AI and car sales, October 4. Only 7% of companies name an owner for AI agents

This is the Sunday issue, and it has more Europe than usual. It covers control over AI agents, the plans of Renault and Stellantis, the battery dispute and what a car knows about its owner. For each story I add my opinion.

Companies doubled their AI agents, and 7% name a person who answers for them#

Gravitee sells a platform that manages AI agents. The company surveyed 750 executives and technical leaders in the US and the UK. It ran the survey twice, in December 2025 and in April 2026. The TechCrunch article is sponsored content, and the numbers belong to Gravitee.

In four months the typical number of agents in a company grew from 26–50 to 76–100. The share of agents that somebody monitors almost did not change. It was 47%, and it is about 52% now.

Confidence in control grew from 82.6% to 91.8%. 54% of companies reported a security incident or suspected one. 7.2% can name the person who answers for what an agent does.

My opinion. An agent without an owner is a salesperson without a manager. It writes to customers in the name of the dealership, and nobody reads what it wrote. Confidence grows, and control stays in the same place. This is a team where the report looks better than the work.

I would write one name next to each agent. This person reads the agent's messages each day and can stop the agent. No record of each contact means no sales department, and this rule applies to agents first.

Source TechCrunch, full report on the Gravitee website

A SaaStr agent built its own meeting booking tool in 20 minutes#

Jason Lemkin of SaaStr wrote about his agent named 10K. The agent runs on Replit and connects to Salesforce and 30 other systems. The agent itself proposed to replace Calendly in sponsor sales. It built the replacement in about 20 minutes.

The new booking page shows each customer a personal offer. It has the name of the customer's company, its competitors and a package that AI recommends. The page sends the request to the employee who already works with similar customers. Lemkin writes that SaaStr buys ready software by default. The team builds its own tool only where it needs its own customer record, which no vendor has.

My opinion. A dealer has one test drive booking form for everybody. Name, phone, time. The customer spent a month on the website to choose a car, and the form treats this person as a stranger. Then the customer tells the whole story again in the showroom.

I would start with Lemkin's second step. The booking goes to the salesperson who already talked to this customer. This does not need new software. It needs one customer record that the agent can read.

Source SaaStr

Renault will invest 10 billion euros in France, where 42% of new cars are electric#

François Provost, the CEO of Renault Group, spoke on France Inter radio. The company will invest more than 10 billion euros in France over five years. The money goes to electric cars and to more affordable cars. Provost named one condition himself. The social and political situation must be favorable.

In the last five years Renault invested 13 billion euros in France. In 2025 the company built 500,000 cars in the country, and it expects 25% growth in 2026. In September electric cars took 42% of new car registrations in France. Reuters links this demand to fuel prices after the war with Iran.

My opinion. 42% is not a niche. In France almost every second buyer of a new car asks about charging, winter range and the cost of 100 kilometers. A salesperson who answers "I will check" loses half of the market.

I would test each salesperson with three questions about electric cars. An agent prepares the cost calculation for each model before the visit. The human discusses the decision with the customer.

Source Reuters, published on AOL

European carmakers ask for a battery delay, and battery makers say no#

The dispute is about the trade in electric cars between the EU and the UK. Under the trade agreement, from 2027 a car crosses the border without a tariff only with European batteries and cathode materials. The trade outlet of GlobalData writes that the tariff is 10% from January 1, 2027 in the other case. The deadline already moved once, from 2024 to 2027.

The carmakers' association ACEA asks for a new delay for batteries, until 2030. It says the supply chain in Europe did not grow as expected. The battery association Recharge is against the delay. Three more industry groups, T&E, Eurometaux and Cefic, wrote a letter to the European Commission.

Here are their numbers. By 2027 Europe can produce 121,000 tonnes of cathode materials, and it needs from 52,000 to 75,000 tonnes. They say that carmakers want cheap Chinese materials and a zero tariff at the same time.

My opinion. For a dealer in the UK and in the EU this is a question of price from January 1. A customer notices ten percent on an electric car at once. And today nobody knows how the dispute ends.

I would make a list of models in stock and on order by country of assembly. I would not promise customers a price for January. An honest "I do not know yet" sells better than a nice number that changes later.

