to the same reality: AI is only as useful as the data behind it.
That’s the thinking behind a unified data layer powering artificial intelligence solutions. By connecting data across an entire dealership ecosystem, a unified data layer gives those solutions a more complete and consistent view of the dealership.
Because AI without a unified data layer can get you to the wrong answer faster.
But better technology isn’t the end goal. It’s what technology enables people to do with better information that matters most. And as the conversation shifted from AI to the future of the dealership, one theme became clear: People remain at the center of it all.
4. Great experiences are a result of great people.
Keohane talked about identifying talented employees and giving them room to succeed. Tenenbaum emphasized culture, integrity, and trust. Swickard focused on creating genuine hospitality for customers and employees.
Technology can make each of those things easier to deliver consistently. But it doesn’t replace them.
As Swickard put it, “The only thing that makes other people happy is people.”
The road ahead will bring more change, so the advantage will belong to dealerships that adapt, using better technology and connected data to help their people do what they do best.
If you’re interested in hearing more of the conversation, you can watch the full keynote session,
The Road Ahead: How Automotive Leaders Are Steering Change, at
reyrey.com/amplify.
