On AI

Why I'm optimistic about AI

I'm a bit of an AI fanatic. Here's how it has changed the way we work at Dealr, and what I think it means for dealerships.

A crazy time to be alive

Things that used to take months now take days. Science, medicine and just about every field outside ours are moving faster than I've ever seen. For a small software company like ours, the effect has been huge.

What changed in how we build

Dealr was originally built engineering-first, by one developer. AI has let us take a more product-minded approach. We're paying down years of tech debt. We're moving faster than we ever have, and we've never been able to ship more safely.

Once building software gets that fast, the hard part becomes a human one. We have to get it into dealers' hands, help them adopt it and make sure it actually makes their day better. That takes everyone at the company, well beyond our engineers.

It also means no single person can know everything anymore, including me. Dealr has grown beyond my original vision, and I find that really exciting.

Dealers can build software now

A dealer can build a working tool with AI now. I love that, because it's how I got started, and I think more dealers will do it.

So where does a company like ours fit? Very few people want to build their own general ledger, or handle compliance, security, privacy and infrastructure themselves. Those are the things you need to get right and would rather not think about. That's where we want to be: your system of record, the base camp everything else runs through.

If you want to build your own tools on top, go for it. If you'd rather not, dealr.cloud, our all-in-one dealership platform, covers every part of the dealership, from appraisals and inventory to CRM, deals with eSign, service and accounting, so you don't need anything else.

Why all-in-one still matters

I've never liked bolt-ons. A company buys another company, attaches the new product to the old one, and it never quite works, because the pieces were designed by different teams with different ideas. A true all-in-one dealer management system needs one architecture across every module, from leads and deals to service and accounting. That's harder to build, and it's the reason we've done it that way.

What dealers want is simple: one system that does everything their separate systems do, does it better and costs less. The first time I heard it put that way, it sounded like a lot to ask. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it's what everyone wants, and it's a fair thing to build toward.

Being the size we are helps. A big company would struggle to move this fast with all the bureaucracy and people involved.

Software answers, people care

I know “software answers, people care” sounds like a line, but I mean it. With good documentation and the right tools, AI can understand an entire platform in a way no single person can. Knowing everything was never the uniquely human part. People bring the relationship. They understand a dealer's business, connect the dots for them and help them get the most out of their tools, including AI.

I want our people talking to more customers and building better relationships, so every dealer feels taken care of. We're people serving dealers who serve their own customers, and that's a human connection all the way through.

How I think about it

I think about using AI as a progression:

1. Search engine. Asking it questions.
2. Problem solver. Working through something hard with it.
3. Solution creator. Having it build something with you.

A lot of people are still in the first stage, and it's worth pushing into the next one.

Where we're headed

I want to keep serving independent dealers, because that's where my heart is, and bring them technology they'd never get otherwise. We also serve franchise dealerships on the same platform today, and we want to push into every facet of the auto industry with solutions that actually fit how each business works.

Some of that is the work around the deal, not just the deal itself. In Colorado, Dealer Title Solutions handles electronic title and registration for dealerships, so titles take days instead of weeks. If you want the bigger picture of what we're building, dealr.com is the best place to start.

Underneath all of it is one goal. We want to solve the problems dealers have today, not the ones from 20 years ago, and make the car business a little more joyful for the people in it and their customers.

The pursuit of excellence doesn't need much justification. I'm lucky to work with people who want to keep getting better, and they make me better too. So instead of bracing for what AI brings, we're choosing to embrace it.