Conferences like Digital Dealer Conference & Expo and National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) give dealers the chance to witness & discuss industry innovation, and I was happy to attend Digital Dealer last week in Las Vegas. Below are themes that stood out to me most last week!

• Artificial Intelligence
• Electric Vehicles
• Google Analytics (GA4)

AI in Dealerships

Big money is going into automotive AI. Numa just raised $32M to automate service appointments. Impel reportedly raised $100M+ to hyper personalize customer experiences. Both companies had large booths at Digital Dealer.

My thoughts on AI in Automotive

The AI movement is still in the first inning for automotive, and it spells significant disruption and profit opportunities for savvy operators.

Here are a few 1-sentence ideas for how dealerships will leverage AI to grow their profitability, efficiency, and customer experience:

• An AI-powered BDC agent that works 24 hours a day, setting appointments for sales staff to convert.
• An in-house AI-powered EV specialist who answers all questions about battery chemistry, range, charging, affordability, and utilities in seconds at a VIN-specific level.
• Wearables or sales companions that train automotive sales professionals, record conversations, and suggest improvements.
• AI-driven service appointment reminders and status updates to keep customers informed on when their vehicle will be ready for service or pickup.

AI offers dealerships a powerful way to enhance customer experience and communication without increasing headcount—turning this technology into a major profit-driver. Over the next 10+ years, watch for AI-empowered-operators to outperform traditional operators.

In the next decade, dealerships that fail to embrace AI won’t just be playing catch-up—they’ll be out of the game altogether. This is not just a trend; it's the new competitive standard. The same goes for EVs.

EV Improvements for Dealerships

This year at Digital Dealer, general EV-sentiment was positive. Many dealers in attendance see EVs as opportunities to gain market share against pessimistic competitors. My company, Lectrium , exhibited our EVDP marketing and sales technology for new & used EVs.

Lectrium helps dealerships overcome affordability and range objections with our EV Savings Badge and EV Range Map. We are very pleased that multiple dealerships signed up for the EVDP Bundle on the floor during Digital Dealer, and we hope many more choose to partner with Lectrium moving forward!

VDPs were originally built to sell Gas cars! To properly market and sell EVs, major upgrades are needed. See our upgrade for yourself by booking a demo with me here!

Building a healthy EV division is all about turning units quickly, and building value in the cars to protect gross profit. Soon 10% of all new cars sold in the USA will be electric!

New. Used. Electric. Measure separately so you can improve!

Should we do an “Electric Avenue” for conferences going forward? Imagine if all EV-focused vendors were in an all-in-one section of a conference hall, so dealers who want to sell EVs can find all possible ways to gain an edge! This year, we were near our friends from URBAN-X BMW + MINI innovation program, vsNEW!

Google Analytics (GA4) with our friends

Google Analytics experts like George Nenni , Dave Spannhake , and Joe Leano paved the way with informative presentations about GA4 and Automotive Standards Council (ASC).

From setting up ASC events on Gallery engagements (shoutout to Joe Pistell), to ensuring Google Business Profiles are accurate and showing the proper hours (Tiffany Colato from The Niello Company), these sessions covered it all.

Google plays a crucial role in dealership operations, but it shouldn't be fully trusted. That's why Dave's comments on 'Negatives can be Positives' when setting up negative keywords for Google Ads campaigns really resonated with me!

For vendors like Lectrium, it is super key to push events into dealer GA4 accounts. You can only improve what you can measure!

Bonus Content

Great session from George Nenni on setting up ASC events through GA4.

Insights from awesome leader Dennis Gingrich on cooperation vs competition with 3rd party listing websites.

Keynote from April Simmons, Kevin Frye, and "Big" Al discussing AI, EVs and GA4. This was an extremely informative session from dealers in varying parts of the country who are innovating rapidly around AI. I would love to discuss EV strategy with them more deeply.

Big crowd at Digital Dealer in the Keynote Hall.

Send me an email Peter@lectrium.io to discuss EV strategy & tools at your dealership or Automotive Group. Enjoy October! Go Guardians!!!