Tekion review. AI agents inside a dealer platform. Service, sales and a fight over data

Podium, Numa and Conversica put AI next to the dealer's system. Tekion is the system. The company makes a DMS, the main software of a dealership. Deals, repair orders, inventory and accounting all live there.

Since 2026, the DMS has AI agents inside for service, sales, F&I and accounting. You cannot buy an agent without the Tekion DMS.

I did not work inside the system, and I have no account or demo access. I studied the Service AI and CRM AI pages on the company site. I also read the press releases from the NADA show and the Tekion One conference.

Then I read the investor report of Asbury Automotive, news about the court fight with CDK and dealer posts on the DealerRefresh forum. Every picture below comes from the Tekion site. These are marketing mockups, not live screens.

In short#

• Tekion is a cloud DMS with a CRM and a set of AI agents inside. The company calls itself "AI-native." It means AI was part of the platform from the start.
• The agents are new. Scheduler AI, Technician AI and the T1 interface came out in February 2026. Salesperson AI and T1 Pro came out in June 2026.
• The agents work only inside Tekion. A choice about the agents is a choice to change the DMS for the whole store or group.
• The largest public switch is Asbury Automotive. By July 2026, the group had moved 70% of its stores to Tekion. Its adjusted quarterly profit fell 15%, and the group named rollout costs as one reason.
• Almost all result numbers come from the company. Outside sources confirm the investor money, the court case over data and the Asbury switch.

Where Tekion comes from#

Jay Vijayan founded the company in 2016. Before that, he was the CIO of Tesla, the head of its IT. The company is based in California. In 2026, Tekion turns ten.

There is a lot of money behind it. In 2021, the company raised 250 million dollars at a 3.5 billion dollar valuation (Business Wire). In July 2024, the fund Dragoneer put in 200 million more at a valuation above 4 billion (Verdict). At that time, Tekion said it had more than 2,000 retail customers and 97% yearly growth in recurring revenue. These are company claims.

There is also a signal in the other direction. The site StockAnalysis, with data from the Hiive market, shows the price of Tekion shares between private investors in September 2026. The implied valuation there is about 2.2 billion. This is not a new funding round, so I use it only as a rough guide.

Service AI. Agents for the service department#

Tekion started with service. The first agent was Service Advisor AI. It takes the technician's notes and writes a clear message for the customer. The message says what is wrong with the car and what work the dealer offers. The agent builds its advice from the VIN, the service history and the inspection.

The first screen shows two numbers. More than 90% of dealer service teams use Service AI. More than 88% of AI recommendations are accepted. Both numbers come from the company.

The page does not say who accepts the recommendation. It can be the service advisor, who agrees with the agent's text. It can also be the customer, who agrees to pay for the work. For service revenue, these are two different things.

The mockup shows the idea. The technician writes "replace front wipers," and the agent turns it into an explanation for the customer.

Next to it is a card "replace tires" for 759.96 dollars. It has a "critical" label and a line about tread worn to 2/32 of an inch. The customer sees a clear text and a price. The service advisor can keep the agent's text or go back to his own.

In February 2026, at the NADA show, the company added two agents (press release). Scheduler AI books, moves and cancels service visits by phone and chat, and also by text and email. Technician AI takes voice commands, photos and video from the technician and fills in the inspection form.

The company says its model does not depend on one AI vendor and learns from the dealer's own records. Another point is an ISO/IEC 42001 certificate for AI management. I did not check the certificate in a registry, so this is a company claim.

CRM AI and Salesperson AI. An agent for leads#

The second block is about sales. The headline of the CRM AI page says your CRM no longer only holds your leads. Now "It Works Them."

Tekion showed Salesperson AI in June 2026 at its Tekion One conference (announcement). The company says the agent does six things.

• It answers a lead by text or email within seconds. It works at night, on weekends and on holidays too.
• It follows up for up to 30 days. This covers active leads, visits without a sale, missed appointments and contact after the sale.
• It answers questions about stock, price and features and books a visit in the CRM calendar.
• It logs every message in the lead record, so the manager sees the chat at once.
• It hands the chat to a salesperson with a short summary and a suggested next step.
• The dealer sets the FAQs, the store hours and the tone. One click turns the agent off on any lead.

The page shows no voice for Salesperson AI, only text and email. At Tekion, voice works today in Scheduler AI for service.

Tekion states its main point against rivals on the page. Most AI vendors connect to the dealer's CRM, but Salesperson AI lives inside the CRM. So the agent sees real stock, the deal and the customer history with no integration. This point is fair. With Podium or Impel, any error in the stock feed can turn into an answer about a car that is already gone.

The other side is the same point. The agent is only as good as the CRM under it. And the Tekion CRM is the part dealers praise least. More on this below.

T1 and the other agents#

T1 is a window where staff type a question in plain words. For example, which deals are stuck or which repair orders are still open. The answer comes from DMS records, and T1 can pass the task to the right agent. In June 2026, Tekion released T1 Pro. It suggests priorities and shares work between the agents.

Two more agents came out at the same event. Deal Guard AI checks the deal papers before they go to the bank and looks for gaps and compliance risks. Accounts Payable AI reads supplier invoices and sends them for approval. For none of the four June products did the company name a dealer, a result or a date for wide release.

