"Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house."
Proverbs 24:27, King James Version
Prompt of the Week
On the first episode of AI for Dealers, Kyle Mountsier shared the guardrail he gives AI before every build. Left alone, AI picks whatever structure finishes today's task fastest. That works fine until you want version three and the whole tool has to come apart to get there.
His fix is to describe version five up front, even though nobody's building it yet.
Run this before you build anything with AI, whether that's a report, a tracker, a Chrome extension or even a spreadsheet. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, fill in the brackets, and let it answer before it builds anything.
I'm about to build [WHAT YOU'RE BUILDING] for [STORE OR DEPARTMENT] using AI. Before you build anything, I want to plan for where this is headed.
Version 1 (what we're building today):
[What it needs to do right now, in a few sentences]
Version 5 (where I want this to end up):
[Every feature, user and connection you can imagine it having someday]
Who will use it: [ROLES, e.g. service advisors, sales managers, GMs]
Data it will touch: [SYSTEMS OR FILES, e.g. DMS reports, CRM exports, inventory feed]
Before writing anything:
1. List the structural choices in version 1 (data layout, naming, file setup, how records connect) that would make version 5 hard or impossible to reach.
2. Recommend a version 1 structure that leaves room for version 5 without building any of it yet.
3. Flag any customer data this tool will hold, and tell me who should and shouldn't be able to see or export it.
4. Ask me up to three questions about anything unclear.
Wait for my answers before building.Kyle makes the full case for when to build and when to buy in our breakdown of the episode.
The AI Breakdown
Who's building AI inside dealerships, and what are they making?
AI for Dealers, our new weekly podcast from AutoIndustry.ai and More Than Cars, went live this week to answer that question. Host Daniel Kim runs operations for Barnes Crossing Auto Group, a 15-store group in the South. Each episode starts with one real problem in the store and ends with something that works.
What did Kyle Mountsier tell dealers about building their own tools?
Buy more than you build, for now. Homemade tools raise security risks, and they tend to break when the person who built them leaves. Build where vendors leave gaps, and prototype what you need so vendors can see it. Daniel showed what a gap looks like: a Chrome extension that tells his service advisors what's due on any Hyundai VIN they open.
What should you try after listening?
"[T]ry using the code version of your AI model… [M]arkdown files are essentially bits and pieces of memory that get deposited into… your computer's hard drive, and that makes your AI smarter."
Coming up | Dealer group |
|---|---|
Dustin Schuler | Bud Clary Auto Group |
Grant Mullinax and Kate Howell | Mullinax Auto Group |
New episodes drop weekly on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Hear from the Experts
Who in your dealer group should be able to touch which data?
Daniel Kim says employees are building AI tools with or without a policy, and many of them come out of fixed ops. His answer is role-based access, so a service manager can build reporting without ever seeing salespeople's payroll.
"He's like, 'Hey, I built this thing,' and I'm like, 'What? How did you do that?'"
Daniel and Kyle teach it live at ASOTU CON West on Nov. 18 at Plug HQ in Los Angeles. Read their framework.
Could your F&I office catch an AI-forged pay stub?
AI-generated proof of income now carries real company logos and matching tax math, and synthetic identity kits sell online for $500 for 30 days. The FTC's Red Flags Rule already requires an identity theft program and an annual written report to the owner. Here's what to check this month.
What is AI telling your customers before they walk in?
63% of in-market shoppers say they'll probably or definitely use AI on their next vehicle purchase, according to Cox Automotive, and their top use is writing questions to ask the dealer. Only 29% of dealers are adapting to AI search, down from 32% in Q1. Run our prompt to read your customers' homework.
Bits and Bytes
The Modern Retailing Conference is awarding $5,000 for the best AI tool a dealership built in-house, with no vendors allowed. Finalists present live in Palm Beach, Nov. 15-17. 🏆
An AI agent at Ireland's Tony Burke Motors booked nine appointments in July, and five of them turned into sales, the Irish Times reports. 🤝
More than half of voters called AI data centers a crucial or major factor in their congressional vote, per an NBC News exit poll, as Anthropic heads toward its IPO. 🗳️
Parting Pixels
Thanks for reading, Friend! Remember, the trick to making DIY work is to either lower your expectations or increase your skill.
