Transformative Power: Artificial Intelligence Already Making Presence Felt in Dealer Community

In describing the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence (AI) in a business context, there’s a knee-jerk temptation to go full-bore hyperbole. But it’s tough to keep the impulse in check when research firms such as McKinsey and Company say AI “has the potential to be as transformative as the steam engine was to the 19th-century Industrial Revolution.” And it doesn’t help when numerous IT professionals declare that AI is the next transformational step, following the internet and the cloud, with the potential to be bigger than both combined.

One thing’s for certain: the future of AI has arrived. According to Stanford University’s AI Index Report, 78% of organizations currently use AI, an increase from 55% a year ago. The report also showed that during 2024, U.S. private investment in AI billowed to $109.1 billion—12 times that of China and 24 times that of the United Kingdom. Private investment in generative AI on a global scale was $33.9 billion in 2024, an increase of nearly 19% from the previous year.

McKinsey’s State of AI survey pegs the long-term AI opportunity at $4.4 trillion in added productivity growth potential from corporate use cases. During the next three years, McKinsey asserts in the report, more than 92% of companies plan to ratchet up their AI investment. Only 1% of companies in the survey believe their AI investment has reached maturity.

This month, we bring you our first State of the Industry report on AI. Its lineage dates back to the 1930s with logician Alan Turing and his “Turing machine.” When the field of AI research was founded at Dartmouth College, it spawned some of the discipline’s most prominent leaders in early development. Even more importantly, 2001 brought us Steven Spielberg’s groundbreaking “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” sci-fi drama, in which Haley Joel Osment played a child android programmed with the ability to love. Game changers, one and all.

On a more serious note, recall that the internet was actually several decades old when it began to garner mainstream use in the early 2000s. Perhaps 2025 is AI’s inflection point, especially considering that Microsoft’s Copilot (the successor to Cortana) celebrated its one-year anniversary. It’s just one of many platforms available, but we’ll be focusing largely on Copilot due to Microsoft 365’s pervasiveness among U.S. businesses.

Before we hear from dealers that have incorporated AI in various aspects of their operations, a formal definition would be helpful. Let’s have Copilot tell its own story:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a scientific discipline aimed at creating computer systems capable of performing tasks that traditionally require human intelligence. These systems learn, adapt and make unforeseen decisions based on data-driven insights. AI encompasses machine learning, neural networks and natural language processing, among other techniques. It empowers automation and advances fields such as health care, finance, transportation and entertainment. AI revolutionizes problem-solving by recognizing patterns, optimizing processes and simulating human cognition. As research progresses, ethical considerations and responsible implementation become essential to maximize benefits while ensuring fairness and accountability in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. Innovative breakthroughs continue to inspire progress. Note: edited only for style.

This month’s report is a general overview on AI. In time, we hope to bring you more focused articles on how it’s impacting various departments within dealer businesses. What follows is the experiences of eight different dealers (spoiler alert: it’s a tad bit long).

Deeper Dive

Pacific Office Automation of Beaverton, Oregon, currently uses AI as a “wordsmith” of sorts for email generation, notes Chris Miller, vice president of technology and solutions. It relies on data utilization and crafting a message that takes into account what’s known about the client and making a connection based on the products and services POA offers. It can help stoke creativity for sales reps.

Adoption rates among reps have been fairly strong, according to Miller. But as with any new technology introduced within a given department, there are the bleeding-edge adopters and laggards who stand out. Getting every rep to be comfortable with it is an ongoing quest.

“We have some who understand AI and others who are afraid of it,” he said. “As we incorporate more opportunities in different areas of the business, it’s going to be a game-changer. Hopefully within 36 months, we’ll have all our data silos incorporated into one where we could utilize AI in any aspect of our operations.”

Hopefully within 36 months, we’ll have all our data silos incorporated into one where we could utilize AI in any aspect of our operations.

