AI and car sales, October 3. Vendors now charge AI agents for CRM access

Here is the news from around the world for the last day. It covers AI in sales and at dealers, the car market in the US and Europe, buyer behavior and new research. For each story I add my opinion.

An AI agent gets a $240,000 yearly estimate for CRM access#

Jason Lemkin runs SaaStr with 3 people and more than 20 AI agents. One agent makes 35,000 to 40,000 requests a day to the company's systems. Software vendors now charge money for this access. Lemkin names Salesforce, Atlassian, HubSpot. SaaStr estimates the bill at up to $240,000 a year.

The agent itself proposed a way out. It suggested copying the records into the company's own Postgres database for about $5 a month. Lemkin writes that these prices push customers to open-source tools.

My opinion. A dealer keeps its customer base in a DMS and a CRM from an outside vendor. A DMS is the dealer management system. Tomorrow the dealer puts an agent on the first reply, and the vendor sends a bill for each look at a customer card. The one who holds the customer record sets the price.

Before I buy an agent, I would ask the CRM vendor two questions. How much does agent access to our records cost? Can we export the records to our own database each day?

Source SaaStr

AutoNation creates a top job for AI#

AutoNation is a US dealer group. It named Ravi Simhambhatla as Chief Technology and AI Officer. Before this he worked at Avis Budget Group, Google Cloud and Tesla. CEO Mike Manley says technology and AI will help the company get more from what it already has. The article gives no plans and no numbers.

My opinion. The group put AI at the top level and did not leave it to marketing. This is the right address. Sales is engineering, and engineering needs an owner.

A small dealer cannot pay for an AI officer, but it needs the same role. I would name one person who answers for the agents and for the record of each contact.

Source Auto Remarketing

82% of dealers use AI, and 22% see sales growth#

Brad Parker, the CEO of DealNow, wrote a column for Auto Remarketing. By his numbers, 82% of dealers use AI in one form or another. 69% expected sales and revenue growth from it, and 22% saw that growth. This is a column by a company leader. It is not a study.

Parker compares buying used cars with baseball, where clubs hire separate analysts. He says a general manager with a chatbot does not replace a trained analyst.

My opinion. The gap between 69% and 22% does not show that AI is weak. Dealers bought a tool and did not change the process. AI will not replace the salesperson. It will show where nobody did the work.

I would not buy anything new until I have one number before and after. The share of leads that got a reply in five minutes, and the share of them that came to the showroom.

Source Auto Remarketing

One agent calls as much in an hour as 28 employees#

PayNearMe makes the payment platform PayXM. On October 1 the company showed an agent for account service and payment collection. The agent checks who the customer is and takes a payment. It also records a promise to pay or passes the customer to a human.

The company says that in one campaign the agent made the same number of calls in one hour as 28 employees. 90% of customers on the list got a message, a conversation or a transfer to a human.

My opinion. Calling a list is work that people have no time and no discipline for. An agent does it in an hour and does not get tired. A dealer has the same list in service and in sales. It has customers with a loan that ends soon, a missed service visit, an open request.

I would leave to the human only the people who answered and want to talk.

Source Auto Remarketing

23,000 offers without proof came off the websites of 21 dealers#

CarLocal.io prepares dealer websites for a buyer who asks an AI assistant and does not use a search engine. The company shared its numbers for September. It works with 21 dealerships and checked more than 49,000 pages. It corrected more than 11,000 advertising claims and removed 23,000 mentions of offers without proof.

Founder Chris Martinez says the path to a car now starts with a question, not with a search.

My opinion. 23,000 offers without proof at 21 dealers is more than a thousand per store. A person scrolled past them. An assistant reads everything and repeats it to the customer, or it does not show the store at all. "Almost the same" kills trust, and now a machine checks it.

I would start with a small step. One price and one set of terms on the website, in the ads and in the agent's reply.

Source Auto Remarketing

A dealer pays $500,000 for a fee that was not in the price#

Payless Used Car Sales in Alaska reached a settlement with the state attorney general. The dealer did not include the document fee in the advertised price. The fee was usually $499. More than 5,000 buyers were affected, and each one gets $100. The settlement is $500,000 and covers the time from November 2018.

The state accepted less than full repayment so the store stays open and people keep their jobs.

My opinion. One price online and another price in the store is a hole in the system. It is not a trick of one salesperson. Sooner or later the dealer pays for it. The customer sees an extra $499 and stops believing everything else.

I would compare the price in the ad, in the agent's reply and in the contract. If they differ, repair the process, not the script.

