Can Curious Car Dealers Win with AI? Insights from AI Week
Discover how curious dealers are using AI to boost buying decisions and outpace technical rivals – essential reading for used‑car professionals.
Every 10 to 15 years a technology shift rewrites the way cars are bought and sold.
The internet and smartphones each triggered massive changes in consumer behaviour and gave rise to brand‑new business models. Motorway itself was founded when phone cameras became good enough for a seller to capture a driveway photo, create a detailed online profile and let a dealer purchase the vehicle remotely with confidence.
Why AI is the biggest shift for car dealers
Artificial intelligence is now the next disruptive wave, and many industry observers believe it could be even more transformative than the internet or smartphone revolutions. Earlier technology leaps altered the transaction process but still required specialised software engineers, large budgets and long development cycles to deliver useful applications.
AI dramatically lowers those barriers. The most exciting development in the used‑car market is not merely the AI tools built by companies like Motorway, but the home‑grown solutions that individual dealers are beginning to create for themselves.
What curious dealers are building with AI
One dealer demonstrated an AI‑driven assistant that aggregates daily auction data, internal sales history, preparation costs and third‑party retail pricing. Each morning the system produces a short list of the most attractive vehicles to bid on, the optimal price to offer and the reasoning behind each recommendation. The dealer behind the tool had no formal technical background – what they possessed was relentless curiosity, deep knowledge of their operation and a willingness to experiment with emerging tools.
Another example shows an AI agent monitoring a dealer’s email inbox. Stock notifications from multiple platforms and customer enquiries are consolidated into a live dashboard that highlights moving deals, items requiring attention and the status of every sale, all synchronised with the dealer management system (DMS). These applications are not technology for its own sake; they automate repetitive, data‑heavy tasks that directly influence a dealership’s profitability.
Across hundreds of UK dealerships similar AI‑enabled workflows are appearing. The most active experimenters are bidding more frequently, purchasing larger volumes of stock and narrowing the gap between the price they pay and the market value of the vehicles they acquire.
Gut instinct was data all along
When Motorway launched a decade ago, a common objection from long‑standing traders was: “I’ve been in the trade for 20 years – my gut tells me what to buy and what to pay.” That gut feeling is, in reality, a massive repository of experience and context built up from thousands of transactions, both successful and flawed.
AI does not replace that experience; it enhances it. Seasoned judgement defines the questions worth asking and the risks to guard against. AI is the first technology that lets almost anyone layer live data beneath that intuition and begin automating actions based on it.
How Motorway supports dealer‑led AI innovation
Motorway sees its role as an enabler of this shift. By making its extensive data set easy to access, the platform empowers dealers to develop more powerful, customised AI tools. Not every dealer needs to build a system from scratch – Motorway is also embedding AI directly into its own dealer experience.
AI already runs through Motorway’s core products, from damage‑detection models trained on the 1.5 million photos received each month, to services that transform handwritten service records into clean, structured data. These features accelerate workflows, improve clarity and give dealers greater confidence when purchasing stock.
Don’t wait for the perfect solution
AI tools are becoming increasingly capable and easier to access each month. Dealers who started experimenting when the technology was still clunky are now reaping tangible benefits. If you have not yet begun, waiting for a “perfect” system will only hand the advantage to competitors.
Identify a single, recurring pain point in your business and ask an AI tool to propose a solution this month. Expect some trial‑and‑error and occasional frustration, but each iteration will build confidence and ambition. The next five years are likely to be more disruptive than the past two decades, and the dealers who thrive will be the most curious, not necessarily the largest or most technically‑savvy.
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AI Week runs from 3‑7 August on the Car Dealer Magazine website. Daily features and special podcasts are available wherever you listen.