– Chris Miller, Pacific Office Automation

To that end, POA is developing its own internal platform (using the backbone of ChatGPT or Copilot) that will encompass the dealer’s different systems and enable users to ask specific internal AI questions that are relevant to the dealership. For example, the customized AI could provide detailed information on past POA marketing campaigns, Miller notes. This ongoing project is designed to improve internal processes.

Miller believes dealers should take great care in preparing to use AI. For example, it’s important to be mindful of security vulnerabilities when incorporating a payroll system into AI as to not unwittingly expose customer data.

“There’s a lot of training that’s required and AI readiness that needs to be done prior to implementing AI in your organization,” he said. “You wouldn’t want a rep to upload a price book using ChatGPT if you don’t have your security set up appropriately. It’s a great tool, but it’s also a tool that allows the genie out of the bottle. So you’ve got to be careful.”

Learn and Teach

A year ago, Kelley Create, headquartered in Kent, Washington, took a bold step into the world of AI with Copilot. The goal was to better understand AI and its potential impact on clients and the dealership. As the team became more proficient with the platform, they pivoted to sharing their newfound knowledge through engaging monthly webinar sessions for their clients, prospects and team. These webinars, brimming with valuable insights, covered AI 101, the differences between ChatGPT and Copilot, and practical applications of Copilot in Word, Excel, Teams and PowerPoint. It’s been an educational journey for Kelley Create and its clients, notes Scott Anderson, senior vice president of Kelley Create.

Internally, the dealership is reaping the benefits of AI’s efficiencies. Anderson uses it for various tasks, from taking (and transcribing) notes to generating meeting recaps, composing emails and drafting scopes of work. What excites Anderson most is that these applications are just scratching the surface. As AI “agents” and other autonomous tasks become more integrated, Copilot will continue to drive efficiencies. Currently, it’s used at the employee level rather than through departmental mandates.

In about 90 minutes of training, you can jump-start your usage. And that makes getting ROI on that $30 license easy.

– Scott Anderson, Kelley Create

With a license priced at $30 per month, Anderson believes he receives equivalent value from just one meeting recap. For him, the value is clear. “The payback is easy and quick, and it’s all about having an internal AI champion to drive it within the organization,” he said. “Another manager on my team uses AI in Microsoft Edge. Together, we create, collaborate, and share information. That’s how we’re moving the needle. I couldn’t imagine returning 13 months ago to when I didn’t have Copilot. It’s really transformed the way I work.”

Anderson has observed that some Kelley Create clients struggle with Copilot because they hesitate to invest time to master the platform. However, dedicating time to learning it within their existing Microsoft 365 toolbox can yield significant rewards, enabling them to become proficient and leverage it for more efficient task and work management.

“We had one client with a Copilot license who wasn’t utilizing it and felt frustrated,” Anderson said. “We spent an hour on a screen share, walking them through various features. A week later, the client emailed us, raving about how great it is and how they’re using it to draft emails and generate meeting recaps. In about 90 minutes of training, you can jump-start your usage. And that makes getting ROI on that $30 license easy.”

Strategic Patience

It’s human nature to want a new product, software system or operational platform to be functional ASAP, and for team members who interact with it to have at least enough knowledge to get started and learn more as they go. You want to reap the efficiencies and other perks and start realizing some ROI. Recognizing how much of a transformational tool AI would become, Justin Drabouski took a different route. The vice president of technology and security for Fraser Advanced Information Systems (Fraser) wanted his team to gather as much education on AI as possible. He knew it had the propensity for being a transformational technology, as managed services were in the early 2000s. But AI is a marathon and not a sprint.

Three years ago, Fraser began in earnest to invest in education to help develop skill sets, increase the understanding and be better positioned to move on AI when the market developed. Drabouski opened an AI lab, which he guides with members of the senior technical team, including developers, data engineers and professional services.

“It was really about giving them the tools, capabilities and education to learn, explore and discover,” Drabouski said. “But there were no outcomes assigned to the team. We weren’t adding a time constraint that said we’re going to build a product and take it to market in two years. We wanted to invest, learn and be ready when it came.”