Source Auto Remarketing

Toyota hybrids close in on GM while gasoline costs $4.43#

GM sold 670,974 vehicles in the US in the third quarter, down 5.5%. Toyota sold 633,223, up 0.6%. The gap is now 37,751 vehicles. Hybrids and other electrified models gave Toyota 57.4% of its volume. GM's electric vehicle sales fell about 62%.

Regular gasoline cost $4.43 a gallon on average in September. A year ago it was $3.20. The average price of a new vehicle was $50,089 in August. Cox Automotive forecast that Hyundai Motor Group would sell more than Ford in a quarter for the first time.

My opinion. The buyer counts money and is not loyal to a brand. Gasoline costs over a third more, so people go where a hybrid is in stock. A salesperson who starts with trim levels misses this moment.

I would put one question into the first conversation. How far do you drive in a month, and what do you pay for fuel? The agent calculates the saving for each model before the call. The human talks with the customer about the decision.

Source CBT News

Buyers come to the showroom and ask for the AI assistant by name#

Jen Suzuki is the founder of ZukiTalk. She told CBT News how dealers adopt AI. At one dealership the AI voice assistant said the name of the store wrong. Nobody noticed, because nobody listened to the recorded calls.

Her second point is about customers. They get used to the assistant and ask for it by name in the showroom. The staff have no training on what to answer. Suzuki advises dealers to present the assistant as a team member and then pass the customer to a human.

Her product calls service customers and goes through the technician's inspection report with them. She says the customer approves the work in one minute. Before, it took 20 to 45 minutes.

My opinion. An agent without control is the same as a salesperson without control. The record exists, but nobody listens to it. If nobody reviews the record of each contact, you do not have a sales department.

I would name one person who listens to ten agent conversations each day. I would also decide in advance who meets a customer who came "to see the assistant". The agent brings the customer to the door. After that the human works.

Source CBT News

70% of buyers walked in, and the dealer knew nothing about them#

Peter Cooper is the president of Lexus of Lehigh Valley. He told CBT News about the record sales month of his store. About 70% of sales came from walk-in customers. A walk-in is a person who comes to the showroom with no appointment. The dealer had no record of digital contact with these people.

The customer often knows what they want, but the purchase still takes four or five hours. Cooper advises dealers to remove obstacles from the deal and not to copy Carvana. He says the same about AI. First decide how the process must change, then buy the tool.

My opinion. A customer with no digital record is still a prepared customer. This person chose the car online, but not on the dealer's website. The four hours in the showroom go to paperwork and waiting, not to the decision.

I would give this part to agents. The form, the trade-in valuation and the loan calculation are ready before the visit. The human keeps the test drive and the negotiation.

Source CBT News

Apple limits full disk access for AI agents#

Apple says it will tighten the Full Disk Access setting on macOS. This setting opens files, mail, messages and browser history to an app. Apple says a part of developers use this access in ways that put everything on the computer at risk. The risk grows as agents become more autonomous. Apple gave no details of the changes.

TechCrunch reminds readers of a recent case. An Inc. columnist reported that the Meta Muse app on the Mac read a user's private messages. Meta disputes this.

My opinion. The same happens at a dealership. A salesperson installs an AI assistant on a laptop and opens everything to it. That laptop holds customer passports, loan applications and private chats with customers.

An agent must work inside the company system, where each action is logged and can be undone. The salesperson's own laptop is the wrong place for it. Tomorrow I would ask the team which AI programs they use and what those programs can access.

Source TechCrunch

A Salesforce co-founder asks why anyone should log into the CRM#

At its Dreamforce conference Salesforce showed a set of ready agents. One agent works on the website and leads the visitor to a deal. Another one is a voice agent. Co-founder Parker Harris said on stage, "Why should I ever log into Salesforce again? Maybe you never will."

The example with numbers came from Adecco, a staffing company. Its voice agent works day and night and handles 2.6 million conversations a year. The company says its recruiters save 35 to 40% of their time. The article gives no prices.

My opinion. The CRM as a window where a salesperson types in each call is going away. That is right. Salespeople never liked this work, and that is why the customer cards are empty.

The agent must keep the record, by itself and for each contact. The human needs a ready summary before the conversation, not one more program. I would stop measuring how full the CRM is. I would measure the number of contacts recorded with no work from the salesperson.

Source CX Today

The "AI sales engineer" job now has listings and scholarships#

The company Clay introduced the term "GTM engineer" in 2023. GTM means go-to-market, the way a company sells. This person builds automated revenue processes and does not do sales tasks by hand. TechCrunch writes that about 100 job listings of this kind appear each month. In September Clay announced a $1 million fund to train these engineers.

