The Evolution of Future Integrators

Chris Rockwell sits down with Gifton Gammon, Senior Director of Experience at Sonic Automotive, to explore what it means to become a "future integrator”, connecting human understanding, business strategy, and emerging technology to navigate an increasingly complex world.
Drawing on her experience leading UX and CX at one of the largest automotive retailers in the US and fresh insights from South by Southwest, Gifton shares her perspective on AI, innovation, mobility, and the evolving role of experience leaders. Together, Chris and Gifton discuss anticipatory design, human-centered leadership, and why deeply understanding humans may now be one of the most important competitive advantages in an AI-driven world.

Transcript

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Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to Seriously Curious, a podcast, all things user experience for business strategy and design. I'm Chris Rockwell, I'm founder and president of Lextant. And today I'm super excited to have Gifton Gammon on from Sonic Automotive. She heads up user experience for all things for their dealership networks. And so I'm really excited to hear more about the business and the kind of work that she's doing there at Sonic automotive Gifton, thanks so much for being here. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk about all things human behavior and get into it, so. Yeah. Yeah. So today we're going to talk a little bit about what Gifton has been coined future integration. So what does it mean for UX and CX practitioners to become future integrators. And that is how do we look forward and use insights not only to inform design, but to really impact business growth and business results? And it requires a little more broader thinking and a little more business sensitivity. So I'm super excited to get into that today with Gifton, Gifton you're fresh off a trip to South by Southwest. I'm really excited to hear how that went. And you know, what are the big ideas that you learned from South by Southwest? Yeah, so I had the opportunity to go to South by Southwest with my entire team. So we like to take some time and spend a little bit of heads down time on innovation, on future thinking. You know, sometimes we can get so in the weeds that we're heads down and we're missing what's going on in the world around us. And technology is moving so fast. Things are changing so quickly. Especially it feels like nowadays, in the past, maybe a year or so, it's just exponential. So it's really important for us to set aside that time. And yeah, South by Southwest, it's really it's so much information. It's very fast. There's lots of great speakers. I always love Amy Webb. She's a great speaker. So and she's a futurist. So it kind of connects to some of the things that we're talking about today. That's her profession is, you know, she looks at how things are starting to converge and come together. One big topic that she brought up was just just the fact that we can no longer rely on trends in business, right? Like things aren't as linear as they used to be, and it's really starting to be more of convergence of ideas over time or a couple convergences happening at the same time, which I think is really fascinating. So to circle back to what you said was the whole point of our podcast, but I think that's that's what we're great at, right? We're really great at connecting the dots, at understanding how dots come together and converge, and how human behavior kind of responds to those things. Yeah. So so that was really encouraging. Of course, AI was a big topic as as it is in every single article and LinkedIn post and anywhere. If you're if you're breathing, everybody's talking about AI right now. Yeah. And so that was a big topic, a lot of more in-person workshops and trying to kind of figure out how to utilize some of these tools. And what does it mean for our how we work and how we do our work within our organizations. So I think one of the biggest takeaways was we're all still figuring it out together. Yeah. So any other big ideas or ah ha moments that you came away like something was like, oh, I didn't that changed your thinking or or gave you a new perspective? There was one talk that I was able to go to, super fascinating of where they are testing out this kind of human centered way of of doing business and designing a whole city. So it was really fascinating to me. There's a couple blocks in Atlanta that basically have come open to where, you know, they were able to buy it as a whole unit, and they're really experimenting with different ways of living and working and all this. And so that was a really interesting idea to be able to test something at that amount of scale. So for me, I'm thinking kind of, you know, around these ideas is, you know, how how does this start to evolve all these ways that we work that's natural to us, right? I think it's starting to become more and more mainstream, and people are more and more open to how do we evolve, how we live and work around humans, because there's there's going to be plenty of technology to go around as AI is ramped up. But the human is still at the center. So Smart Cities is really an interesting topic. There's some of that happening here in central Ohio as well, where we're, you know, looking at sensors in stoplights and street lamps and things like that, building micromobility hubs. And it's really about how we're growing as a future community. And what does it really mean to to sort of build a new way to live? And so I love the fact, though, that, you know, it has to be human centered to be successful. I think that's the the thing that always amazes me about discussions around AI. And maybe it's ironic, but humans are the key to success for AI. You know, when you think about it, has to add value, has to sort of collaborate and be a copilot in the future kind of experiences we'll have so excited to hear more about that as that evolves, especially in your industry. You know, when you think about how people buy vehicles or how they experience mobility, it's going to be so key to the future of mobility. So let's talk about that for a second. You’re senior director of experience at Sonic Automotive. Tell me a little bit about that. What's your role. Tell me maybe a little bit about the business itself and how does it succeed and compete and why A focus on some of the recent focus on digital experiences in AI are so important to that? Yeah. So as far as my role within Sonic, I came on about five years ago, and I really look at it as it's my job to bring clarity around our customers, right? We do a lot of of customer research and understanding. And then the second thing that I do is try to help the business understand the ripple effects of its decisions, right. A lot of times decisions are made and it trickles down to different departments or ultimately the customer. And there's not this understanding of how it breaks the experience or