The Dealer Playbook

Ep. 657 - Human First, AI Fast: The New Sales Formula, with Kyle Mountsier

• Michael Cirillo

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In this episode I’m hanging out in person with my good friend Kyle Mountsier—COO at ASOTU (Automotive State of the Union), we talk about everything from AI implementation in dealerships to the real reason human connection is the most valuable currency in retail auto.

We’re recording this one in person from New York City, floor-sitting style (yep, you read that right)—and it’s one of the most candid, dynamic convos I’ve had.

We dive into:

  • How to responsibly integrate AI into your dealership without breaking trust or compliance.
  • Why most dealers are thinking about AI all wrong—and what to do instead.
  • The importance of internal GPT models and why uploading your P&Ls might be the smartest move you make this year.
  • The shift from hours worked → problems solved, and what that means for your business.
  • Why connection is the real ROI (and always has been).
  • A sneak peek at ASOTUCON and why it’s more than just another auto event—it’s where the others gather.

There’s a lot of noise out there about AI, digital retail, and operational efficiency—but very few voices are cutting through with the clarity, care, and conviction that Kyle brings to the table.

If you’ve ever wondered how to blend emerging tech with real human moments in the dealership, this conversation will give you clarity (and maybe even a few goosebumps).

Grab your ASOTUCON tickets here: https://www.asotucon.com/

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MC:

This episode is brought to you by FlexDealer. Hey, welcome to this episode of the Dealer Playbook Podcast. You're probably wondering, if you're watching this, what the heck are they sitting on the floor? The answer is yes, I'm here with Kyle Mountseer. He is the Chief Operating Officer at Automotive State of the Union. More than cars, hey man, hey, what's going on? What's up? Dude Just sitting here. Look at this Big backdrop. How epic it's dope. I love any time I get to do these in person because the dynamic changes like you sitting on the floor.

kyle:

I feel like if I'm in my office doing a podcast, you have to be a certain way. You know it's like I have to because they can only see the right thing.

MC:

You know, and like sit up straight and yeah, we're like you know what we were talking about how we're getting old and our lower backs hurt. I'm like I need to sit down somewhere now. So bad, oh man. Um, we're here in new york city. We're at the new york auto forum, power NADA. There's a room full of car dealers over there. We're talking about tariffs and they're talking about all these things that are happening at time of recording.

MC:

I don't want to talk to you about any of that stuff. That's fine, things that intrigue me about you. You're like. Enough about me, let's talk about you. What do you think about me? Predominantly about tech. I mean, when it comes to technology and tech use or integration in our space, you're one of the first names that come to my mind and I want to talk to you about the landscape and retail automotive. Right now. There's so much technology out there. We're talking about large language models. Now we're talking about how can we deploy that inside of our dealership ecosystem? Everybody's got an AI solution, but you'll message me. It'll be like 9.30 at night. You'll message me and be like just trained another GPT to do the da-ba-ba-ba-ba. Yeah, from your vantage point, how should dealers be thinking about artificial intelligence use in their day-to-day operation and what are maybe some cool things you've discovered that could be really cool for them.

kyle:

Well, the first thing that I would say is be a bit careful, right, like, be mindful that you you can't just throw anything at it. Right, I was uh, it was. It was actually funny I was my wife and I. She's gotten into GPT and she doesn't have a paid account yet and she's like uploading photos of our kids and like having it transformed. I was like you know what that's maybe not like, cause we don't put our kids on social and stuff like that. It was like anything that you wouldn't want if you wouldn't want to upload it and put it on social media. You don't just want to throw it into a GPT, right, right, because, especially when it comes to customer data or or even your business data at this point, like, you want to make sure that you have, like protocols for how your company is downloading, accessing, uploading data to be utilized by these models.

kyle:

Um, you know that, obviously, if you have paid accounts, there are, you know, securities around that, right, um, outside of understanding the care that it takes to use big tech like this, integrated into everything, right, literally everything from like how should I landscape the front of the dealership to how do I coach and train someone, that you're struggling with. You know, you know there's there's a lot of like it's it's trained on. So much data around just personal behavior, so why wouldn't you start thinking about oh, I've got personnel challenges. This is what I've been dealing with. This is why I've been dealing with it. This is how they're interacting with the rest of the team. How do I, how do I engage that person in a better way?