My opinion. I call this AI Sales Engineering, and I build the same thing in the car business. Sales is engineering, not motivation. The software market has confirmed it with jobs and money.

A dealer needs this role as much as a software company does. I would look for this person inside the dealership. It is a strong sales manager or a salesperson who likes to break a process into steps.

Source TechCrunch

BMW promises AI-based sales in Europe from mid-2027#

BMW presented its roadmap. From mid-2027 a new AI-based retail sales model will start in the EU. The company says the model will adapt to the customer through the whole purchase, from the test drive to service. The article gives no details.

The same plan cuts the number of internal divisions and management roles by 20% by mid-2027. BMW deliveries fell 4.9% in the second quarter. In China they fell 30.2%.

My opinion. The carmaker wants to lead the customer itself, from the test drive to service. The one who holds the customer record owns the customer. A dealer with no record of each contact will be a handover point by 2027.

I would not wait for a program from the brand. I would put my own agent on the first answer now and build my own history for each customer.

Source WardsAuto

Research#

Buyers want self-driving, but with a steering wheel#

Cox Automotive published its study of autonomous vehicles on September 28. It is an online survey from May 2026. It covers 2,135 US consumers aged 12 to 64, plus 300 people from cities with robotaxis.

34% own a car with Level 2 or Level 3 driver assistance, up from 12% in 2016. 57% would buy a Level 3 car or higher if it were on sale. Level 5 means a car with no steering wheel and no pedals. It attracts 10% now and attracted 17% ten years ago. Among people who took a robotaxi ride, 83% say the ride improved their view of the technology.

My opinion. Experience changes minds faster than words. For a showroom this means a test drive with the assistant turned on, not a story about it. I would add five minutes on the highway with the assistant to each test drive and train each salesperson to do it.

A second thought. People want the machine to do the work and want to keep the decision. With agents in sales it is the same.

Source Cox Automotive, PDF

At 64 companies out of 109, an agent has already caused an incident#

VentureBeat Pulse ran a survey in August 2026 and published it on September 30. The sample is 137 respondents from companies with 100 or more employees.

68 companies already run agents in production. At 42 of them the agents share login credentials. 26 gave each agent its own identity. Among 109 companies with agents in production or in a pilot, 64 reported an incident or a near-miss in the past year. Only 12 of 137 isolate high-risk agents.

My opinion. An agent on a shared login is a salesperson without a name in the CRM. A message went to a customer, and nobody knows who sent it. Each agent needs its own account, its own rights and a log of actions.

I would ask the vendor one question. Under whose login does your agent write to our customers?

Source VentureBeat

The Detroit 3 fall to 36% of the US market#

Cox Automotive published its sales forecast on September 24. It uses the company's own statistics. The 2026 forecast went up from 15.8 million to 16.1 million new vehicles. Asian brands hold more than half of the market for a second quarter in a row. The share of the Detroit brands fell to a little over 36%, the lowest level on record.

Cox economist Charlie Chesbrough says the market stays strong because new-car buyers are richer. He told WardsAuto that families with income above $150,000 made 43% of this year's sales. In 2020 the share was 29%.

My opinion. Rich buyers hold this market, and such a customer values time more than a discount. This customer will not wait for a reply until morning. By our measurements at dealers in different countries, 40% of leads come outside working hours.

I would measure two things. The time from lead to reply, and the time a deal takes in the showroom.

Source Cox Automotive, PDF. The income numbers are from WardsAuto

Only 9% of dealers notice a problem car within 15 days#

Fabian Macken is the chief customer officer at Lotlinx. He shared the company's numbers in an Auto Remarketing column on September 29. The column does not give the sample or the method.

Only 9% of dealership leaders notice a problem car in the first 15 days. 34% need 31 to 45 days, and 14% see the problem on days 46 to 60. Only 14% see inventory as an asset that loses value each day.

My opinion. The author is right. Days on lot is a look in the rear-view mirror. The signal comes earlier. Few views, no leads, no test drive bookings.

An agent should collect these signals each day. The human decides what to change. The price, the photos or the listing site.

Source Auto Remarketing

Agents produce work faster than people can check it#

Capgemini published a column by Heiko Huettel and Ruslana Brull on September 28. It is about software development for cars. It is an expert text with no survey and no numbers.

The authors introduce the term "accountability bandwidth". It means the limited number of people who can review the work of agents and sign it. They say agents compress production and inflate review. Two agents on the same model do not count as two independent reviewers.