We’re automating [reps’] end-of-day routine so they can do follow-ups and recaps with clients and focus on specific items they need to address for the customer.

– Justin Drabouski, Fraser Advanced Information Systems

By the fall of 2024, Fraser was ready for practical applications. They set up machine learning models in Azure and worked with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and the generative integration within Microsoft. They cruised through small projects until it was time to focus on specific outcomes. At the start of this year, Drabouski’s team introduced AI to the rest of the organization, identifying specific and controllable outcomes that would improve employee workflows and customer engagement. As a Microsoft shop, the decision was made to move forward with Azure and Copilot. Sales would be the first target for enhancement.

While there aren’t a lot of trailing results to draw upon, Drabouski believed it important to demonstrate what the technology could do for reps in a number of areas. Interactions between reps and clients/prospects were recorded, regardless of the communication mode (email, Teams), and that data is used for elevating engagement.

“We’re automating [reps’] end-of-day routine so they can do follow-ups and recaps with clients and focus on specific items they need to address for the customer,” Drabouski noted.

When Fraser was initially building use cases, the expectation was that AI would help reps craft an email to a new client or specific vertical and enable them to gather data and present it back to customers as a report. The biggest value proposition, Drabouski said, was in the note-taking functionality. Instead of jotting down notes during the conversation and potentially missing critical information in the process, the reps were more present and focused on the conversation and interaction. The AI can scan the recorded notes and provide important next-step/follow-up tasks. As a result, Fraser’s reps and clients are having a more compelling conversation.

There are other use cases when the time savings and efficiency enhancements are measurable. Drabouski cited bid scenarios in which the client might make supplemental changes to the original bid—in the past, it could take hours to analyze the before and after documentation, but AI can compare the bids and highlight changes within minutes.

One of the more exciting applications involves Fraser leveraging the standard capabilities of Copilot and modifying/enhancing them by creating their own agents. It’s essentially providing reps with administrative assistants that can scan emails and determine what needs to come next for a prospect: follow-up tasks, unanswered questions and other action items reps need to keep potential business moving forward.

“Reps will tell me they try to do stuff at the end of the day when their brains are mushy from prospecting and meetings,” Drabouski said. “This helps close some of those error gaps. It’s all about accuracy.”

Impact Tools

The impetus for Donnellon McCarthy Enterprises (DME) incorporating AI was to improve efficiency from an internal standpoint and arm team members with smarter tools. The initial foray was supporting sales, enabling reps to prepare more quickly and develop more meaningful conversations with clients, according to Rich Brandenburg, senior vice president of sales for the Cincinnati-based dealership. The path then switched to marketing, customer service and internal operations, with the goal of making the company’s processes more effective, yet maintaining the human touch.

ChatGPT is the platform of choice for DME. While not something the dealer’s clients interact with directly, Brandenburg notes it plays a considerable role behind the scenes.

“Our sales team uses it to research companies, find key decision-makers, and create personalized emails and talk tracks,” Brandenburg said. “It saves them time and helps them reach out more effectively. We also use ChatGPT for marketing content, training materials and general day-to-day support. It helps us respond more quickly, stay organized and focus more on our customers.”

AI and ChatGPT in particular have become go-to tools for DME. Sales reps have reaped time savings, and the ability to craft impactful email correspondence has helped foster stronger customer engagement. In addition, it’s streamlined marketing content creation and simplified internal training.

We also use ChatGPT for marketing content, training materials and general day-to-day support. It helps us respond more quickly, stay organized and focus more on our customers.

– Rich Brandenburg, DME

“We’ve seen clear gains in efficiency and consistency, and it’s exceeded our expectations across the board,” Brandenburg noted. “It’s now an everyday part of how we work.”

Teaching Moment

While Green Office Partner may serve a diverse set of verticals that includes health care, automotive, financial services, construction, manufacturing and hospitality, it’s understandable that co-owner Chris Gallagher has a soft spot for addressing the education market. After all, his mother and sister were teachers.