kyle:

Um, to tech things, to to figuring out, to figuring out data, to moving data around and being able to understand it. I think, like that's the first place that you want to start, because that actually gives you the education on how to use it in business interactions. Right, what questions to ask when you're on the phone with that prospective vendor partner, when you're, uh, you know, when you're looking at that new technology? Because, um, you know, there are new models, new ai things coming out literally every single day on the internet, and so you can't just consume it, you have to be an active participant isn't it interesting too, I mean.

MC:

So it brings up a compliancy issue as well. I know I mean at a soducom there's a lot of always a lot of talk around compliance and the legality of that and we'll talk about con in a minute. But the caution that you're bringing up, yeah, it's very real. Um, and then on the flip side, like you said, being intentional with it, the data analysis thing is really interesting to me. I'm maybe slower to the punch than some, though I think I'm still in the early adopter group. Um, the new projects that you can build inside a gpt and upload your own files, like why wouldn't, why wouldn't we, at this stage in the game, be uploading years worth of data? Absolutely, you know, and asking it I mean at a minimum.

kyle:

Yeah, all of like create a gpt that's only owned internally. Create, like it's a new 20 cost that you need to have for every single employee on an on an enterprise team's plan so that they have access to something that has guardrails around it. And then you should create a GPT that can only be used by that team, which has all of your employee documentations, all of your SOPs, all of your manuals, everything that they would need to know, and make sure that it can answer questions about your organization on how things are done Right, and make sure that it can answer questions about your organization on how things are done Right. And then you should be uploading your statements and your P&L, everything like that, all of your anything that you have as far as analytics into another GPT that only your leadership team has access to, that they can see trends, watch for trends, understand what may or may not be coming, pin that up against. Okay, if tariffs are going to do this, what should my business be doing to react to? How do I?

kyle:

When we saw the last downturn in the market, what happened best? Oh, we were selling more of these vehicles than these vehicles. That's what you need to stock your used car inventory with. It can make those broad analysis If you have anyone on your team. Actually, just literally yesterday, at time of recording, gpt came out with their new 1 million context window, which is still smaller than Gemini's 2 million context window, which context just means like the number of units that it can consume and understand and spit out data with. But when you think about a 1 million context window and its ability to understand broad data sets and then spit you back things, if you have someone that can utilize the API to like, deliver and return information on your team, if you're a growing group or something like that with a tech team, you should be looking into utilizing the API and not just the dashboard, because the insights that you can gain with that much context and that much ability to process large data is something you would need a data science that's on your team for.

MC:

Right. How do you reconcile against the very legitimate fear that people have in it replacing their jobs? Hey, does your marketing agency suck? Listen, before we hop back into this episode. I know you know me as the host of the Dealer Playbook, but did you also know that I'm the CEO of FlexDealer, an agency that's helping dealers capture better quality leads from local SEO and hyper-targeted ads that convert? So if you want to sell more cars and finally have a partner that's in it with you that doesn't suck, visit flexdealercom. Let's hop back into this episode.

kyle:

Yeah, I guess if you have that fear, it's because you haven't used it. I don't have that fear for anything that I do, even anything that I function with in, because you still need someone. It's. It's like, for instance, you have, um, you know, we've been talking about cdps for the last few years. Yeah, and a cdp is only as good as the person that asks it for a segment Right, right, yep, and the same. The same is true with AI. Like, until AGI happens, which they've said 2025, I'm now feeling that there's no way that that's going to happen Until an agent is creating net new theses on its own, without the need for prompting.

kyle:

Right, we will need human interaction to get out of this tool what we want. Right To request of it activity, um, and, and the people that are using it the most are going to be the ones that that win with it. Right, like you're, the pace of your business will pick up. The pace of your analysis of that business will pick up. Your ability to make moves quicker with your team. Will will be wild. Right, we've been doing some, like you know, internally at a soda. We've actually been. I have a project built all around how our team works together and what team is doing what, and just even in like, oh, we should hand this portion of this project to this person because of the expertise, the skills that they may or may not have, and that's something that sometimes you just wouldn't even see, that because you're so in the weeds.