What dealers say#

I found no reviews of the Tekion AI agents themselves. The agents are too new. There are reviews of the platform, and they matter, because the agents live inside it.

In May 2026, the DealerRefresh forum posted a summary of 13 threads about Tekion. The forum team wrote it from the threads. It is not the words of one dealer.

• Dealers praise the cost savings after they leave CDK or Reynolds. They also like that Tekion is open to outside integrations.
• The main complaint is the rollout. The rollout team is too small, and quality changes a lot from store to store.
• "The CRM is not what they sell you."
• "Roadmap ≠ reality." Tekion shows features as ready while they are still in development.

There are also single voices about the CRM. Forum member Dan Sayer wrote about it in April 2024. His group moved to the Tekion DMS and service scheduler in November 2022, but it did not take the CRM. In his words, Tekion was "a year or two away" from a competitive CRM for groups. He also noted that you cannot use this CRM without the Tekion DMS.

He stayed with DriveCentric. Another dealer writes that the CRM was limited at launch but has grown fast.

On its Tekion page, the forum rates the tone of 25 discussions as mixed, 50%. Dealers there praise the service scheduler more often than the CRM.

Asbury and the court fight with CDK. Who owns the data#

This story matters more than any mockup. In 2024, the dealer group Asbury Automotive wanted to test Tekion in four stores. For the pilot, it needed its own data from its CDK DMS. CDK refused to hand it over. On August 29, 2024, a Georgia court ordered CDK to give the data, in a preliminary ruling.

In December 2024, Tekion filed an antitrust suit against CDK in federal court in San Francisco. Tekion asked the court to make CDK send dealer data within 10 days of a request (Business Wire). CDK called the suit "a marketing stunt." I did not find the result of the case in public sources.

Asbury then went all the way. Its report for the second quarter of 2026 says Tekion ran in 70% of its stores as of July 28. The group plans to finish the switch this fall (Asbury report). The same report shows adjusted net income of 125 million dollars, 15% less than a year before. In the profit numbers, the group names Tekion rollout costs as a separate item.

The lesson is not only about Tekion. It is true for any DMS. A large group needs more than a year to switch, it costs money, and it hurts the quarter. And the group needed a court only to try another system.

Numbers and cases#

Everything below is a company claim.

• Service AI. More than 90% of service teams use it. More than 88% of AI recommendations are accepted.
• Reviews on the same page. Capital Buick GMC in Canada reports a 113% rise in service profit. Another review reports 60% higher technician output. These numbers are about the Tekion platform as a whole, not about the AI agents.
• Next to them is a claim of 119% yearly growth in total revenue. In the page code, it is signed "Lorem CEO." This is a placeholder, not a real customer.
• Small print under the reviews says results may vary and reviews may be edited.
• Cloud platform revenue grew more than 60% in 2025. This comes from the NADA 2026 press release.

I found no case where a named dealer gives numbers for Salesperson AI or Scheduler AI.

What is confirmed and what is not#

What to ask the company before you sign#

1. What works today. Which agents run at dealers in daily work, and which are still in a pilot? Give me the contact of a store that has used Salesperson AI for more than three months.
2. Who accepts the advice. Is 88% the share of advice the service advisor accepted, or the share of work the customer agreed to? How did the average repair order change?
3. The CRM. Name a group with several stores that uses the Tekion CRM with no other CRM.
4. The switch. How many Tekion people will work on the launch of each store, and how long will it take? What happens to my data if I want to leave in three years?
5. Price. The site shows no price. Are the agents part of the DMS price, or do I pay for each one?

What to take for yourself, even if you never switch to Tekion#

Count leads with no next step. The Tekion line "your CRM works your leads" works without AI too. Open your CRM and count leads with no task and no date. That number is your plan for the week.

Rewrite three service recommendations. Take the last three repair orders where the customer said no to extra work. Rewrite the technician's notes in plain words, with the reason and the risk, and send them to the customer again. This is what Service Advisor AI sells.

Check that you can take your data out. Ask your DMS vendor in writing in what format and in how many days it will give you a full export of customers and deals. The Asbury story shows that you want this answer before a dispute.

Videos worth watching#

• Service Scheduler AI. 24/7 Service Scheduling Across Every Channel. Tekion channel, 1:41. How a customer books service by voice and text.
• How Tekion Is Redefining AI in Car Dealerships with Jay Vijayan. The David Spisak Show, 38 minutes. An interview with the founder at NADA 2026.
• CEO Keynote. AI You Can Trust. Tekion channel, 40 minutes. Vijayan's NADA 2026 talk with the agent plan.

Who Tekion fits, and who should look elsewhere#

You cannot judge Tekion's AI apart from the platform. Say you already plan to leave your old DMS and you are ready for a year of rollout. Then agents inside the system give you something outside bots cannot. That is one database, with no integrations and no stock out of sync. The service agents look more mature, because Service Advisor AI has run the longest.

If your DMS works for you, it makes no sense to change it for an agent. The sales agents came out in summer 2026, there are no reviews of them yet, and dealers call the CRM under them the weak point. For night leads, Podium or Conversica are easier to add. For service calls, look at Numa. Come back to Tekion when the first dealers share their own Salesperson AI numbers.