My opinion. The title of the column is "Agents build it, humans sign it", and it matches my principle. Agents do the work, and people say yes. A sales department has the same narrow point. An agent writes a hundred messages in an hour, and the sales manager reads ten.

I would decide in advance which actions the agent does alone and which actions wait for a human signature.

Source Capgemini

In short#

High fuel prices push down pickup prices at auctions. Black Book reports that wholesale values fell 0.71% in a week, and the auction conversion rate dropped to 57%. Full-size pickups under two years old lost 1.22%. For trade-in offers I would update the price each week, not once a month. Auto Remarketing

Used hybrids and electric cars got cheaper in a month. The Carfax index shows that used cars rose 0.2% on average, or $40. Hybrids and electric cars lost 0.8% because cars from ended leases came to the market. The buyer wants to save on fuel, and a used hybrid is now an honest answer. Auto Remarketing

One in four taxi cars has an open recall. John Possumato of DriveItAway cites a check of 437,583 taxi and rideshare vehicles in 16 US markets. 26.67% have an open recall, and in New York City the share is 39%. A recall is a ready reason to write to a customer, and an agent can go through the whole list in a day. Auto Remarketing

Gasoline in the US costs 43% more than a year ago. The Cox Automotive weekly summary of September 28 puts gasoline at $4.49 a gallon and diesel at about $6.53. The personal savings rate fell from 6.8% to 3%. The customer has less reserve, so I would send the monthly payment with fuel cost before the visit. Cox Automotive

Toyota has six models under $35,000. David Christ leads the Toyota Division in the US. He told WardsAuto that "affordability" is the main word for dealers, and the RAV4 had two days of supply at month end. If the main word is affordability, I would start the conversation with the monthly payment, not with trim levels. WardsAuto

The carmakers' charging network more than doubled in 2026. Ionna now has 180 sites in the US with 400 kW chargers. It took first place in the J.D. Power study of public charging, and Tesla Supercharger took fourth. Addresses on a map remove the fear of charging, so an electric car salesperson should know the stations near the customer's home. WardsAuto

Rivian recalls 14 R2 SUVs. A machine at the plant did not tighten the battery pack fasteners enough, and Rivian found the defect on September 17. The cars are already at Rivian service centers, and the repair is free. A fast recall of 14 cars costs less than silence, and the customer remembers it. TechCrunch

Future technicians learn on dealer service software. myKaarma gave its digital inspection software for free to the UTI training campus in Atlanta. Students learn to make an inspection, an estimate and a video for the customer. A technician who shows the customer a video of the car from day one also sells. Auto Remarketing

Meta opens its personal agent Muse to any device. The company released open-source firmware and a developer kit so people can build Muse into their own gadgets. Muse subscribers also get 5,000 free Muse Home Link devices. The buyer's personal agent moves from the phone into the home, and its request reaches the dealer at any hour. TechCrunch

Google made an agent for the whole family. In its September review Google says the CC agent from Google Labs now manages shared tasks and schedules for a group. Gemini also connected more than 12 outside services. A family chooses a car together, and soon a shared family agent will ask the dealer for terms. Google

An agent learned to improve itself for $150. MIT and Sakana AI showed the SIFT method, where a judge model selects the agent's changes before expensive tests. One run took under five hours and reached 35.1% accuracy against 30.7% for the earlier method. Agent testing gets cheaper, and the excuse "no time to check" will soon disappear. VentureBeat

Banks get advice to "know your agent". Capgemini writes that AI agents will soon choose and make company payments. A bank needs proof that the agent acts for the client, and the text has no numbers. A dealer will also need to know whose agent asks for an invoice and whether it has the right to pay. Capgemini

Tesla grows in the world and falls at home. It delivered 486,532 vehicles in the quarter, against 497,000 a year ago. Cox Automotive estimates that its US sales fell about 20%. The cost of ownership holds demand, not the brand name, and a salesperson must know how to calculate it. TechCrunch

A Chinese car is number one in Britain. The UK registered 350,518 new cars in September, up 12.1%. Electric cars took 28.3% of the market, and the Jaecoo 7 led with 10,813 cars. Buyers change a familiar brand for a new one easily, so the dealer who answers first wins. SMMT

Honda dealers have stock for 16 days. American Honda sold 392,341 vehicles in the quarter, up 9.3%. Hybrids made 53% of CR-V sales, and dealers hold 16 to 17 days of stock of key models. With stock this low, I would let an agent manage the waiting list and update each customer before they ask. CBT News

