The presence of artificial intelligence is growing in every industry, and automotive retail is no exception. While predictions about how AI will transform dealership operations are everywhere, one question remains: What are dealerships thinking about AI today?
To answer that, over 500 dealership employees were surveyed between October and December 2025 to get a real sense of the current
state of AI in automotive retail.
How are dealers using AI today?
AI is already impacting daily operations for many dealerships across the country. While not everyone is using it yet, several core use cases are emerging and setting industry standards.
Dealerships are using AI for tasks like sending customer communications, scheduling, reporting, and more. And employees are seeing firsthand how AI can enhance their daily workflows. By reducing the burden of repetitive tasks, AI is giving them time back to focus on what matters most: serving customers and driving results.
Who is using AI?
Currently, over half of dealership personnel use AI at their jobs. The biggest group of users is the fixed ops department and executives/dealer principals.
“You see AI everywhere; everyone is moving towards it. To keep up with technology, I think everyone should be able to use AI to be more productive.” — Survey respondent
And it’s not just impacting operations within the dealership. Customer sentiment towards AI is also influencing adoption. A majority of respondents feel their customers would prefer to use AI for certain interactions. So even if your employees aren’t using AI yet, your customers likely are and want to be when engaging with your business.
What are the benefits?
Dealerships that have implemented AI are seeing improvements in areas such as overall efficiency, automation, and better data utilization.
With AI, several essential but time-consuming tasks are handled automatically. AI-driven automation allows your team to focus on higher-value work, while near-instant task execution helps shrink backlogs and speed up workflows. Combined with improved access to data and faster, more actionable insights, AI enables your team to work smarter, not harder, and reinvest time back into meaningful customer interactions.
What’s next for the industry?
For dealerships that haven’t yet explored AI, now is the time. AI is already delivering measurable value, and its role will only continue to grow.
“AI is here to stay and will only branch and run deeper and deeper in our business and economy.” — Survey respondent
How dealers implement AI will play a key role in their success. It can be tempting to plug and play with a variety of AI tools, but true improvement and productivity gains will only come from AI that is backed by a
unified data layer. Spark AI, the industry’s only unified data layer, ensures all AI tools have access to complete and accurate data. When you don’t have to worry about duplicate, inaccurate, or missing information, AI offers actionable insights that drive efficiency gains and streamline dealership operations, taking productivity beyond what was ever possible before.