Having that unique perspective and insight into the challenges and needs of school districts operating under tight budgets, Gallagher saw a wonderful opportunity three years ago when Xerox—its primary vendor—introduced the dealer to its Translate and Print app. It proved to be the ideal elixir for Green Office Partner’s clients, which have long struggled with providing homework/take-home materials in a student’s native language.

“Our education clients were literally complaining about translation services being expensive and time consuming,” Gallagher noted. “Giving teachers time back to spend in the classrooms is extremely rewarding. Both my mother and sister were teachers, so it hits home.”

Simple to install and intuitive for teacher or administrator use, the Xerox app can translate within seconds. One of the bigger obstacles proved to be product awareness.

Giving teachers time back to spend in the classrooms is extremely rewarding. Both my mother and sister were teachers, so it hits home.

– Chris Gallagher, Green Office Partner

“We thought an email from each school’s principal would educate the teachers on this new functionality,” Gallagher said. “However, we learned that we needed more training and change management and had the email sent multiple times. We also hung posters above each Xerox MFP to remind the teachers they could translate homework or curriculum right at the unit in seconds.”

Customer First

Whenever Marco embarks on a new technology, be it the cloud or AI, the application strategy is to start with the customer, then work toward the St. Cloud, Minnesota, dealer’s back office. The first iteration of AI came roughly six years ago when Marco built its Insights Cloud, a digital platform for customers to engage the dealer across a series of capabilities, namely service or other areas such as subscription management and procurement. In the early days, Marco employed a rules-based recommendation engine that could make suggestions for the customer based on what the dealer saw in the client’s environment (IT and print), notes Clay Ostlund, president of IT division. That’s helped drive value to the client.

As large language models began to change the landscape last year, Marco added AI into a number of areas for clients. The rules-based recommendation engine became supercharged as the dealer was able to analyze data and provide suggestions more quickly. In that same vein, Marco introduced AI agent chat for job ticketing. The natural language elicits the necessary client information that can help direct clients to the appropriate support person. Marco’s routing success percentage stands at 99.8%, which reduces the ticket-to-resolution time while helping to increase the dealer’s first-call efficiency.

“We’re seeing a pretty drastic difference in customer experience by ensuring we capture all the information up front and get it to the right person to solve their issue the first time by leveraging the large language models,” Ostlund noted.

Internally, Marco relies on a series of AI capabilities that helps to drive efficiency while maintaining profitability. In turn, the dealer can invest more money in AI tools to add more dollars to the bottom line. Marco fields upwards of 60,000 job tickets per month by having AI read and classify the tickets and send them to the proper service board. It’s doing work that previously would have required seven people, which frees them up to do more high-value assignments.

“We have people in the organization who have to reconcile agreements every month—how many users do they have versus how many we’re billing,” Ostlund added. “Using RPA and AI models to actually do those comparisons allowed us to free up multiple humans to do more valuable work. That allows us to focus on upselling a customer versus checking to make sure we’re billing them enough.”

We’re seeing a pretty drastic difference in customer experience by ensuring we capture all the information up front and get it to the right person to solve their issue the first time by leveraging the large language models.

– Clay Ostlund, Marco

The time saved has been measurable for Marco. Looking at a 30-day period, Ostlund pointed out that the dealer saved more than 400 hours, which he says is a conservative number. On the anecdotal side, clients have been sending much more positive feedback centered on the pleasant nature of the customer experience.

Pause and Effect

The pandemic proved to be a reflective period for many businesses, and for some, it was a pause that provided the opportunity to strategize. Blue Technologies fits the latter description. Around the onset of COVID-19, the Cleveland-based dealer’s MSP division took the opportunity to explore AI, with the end game of enhancing the team’s ability to deliver exceptional service, notes Lauren Hanna, division president. It was an effort to remain in lockstep with technology and support the evolving needs of clients in disciplines such as cybersecurity and service delivery.