Source DigitalToday, the 10% tariff from GlobalData

Stellantis promises 60 new models in five years and bets on North America#

Stellantis confirmed its forecast for 2026. The company expects revenue growth of a few percent and a small operating margin, and the forecast gives no exact numbers. In the first half of the year revenue grew 10% to 81.6 billion euros. Shipments grew 11% to 2.958 million cars.

The plan until 2030 has the name FaSTLAne 2030. It includes more than 60 billion euros of investment, more than 60 new models and 50 large updates. North America gets 60% of the 36 billion euros for products. Four global brands, Jeep, Ram, Peugeot and Fiat, get 70% of the brand money.

My opinion. Sixty models in five years means a new car each month. No salesperson can keep that number of trims and prices in memory. I would give product knowledge to an agent. It prepares a short brief for the salesperson before the meeting with the customer.

And the second point. 70% of the money goes to four brands. I would advise a dealer of the group's other brands not to wait for new models. I would build sales on my own customer base and on service.

Source CBT News

A senator says the law on Chinese shareholders will not close Mercedes in the US#

The US Senate has a bill on the security of connected cars. It bans the sale of cars from companies with links to China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. The limit for Chinese ownership is 15%. Chinese shareholders own almost 20% of Mercedes-Benz. Geely owns most of Volvo Cars and Lotus, and 17% of Aston Martin.

Senator Bernie Moreno told CBT News that the ban will not touch Mercedes. He says talks are going on to reduce the share. The Senate committee passed the bill with no votes against on July 22. The Senate must vote before the end of the year, or the process starts again. Moreno says the law can affect the value of dealer franchises.

My opinion. The reason for the law is driver data that a car can send abroad. The customer reads about it and comes to the salesperson with questions. Will the brand stay? Who will service the car in three years?

I would give the salespeople and the agent one answer to these questions. What we know today, what we do not know, and where to check it. Different answers from different people in one showroom kill trust faster than any law.

Source CBT News, the Moreno interview is also on CBT News

AI is already part of the price of a dealership#

Gerrick Wilkins is the CEO of Omega Advisors, a firm that advises on dealership sales. On CBT News on September 29 he said AI can cut a dealer's personnel costs by 25%. He sees the savings in the call center and in service follow-up. Lower costs mean higher future profit and a higher price of the business. This is the estimate of an adviser, and the article gives no calculation.

The second number is about the market. This year public dealer groups in the US sold about 24 stores for every 15 they bought. Wilkins advises to value a store by future profit and risk, not by past results.

My opinion. The buyer of the business already puts AI into the price. So an AI sales department will come to every company, and the only question is when. But I would start the calculation from the other side.

By measurements at dealers in different countries, 40% of requests come outside working hours. First of all the agent brings these requests back, and it does not cut staff. I would show the buyer of the business the share of requests with a reply in five minutes.

Source CBT News

Research#

US car sales will not return to 17 million before 2030#

Mobility Global, the former S&P Global Mobility, presented its forecast on September 28. The company used its own forecast model. The full report is not public. There is a press release.

In 2026 the US will buy 16.1 million light vehicles, and 16.4 million in 2030. Before the pandemic, in 2016–2019, the market was close to 17 million. The analysts name affordability as the main limit. In 2027 North America will build more than 3 million full hybrids, 25% more than a year before. By 2030 hybrids will take almost one third of assembly.

My opinion. The market will not grow, and there are not enough new buyers for everybody. The dealer's growth is now inside the dealer's own funnel. It is the requests without a reply and the customers that nobody wrote to.

I would count one number each month. The number of showroom visits per one hundred requests.

Source Mobility Global, press release on PR Newswire

19 cars out of 21 send data to advertising and tracking companies#

Researchers from Northeastern University ran the study together with Consumer Reports. The tests ran from October 2024 to August 2025. They checked 21 cars of 19 brands from the US market and 30 mobile apps from carmakers. Consumer Reports published the results on September 29.

19 cars out of 21 contacted at least one advertising or tracking address over Wi-Fi. 28 apps out of 30 sent data to advertising and analytics firms. Seven apps sent personal data, for example the VIN, the email and the exact location. The VIN is the identification number of the car.

The receivers include Amazon, Google and Meta, and the list is longer. GM, Honda, Nissan and Stellantis answered that the receivers cannot use this data on their own.

