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News · Oct 03, 2026 · 7 min

AI and car sales, October 2. CarMax, agents at dealers, Gemini 4

20 items for the day. CarMax and 68% omni sales, a trade-in agent, a dealer group with no layoffs, Gemini 4, the ChatGPT try-on. The news, my opinion, a link to the source.

This issue has 20 items from world sources. Six full reviews, two short items and twelve headlines of the day. In a review I give the fact, then my opinion, then a link to the source.

CarMax sells 68% of its cars in a mixed format

The US chain CarMax reported its quarter. Retail used unit sales grew 13.8%. Revenue was 7.9 billion dollars, and earnings per share grew 81%.

A different number caught my eye. 68% of cars were bought in a mixed format. The customer did part of the steps online and part in the store. Another 13% were bought fully online.

My opinion. The customer stopped dividing the purchase into "website" and "showroom" long ago. The dealer still divides it. One department answers the requests, another meets people on the floor, and the customer gets lost between them. First I would check what the salesperson on the floor sees about a person who spent half an hour on the website yesterday.

Source CBT News

DriveCentric released an agent for vehicle acquisition

DriveCentric makes a CRM for dealers. The company showed Acquire Agent. A customer asks for a valuation of their car, and the agent writes at once and leads to an appointment. The agent does not calculate the price and does not make new offers. Early access starts on October 15, general availability on December 1.

My opinion. A valuation request is a raised hand. The person tells you directly that they think about selling the car. Usually the dealer sends a number and waits. At that time the customer gets three more numbers from competitors.

I like how the work is divided here. The agent does the part that people have no discipline for. It writes at once and brings the customer to the meeting. The negotiation and the price stay with the human.

Source CBT News

A family dealer group deployed AI and fired nobody

VIP Auto Group is a family group from Long Island with 10 dealerships and 15 brands. Its chief marketing officer Ben Sporn told WardsAuto what they built themselves. One agent drafts answers to customers of the online parts store. Another keeps the service history for service advisors. A third answers reviews.

The results, in the company's words. Customer service staff handle three times more. The service manager saves about two hours a day. The group dropped 5 to 6 software vendors. Nobody was laid off, and the online store team grew.

My opinion. They did not start with sales. They started with the routine that everyone hates. Emails, order statuses, spreadsheets.

And the first thing to go was not people. It was third-party software worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is an honest picture of what AI does at a dealer today.

Source WardsAuto

Conversica promises a thousand conversations for a thousand reasons

Mike Gilson, the CEO of Conversica, told CBT News about a tool named Ignite. It brings the sales and service history, financing, past conversations and mileage into one view. Then it finds reasons to write to the customer.

A loan or a lease ends, the customer has not come to service for a long time, the car has an open recall. Gilson talks about a thousand different conversations for a thousand different opportunities. The article gives no result numbers.

My opinion. Dealers buy new leads and forget the people who already bought from them. The money is in their own database. A salesperson cannot remember a thousand customers and write to each one on time. An agent can.

But without numbers this is a promise for now. I would ask each vendor of this kind for one figure. The number of visits it brought from the old database in a month.

Source CBT News

Google released Gemini 4, and the market waits for personal agents

Google showed its Gemini 4 Argon model. CNBC writes that investors were not impressed. They wait for a personal agent that sorts the email and books the travel by itself. This week OpenAI released an agent of this kind, named Dots. JPMorgan analysts say Google needs a significant step in this direction.

My opinion. For the car business this is not news about models. It is news about the buyer.

Soon it will not be a person who writes to the dealer. It will be the person's agent. It will ask five showrooms for the price, the stock and the terms at the same time, at night.

By our own measurements at dealers in different countries, 40% of requests already come when the showroom is closed. A dealership without its own agent is not in that conversation at all.

Source CNBC

Slack wants to take AI out of private tabs

Rob Seaman, who runs Slack at Salesforce, wrote a column about "multiplayer AI". The idea is this. Today each employee asks a private assistant in a private tab. The company does not get smarter from that. The agent must work in a shared channel, where the whole team sees its answers.

His example is from sales. A new competitor appears in a deal. The team calls the agent into a shared channel. It answers from the account history and the CRM records, and everyone sees it.

My opinion. In a sales department this is a sore spot. A strong salesperson keeps everything in their head and in their own chats. The person leaves, and the knowledge leaves too.

If each salesperson starts to whisper with a private AI, it gets worse. The manager sees neither the questions nor the answers. I am for a shared channel and a shared record for each customer.

Source Salesforce News

In short

ChatGPT learned to try on clothes. OpenAI launched a virtual try-on. A person uploads a photo and sees the item on themselves in the chat. The buyer gets used to choosing inside an assistant, and the car is next in line. The dealer's stock must be described so that an assistant can read it. TechCrunch

A report on technician pay from 13.5 million repair orders came out. CBT News announced a study with a split by brand and six US regions. The open part has no numbers. Its idea is that dealers set pay by their own guesses, not by the market. It is the same with salespeople. CBT News

Hype of the day

The headlines with the most coverage, and the ones behind a paywall. No analysis, links only. The number of outlets is in brackets.

Next note · 13 minAI and car sales, October 3. Toyota hybrids close in on GM →Toyota hybrids come close to GM in US sales, buyers ask for the AI assistant by name, 70% of sales at a Lexus dealer come from walk-ins, Apple limits AI agents on the Mac. The news in short, my opinion, a link to the source.
#news#automotive#ai

Roman Spitsyn. I build dealership sales where AI agents do the work and people close the deals.

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