causes a lot of workarounds for teammates, those types of things. And then the third thing is helping them understand the reality of their day to day operations in their stores. So we do a lot of digital experience, but also we make sure that we weave in the physical experience. So Sonic Automotive is the one of the largest retailers in the US. We have a franchise side of the business and a used car side of the business. It’s kind of our baby Echo Park. It's our brand, we own it. We've spent a lot of time and energy making that a great experience for guests. There's no haggling. The price is up front. We have experience guides, so they kind of walk you through the process. So a really heavy focus on being very personal with our guests, on delighting our guests, giving them a great experience with car buying and making it feel like it's a partnership versus I'm a salesperson, which is kind of the traditional model. So I'd say, you know, Sonic stands out in general for being one of the few that even has a department like mine within the auto industry. A lot of the big OEMs are starting to have more user experience departments, but it's fairly new. It's it's not has not been a normal within this industry. So yeah, Yeah. The car buying experience hasn't evolved very much. It seems like in the last maybe 30 years there's more digital tools here and there. But I think the experience is very, you know, it hasn't evolved as much from a human standpoint, you know. So let's talk a little bit about about that. So, you know, 39% of us adults in the US are considering a purchase, 83% are considering that within the year. But affordability is an issue. EVs are oversupplied. Buyers expect a more friendly, digitally connected, you know, omnichannel kind of experience. How are you? How are you kind of facing that, you know, in that kind of complex process? What's what's Sonic Automotive doing to try to differentiate and stay ahead? Yeah, I think Sonic Automotive has a great differentiator as far as our size. We have a lot of inventory that's available to customers across the US, so we're fairly large. We can leverage that, but that only goes so far if you don't have other parts of the experience that facilitate people being able to find what they need to match it with their needs, all these other functionalities that go into it. Again, talking about integrating that right, having a lot of inventory is great, but it's only if people can actually find it and find it valuable for their needs. So there's there's a lot of heavy lifting and work going on behind the scenes right now to prepare us more for the future, to utilize AI and different tools so that we can start to really have that more of that interconnected, seamless experience for our customers, which is what they want, right? They want to be able to, you know, purchase and do different parts of the journey and experience it wherever they are. So we've noted and understand that our customers are very unique. Every customer is very unique in how they want the car buying process to go for them. And Sonic understands that at a deep level. And I think, like I said, having a department like mine in the first place in the auto industry, they put a lot of time and energy into making sure that we're listening to our customers and that we're acting on that for them. Yeah. So and it's not just the buying experience, right? It's the ownership. It's servicing. You affect soo much of what it means to sort of own and maintain and you know, and evolve, you know, your mobility experiences as an individual or as a family. So interesting complexity in all that that happens over time. You've mentioned in some of our discussions about the idea of kind of future casting and understanding, you know, what's coming in the future. How do you do that? You know, we talk as human centered design. You know, we're always understanding sort of current experiences and how do we remove impediments and facilitate, you know, emotional and functional benefits and things like that. But like you say, when we talked about South by Southwest, the the idea of it can't be about trends. Trends by definition kind of go away. Right? We need more permanent understanding of the future. So how do you how do you do that? How do you skate to the puck. You know. Yeah I think most organizations are swimming in data. A lot of them are. Some of it's good data. Some of it's not so good data, depending on how clean that is. And if you have really great data scientists, which are some of our favorite people to work with. Yeah, but data is historical information, right? And so in order to project that to the future, you need to understand something about how humans operate, right? How what their needs are, how they'll react in the market to certain things. And usually someone in the experience industry is deeply integrated into that, right? They've spent their entire career understanding how people respond to things. So we're able to take a look at things like the market economics, you know, everything that's going on, political realm, all of these things. And that comes into play a lot with with auto, right, especially the political realm. It's been very interesting to see that come, come into play, being in the auto space for five years. But there's so much that is shifting and changing. But then when we bring that all together, and then we can also apply how people typically respond and then try to look at the future. Not saying that we're it's we're forecasting or we're we're imagining, right. It's very grounded. Imagine imagination in reality, in what we know about people, as well as the data and understanding about our industry in particular. So, yeah. What does it mean to sort of be, you know, take a human in the loop approach to that, like, how do we begin to get ahead of today? So we're not just designing the same experience today, but we're really leapfrogging, using a human in the loop kind of approach. What are the ways that, you know, what are the kind of approaches you're using to get ahead and see see further? Yeah, especially in the auto industry. We've had a lot of software. We talked about digital transformation a little bit. And there's. I feel like there's can be a spectrum of definitions to that. Right. What is digital transformation. And I think in the auto space historically it's been digital transformation is I plugged in a new tool and we have a new capability. Right. But there's not a lot of wider understanding of the effects of that or the holistic experience, how it all comes together. Yeah. So let's let's talk a little bit more about human in the loop. How do we see into the future and see further, you know, so for example, in some of our work together, even, you know, we've looked at how do we use co-creation to understand like life level mobility, you know, what do people really need from the things that that move them? And how do we then take that need, those emotional and functional things that they seek and