My opinion. The customer will read this and ask the salesperson what the car knows about them. The answer "I do not know" at delivery hurts trust. I would add five minutes to the delivery for the privacy settings in the car and in the app.

The same is true for the dealer's agents. I would tell the customer directly what the agent records and who reads it.

Source Consumer Reports, the study website at Northeastern University

Companies do not see how much their AI consumes#

Capgemini published a column by Philippe Cordier and Martin Chauvin on October 1. It is an expert text with no survey of its own.

The authors say most companies put about 0.01% of their greenhouse gas emissions on AI. By roadmap estimates, in a few industries the share can reach 60% in three years. The authors write that companies have no clear picture of their AI systems. The metrics are different, uncertain or missing.

My opinion. For a dealer the lesson here is about measurement, not about ecology. You cannot manage what you do not measure. An agent spends resources and money on each action, and the bill grows with the number of agents.

I would ask the vendor for a report on each agent. The number of actions per month and the cost of them.

Source Capgemini

In short#

Cloud providers set a hard spending limit for agents. Simon Willison writes that AWS added a limit on September 16 that pauses projects when the money ends. Google Cloud launched similar limits in July. An agent can spend a monthly budget in one night, so I would set a hard limit for each agent before launch. Simon Willison

Okta shares tripled on products that control agents. By the SaaStr review, the shares went from $62.66 to $195.19 in five months with revenue growth of 11%. New products gave 30% of bookings, and one of them is a switch that turns an agent off. The market pays for control over agents, and each dealer agent needs a person who can turn it off. SaaStr

OpenAI put people and agents at one table. ChatGPT Space is a shared workspace where the team and Dots agents edit pages and spreadsheets together. A person calls an agent with a mention, and the agent connects to more than 4,000 apps. The whole team must see the agent's work, or the sales manager will not know what the agent promised the customer. VentureBeat

Independent US dealers ask for access to car diagnostics. The association NIADA brought four priorities to Washington, and the first one is the REPAIR Act. It forbids carmakers to block access to diagnostics, repair instructions and tools. For a used car dealer this means the speed of preparation for sale, and I would count the days from purchase to listing. CBT News

The war with Iran raised the price of an oil change in the US. CBT News reports that Valvoline expects lubricants to cost about 60% more than in March. An oil change costs $5–7 more, and about 44% of Group III base oil comes from the Persian Gulf. The customer must learn the new price at booking, not at the cash desk, and this is work for an agent. CBT News

An app looks for price mistakes on the dealer's website. Auto AI released Radar for phones. It checks car pages and Meta ads for price mistakes and hidden fees and sends a screenshot, and the basic check is free. This is a company press release, but the idea is right. It is better to find a price difference yourself than to wait for a customer or a prosecutor. CBT News

Toyota will have six electric cars by the end of the year, up from two. The Japanese company opened a battery research center in Michigan for $50 million. It promises six electric models in the US by the end of 2026, against two in 2025. The brand's salespeople need to learn charging and range now, because customers will ask three times more questions. CBT News

A coach advises leaders to repeat a goal 90 times. Dave Anderson of LearnToLead proposes two or three goals for the fourth quarter and a daily talk about them. He says a leader must repeat a message about 90 times before behavior changes. I agree with two or three goals, but I would replace the repeats with a number on a screen that the team sees each morning. CBT News

Hype of the day#

These are headlines without my review. The largest number of outlets write about them, or the source did not open.

• The Guardian. OpenAI safety leader quits, warning AI company's culture is 'broken', 60 outlets
• The Information. AI Agents Are Going Rogue. Novel Legal Battles Are Next, 5 outlets
• The Japan Times. Trump tariffs a mixed bag for U.S. auto industry, 2 outlets
• WSJ. New AI Czar Unveils Goals, Members of White House Task Force, 2 outlets
• Financial Times. European carmakers warn EU-UK tariffs could be 'catastrophic', 1 outlet
• The Economic Times. Your car knows where you go. Insurers, lenders and automakers want to know too, 1 outlet
• The Economic Times. Nvidia falls short of May record as value nears $6 trillion, 1 outlet
• Forbes. Selling AI, U.S. Government As A Vendor To The World, 1 outlet