MC:

Yeah, it's really interesting. Sometimes you just wouldn't even see that because you're so in the weeds. Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean it does highlight the human element of technology, which is that, especially in retail auto people, our inherent desire is to have the approval and or comfort or trust of another human being. Right, and so, even like to your point, the cusp of using the technology just gets us to a place where we can have human interaction faster or more effectively.

MC:

Yes, and I think that's really an important aspect, especially for those that are listening or watching and they're really legitimately concerned about man. This is going to take over what I do. Concerned about man, this is going to take over what I do. I would say use it more, like you said, and go all in and learning how to interact with other human beings. I was just in Canada visiting my family and we had this conversation about how human interaction is actually dwindling One's ability to interact with another human being is, and so leaning into that and, like you said, leveraging the technology to help you understand people more effectively, I mean the cues that you'd be able to pick up on from that, versus having to figure it all out with your own instinct or or whatever is, is mind-boggling to me.

kyle:

Yeah, Well, and also not just that. But if you can be diligent enough and the and this is any person's problem time management but if you can be diligent enough to, when you are working in the technology, be very specific about what you need and want out of it, it will expedite that portion of your day and free up the times that you have to spend in interpersonal connection, Right? So if you can think about technology in any of its cases as freeing up your capacity in your day to interact in interpersonal situations, it's really kind of like a life-giving thing instead of a time, instead of a time sucker, of a time sucker, a life suck that's probably the thing that worries people most about.

MC:

It is, I feel like we're coming out of an era where you got paid predicated on, or your value was predicated upon, the hours it took to diagnose and to do the fix, and now we're moving into an era where it's going to be like volume of fix, like volume of human interaction, volume of you know plumber, you know, doesn't make their money off of diagnosing the problem anymore that it's just like fix, fix, fix. How many problem? How many fixes can I deploy in a day? All my values can be on that in a dealership. It's how many inner human or interpersonal fixes can I do not how long it takes them to-.

kyle:

Okay, so go to the plumber. Actually, I think it's a great representation. A couple of weeks ago, paul was telling me he used GPT and photos of his dishwasher to fix it. Right. When solving the problem becomes ubiquitous, yes, right, whatever the problem may be, right, whether it's your dishwasher or a math problem or a business results. When that becomes ubiquitous, what's the differentiator? The persona, right. And the persona is how you keep retention. Because if everybody can fix it, if everybody can do it, if everybody can solve it, the persona behind that fix becomes all that more important. And I've been saying for years the single greatest value proposition of the automotive industry, of the retail automotive industry, is its people. It's people and we actually get the opportunity to go. Oh, it's ubiquitous to sell a car quickly. It's ubiquitous to sell a car at a price point that makes sense for a customer. It's fast, easy, online. Whatever the value prop may be, that is now table stakes. Yeah, you now change the table stakes to like yeah, but my people can X, right.

MC:

This is the part of the show where I break the fourth wall and I stare at you. Who is watching this right now? And I have to admit as much as the Italian in me doesn't want to admit somebody else is right. Gary Vaynerchuk was right all these years, no-transcript. And then you have all these beach body coaches and it's like well, how is there room for all of them?

kyle:

it's like you said it's a connection. It's a connection to someone and, yeah, I think people will be starved for connections. It's similar to coming out of the pandemic, right, we became starved for connection. All of a sudden, you see people headed back to malls. You see people headed back to theme parks. You see people headed back to coffee shops. Starbucks begins rebranding their ability to have people in the shop because people become starved for connection. We're going to continue to be starved for connection because the basic human desire is human connection, right, right. And we forget that. We've run to social media. We're like, no, we don't need and we don't need face-to-face connection. We forget that we go back. Actually, we've been talking a lot about podcasts. We're sitting here doing this in person. We've been talking about making more of our podcasts move back to in person, because people are craving what it feels like to be in person and the more we allow AI to creep in, people will go back and crave what does it feel like to be in person?