Ford dealers have pickups for 40 days. The company's target is 50 to 60 days, and F-150 production in Dearborn stopped on September 24 because of a supplier. Ford CEO Jim Farley says the problem is fixed. I would record each person who asked for an F-150 and left, and the agent would write to them on delivery day. CBT News

The US government promises $1,300 less per car. The fuel economy target for 2031 went down from 50.4 to 34.9 miles per gallon. A CBT News column cites the government estimate that the average car will cost $1,300 less. This is an estimate and not a price tag, so I would not promise a customer a discount that the showroom does not have. CBT News

Rivian grew 45% in a quarter. It delivered 19,248 vehicles, and the growth came from the new R2 model, which starts at $60,000. The forecast for 2026 is 65,000 to 70,000 vehicles. One model at the right price changes a quarter, so a salesperson must know the price of each new competitor. TechCrunch

A startup wants to rent out cars from the dealer's lot. MyMonthlyCar tests this with seven US dealerships. It takes 10% from the dealer and 10% from the customer. The idea is sound, because a car on the lot loses value each day, but I would calculate insurance and wear first. TechCrunch

A Mercedes service department cut repair time by a third. The service director of Benzel-Busch in New Jersey told WardsAuto that AI helps technicians write to customers and prepare warranty documents. He says the repair order time fell from 6.5 to 4.3 days. The article is from September 28. Again the gain is in routine work, and again one number can prove it. WardsAuto

Ford will certify used commercial vehicles. The Ford Pro Advantage program starts on October 6 at more than 700 centers. It covers vehicles that are 2 to 3 years old with 30,000 to 70,000 miles. A business customer needs a vehicle that does not stand in repair, so the warranty sells better than a discount. WardsAuto

Anthropic puts $100 million into deployment engineers. The company says it will train 10,000 engineers by the end of 2027 to deploy AI at client companies. The first participants include Accenture, McKinsey and Morgan Stanley. Everyone has the models, but few people can build them into a process, and dealers have the same shortage. Anthropic

Nobody opens a third of the software that companies buy. HubSpot cites a 2026 figure from Zylo in its software buying checklist. On average, 36% of SaaS licenses in a company are not used. Before I buy one more AI tool, I would list the programs my sales team opened in the last month. HubSpot

The Airbnb CEO does not believe in a chatbot as a shop window. Brian Chesky told TechCrunch that a chatbot is not the right interface for e-commerce. Airbnb launched AI-powered search this week. Car buyers also want to look at photos and prices, and the agent is there to answer at night and book the visit. TechCrunch

Hype of the day#

These are headlines without analysis. The most outlets write about them, or the source did not open.

• CNBC. Can Google's new model catch up to OpenAI and Anthropic at the frontier?, 41 outlets
• Bloomberg. Nvidia Hits First Record Since May as Value Nears $6 Trillion, 23 outlets
• Reuters. Apple says it will flag AI requests for Mac data after Meta's Muse draws complaints, 20 outlets
• Bloomberg. Ford Narrowly Avoids Falling Behind Hyundai as US Sales Drop, 19 outlets
• Automotive News. Tesla's Q3 EV sales top estimates as car business stabilizes, 18 outlets
• Automotive World. ICE cars fall below half of global sales mix for first time, 3 outlets
• PR Newswire. US vehicle sales unlikely to regain pre-pandemic levels this decade, Mobility Global forecast shows, 2 outlets
• Automotive News. AI is changing the way people shop for cars, but trust still gets the deal done, 1 outlet
• Automotive News. Ford posts 6.6% US sales decline in Q3 but leans on pickups, SUVs to fend off surging Hyundai-Kia, 1 outlet
• OpenAI. A model guide for the GPT-6 family, the source did not open
• Business Insider. Apple is adding new privacy safeguards for Mac users as AI agents get more powerful, 119 outlets
• WSJ. Three OpenAI Researchers Fired for Allegedly Sharing AI Safety Information, 14 outlets
• Forbes. Jensen Huang's Fortune Breaks $200 Billion As Nvidia Stock Reaches Record High, 14 outlets
• Reuters. GM hangs on to US sales crown, but Toyota closes in, 8 outlets
• Business Insider. Tesla sales smash Wall Street's expectations, 6 outlets
• Reuters. UK new car sales rise 12% in September as EVs and Chinese brands gain ground, 6 outlets
• CNBC. 'The hottest skill on Wall Street'. Demand for this AI ability jumped 1,721% as banks embrace agents, 3 outlets
• The Verge. OpenAI DevDay 2026, the biggest news and announcements, 3 outlets
• WSJ. American Car Buyers Rediscover Sedans, Small SUVs as Gas Prices Bite, 1 outlet