Hanna points out that the raison d’être behind the dealership’s AI mission was to cultivate tools that support personnel rather than replace them—marrying innovation with human insight. And Blue Technologies is among the faction of dealers employing AI applications internally and for the benefit of clients.

“We use AI-powered cybersecurity tools to enhance threat detection and automate routine analysis, allowing our security team to focus on remediation and communication,” Hanna noted. “Internally, AI helps with prioritizing service tickets and analyzing trends, so we can act more quickly and intelligently. But we’re intentional about keeping people at the center—our clients value responsiveness, accountability and partnership. We use AI to support, not replace, those elements.”

Across the board, it’s met expectations as a force multiplier but never as a replacement for human touch.

– Lauren Hanna, Blue Technologies

Perhaps the biggest payout is the increased efficiency reaped by the dealer without having to compromise on its signature personal service. AI has helped streamline routine processes, reduce response times and strengthen the reliability of Blue Technologies’ cybersecurity services. As a result, Hanna’s team can spend more time with customers addressing high-level strategic needs.

“Our clients are also benefiting from earlier risk detection and quicker resolutions,” she added. “Across the board, it’s met expectations as a force multiplier but never as a replacement for human touch. We’re optimistic that we’ll continue to find additional ways we can integrate AI to ensure we’re meeting and exceeding our clients’ evolving needs.”

Marketing Mastery

It was around the time when large language models—a type of machine learning model designed for natural language processing tasks such as language generation—began to gain traction that Chris Williams set down the AI path. The director of marketing for Denver-based All Copy Products (ACP) wanted to see exactly what AI could do for him and ACP. Starting from the ground floor, Williams and his marketing team scaled to the point where AI is woven into the fabric of everything ACP does from a marketing standpoint—task automation, utilizing AI agents, SEO optimization, competitor research, content and image generation.

The results have been dramatic. AI saves the department upwards of 30 to 40 hours per week. ACP employs a lean marketing crew, thus the technology has enabled it to do a lot more with less. It was exactly what Williams had hoped and intended.

“My personal conviction is, if you don’t adopt early, you’re going to be left behind,” he said. “I see AI being a pivotal shift in not just marketing but everything we do.”

ACP isn’t monogamous when it comes to AI technologies, leveraging varied platforms and programs that offer it. Williams advocates taking the time to discover what certain applications can or can’t do and identifying the proper use cases for it in order to find the most tailored fit for a dealer’s needs, be they in marketing or other departments.

As content generation is something of a cornerstone application for marketing, Williams set out to bolster some older blog posts that had done little in gaining traction, views or impressions. As these pieces hadn’t achieved their objective, he fed them into AI for a content rewrite, complete with new internal links and back links, and updated the blogs on ACP’s website. These refreshes led to a solid boost in relevance and increased traffic. From there, it snowballed and truly delivered on marketing’s needs.

“We’re able to do more. We’re able to search the web, update information, and generate images and video as the models evolve and get better,” he said.

My personal conviction is, if you don’t adopt early, you’re going to be left behind. I see AI being a pivotal shift in not just marketing but everything we do.

– Chris Williams, All Copy Products

Williams was also in the process of building a new website for ACP’s Verticomm IT company. The images and content are both AI generated, with the latter getting some editing touchups. Learning how to work with specific AI models is important, as they’re all unique in some aspects. By feeding it relevant information and learning how to prompt correctly, Williams believes the results can be very good.

The “smarter” AI becomes (or more conditioned to the information and prompts), the machine learning makes it progressively easier for ACP’s marketing team to create content ready for publishing. At the outset, AI-generated content was about 50% ready, which provided an outline or a starting point for the team.

“As it’s gotten smarter and added more capabilities, it can take on and do a lot more than that on its own,” Williams said. “Right now, with our SEO and content generation, I have a workflow built out where it does 90% on its own. Then I’ll just do a final check before I publish it.”