MC:

This won't make any sense at all and somehow I like the way it sounds in my head. But it's like connection is the new commerce, even though it was the commerce all along. But it's like people have kind of gone so far away of like, no, it's digital retail, it's buy the thing online without human interaction. It's like no, it's actually always been about connection, but especially now for the new generation coming up, it's it's the new connection.

kyle:

If you don't know a Gen Zer and you think that connection isn't the thing, you're crazy. I mean these kids. I'm telling you, these kids are taking trips together to vacations like it's 1993 again. Yeah, I'm telling you, it's like Jersey Shore. It's like these kids, you know, it's like these kids are there. They have figured out that being together is good.

MC:

Yeah, I want to talk to you about a Soyou-kun because, speaking of being together, yeah, being together oh, you're so good at the segues, oh, I need. Every time he does a segue and I'm talking to Nathan now off camera here it's like every time he does a segue, I'm like I wish I had segues. He's got segues for days. That needs to be on a shirt. Speaking of that, speaking of connection and a Soducon I mean those listening.

MC:

I want to just pause here for a minute. I want to talk to you about a Soducon, but I want to just point out how we just created a throughput from technology to human connection and how that builds your business. And something that always stands out to me about a SoduCon is it's the only event that I've been to that creates throughputs like that. Yeah, it's where there's like aha moments going on in the room. I want to talk to you. Obviously, you've been responsible for putting these things together, you and Paul, since day one. A Sotocon's coming up. What can those that are thinking about attending, or those that are attending, what can they expect from this? What do you think they'll learn? Or what are you excited about? We'll?

kyle:

expect to find the others. When I say the others, like other people that you all of a sudden recognize like man. There's way more people that believe a certain thing that I, that I couldn't put my finger on right, that I couldn't like really articulate, and now that I'm with these people, I can articulate. You know, we wear the shirts, love people more than they love cars, for a reason and like I'm a nerd, I mean, and we can go on AI, we could go on. It doesn't matter, you give me a nerd topic and I'm going, but when it comes to this, it's know, ai in the finance office, or building an analytics tech platform, or robotics, or whatever it may be that, if you know, if you can begin and end with why, which you know, paul and myself big, you know Simon Sinek fans, and we've I've been talking about that since 2009, when I first saw the the his video Um, but there's a real core belief there, and so what happens is you can actually better explain your position, you can better explain the personas around that position, and then you can come back with a real thesis to the store as to why, and not just what. You're not just like plugging in a new idea because you heard it and it was just off a whim, or you're not plugging in some new technology because it's like well, someone told me it made them 20 extra dollars last month. You know it's like no, because if we do this we can connect to people, or we can connect to each other, or we can be better employees or better, better community servants or whatever it may be better community servants or whatever it may be.

kyle:

And that will, speaking of the Gen Z, that any new generation, that just if you haven't been following any new generation that comes into the buying power, right, so that 21, 22 year old age, any new generation that enters the buying power, they are the influential generation when it comes to technology and human interaction. Right, every like 50 year old generation would like to believe they are, but they always assume the position right. You go back to millennials, you go back to baby boomers. The position is always assumed on that. So if you think about that Gen Zer, you know they are value vision driven, and so when you go back to your stores and you're talking to those new hires about why you're plugging in the new CRM or why you're plugging in the new digital retailing, you get to explain it from a position of why instead of a position of what, and demanding, and instead you'll be inspiring. That position is felt and communicated throughout the event, so that you don't have to like come up with it out of thin air for yourself. Yeah, powerful.

MC:

It's going to be May 13th to the 16th. That's it Coming up Baltimore, maryland. You have to be there, go to asotuconcom where you can register, you can get tickets and you want to do them now. I mean, hotel is selling out fast, tickets are selling out fast. You got to be in the room where it all comes together, where connection happens. Kyle man, thanks so much for joining me on the pod. They're always fun. Hey, thanks for listening to the dealer playbook podcast. If you enjoyed tuning in, please subscribe, share and hit that like button. You can also join us and the dpb community on social media. Check back next week for a new Dealer Playbook episode. Thanks so much for joining.

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Michael Cirillo

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