kind of build that into a customer journey? So we're always delivering more aspirational kind of experience as opposed to a more sort of tactical sell a product experience. Right. So tell me a little bit about that. And what does it mean to really see into the future? Yeah, I love that you brought up co-creation. It's something that we're exploring a good bit, especially with AI coming into play. No one really knows how people want AI to show up within the experience, if we're honest with ourselves. Right? One of our superpowers being in the experience industry is we're able to not just troubleshoot tools that exist or, you know, troubleshoot experiences that we are all used to previously. Like we can start to creative creatively, problem solve, and start to build out future experiences based on, you know, bringing all of those dots together, right? And projecting what might be valued, what might be a desirable experience, and then test that out with real people. So so we're able to not just troubleshoot new ideas, but we're able to actually like carve them out and create possibilities and then test them to see if it's if it's real. Right. Should we put the money behind this before before we go off and we build something that no one really values or it finds useful at all? So yeah, I love the idea of projecting people into future and seeing if it's an experience that they want to have, a future they want to have, you know, as a way, it is a in the same way that co-creation is a stimulus based approach to get people to sort of describe the experiences they have and they want to have. You can use other kinds of stimulus, future storyboarding videos, other kinds of things to project people into the future and begin to get a sense for what are the what are the things that resonate with them, and where are the disconnects. And I think you mentioned in one of our calls that Lowe's had had taken some unique approaches to bringing in, like sci fi writers, even to sort of to push their, their, their creativity or what's possible even further. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah, Lowe's is headquarters headquartered out of Charlotte, and so I'm involved pretty heavily involved in the experience space here as far as community. And that was one thing that was mentioned at a meetup that I was at. There was a Lowe's, a Lowe's manager that was speaking on new and innovative ways that they're trying to push the push the boundaries. And so hiring people that are sci fi writers that this is this is what their brains are tuned to do, right, is to imagine the future and to try to put that into reality, into real words on a page or visuals or whatever. And so hiring those people to be able to create those visuals of what a future experience could be, and then trying to understand how they might build a roadmap towards that. It's really, really fascinating. It's not it's not a net new practice technically. If you look back at at Apple in its younger days. I love this story. I don't know if you're familiar with the navigator video that was done, but very similar, right? They put this video together in two weeks and none of it was real. It was all like, what would the experience be like if it was basically AI at the time? And this was, I want to say, 1990 or around there whenever they created this video, just for it was a it was a conference just to to kind of try to carve out some of that educational space, which was like prime, you know, business at that point for computers. So, so being able to visualize that, help people see. I think that's one of our superpowers, too, is is I think there's people that are able to kind of imagine these things and see them in their brain, and there's people that struggle with that. And so I think we can we have the ability to help people see. And because of that, it became Apple's roadmap for the next couple decades because everybody was like, yes, this is what we want to do. So it has a beautiful way to to align people also. I, you know, sometimes we talk about our profession being a combination of art and science. You know, it has to be creative. We have to engage people in creative ways, and we have to think creatively about what the future can be like. That's what I love about being in strategy and design, but it also has to be done in such a way that with a real, consistent acknowledgment about how do we understand and learn people in a in a systematic way. Right. So it's not science fiction, it's more like science faction for me anyway. And the other thing to, you know, as as future integrators, we have to really understand how businesses can apply that. Right? It's it's fun to think about the future, but it has to be something that the business can actually do and the business can activate. And so talk a little bit about that. Maybe, you know, how how you, you and your team in your work stay really grounded on business results. So you're helping align a team to a future that can actually, you know, be real, become real. Yeah, there's a lot of work that happens between dreaming big and executing well. There's a lot of work, a lot of heavy lifting. There's a lot of alignment that you have to get. There's a lot of just understanding how much this is going to cost to be able to create this wonderful dream that you have. What practically can we deliver first, second, third, all those things. So, you know, we have great partners that we work with to help us with those things. But I think as a designer, it helps to be grounded in the business reality. Right. How does your business make money to be able to prototype with numbers? And a lot of people talk about prototyping with numbers, essentially making projections to say, okay, if we made lift here, this is why I love our data science people, right? It's because I'm always reaching out, hey, I have this thing I want to do, and I would love for you to help me project. What would it mean if we were moderately if we moderately lifted our revenue here? Like, what would that look like? You know, year over year. So so I think that helps them understand the brass tacks of what does this mean. Right. Because the dream looks great. We love it. We want to be there. But what does it actually mean to execute it and to to be able to dedicate time and energy and money to it. How long is that going to take and how much is that going to be? That's always going to be something that the business wants to know. But I fully believe there's always a way. Yeah, yeah. It's one of the things I like about taking a value centric approach to co-creation and engagement with with customers, and that if we give them tools to explore the kind of functional and emotional things they seek in the experiences they have and the aspirations they have for their life, then you can connect those to features, right? The things that we're going to give in product or service design, and then how that experience comes to life so you can project into the future in a way you can really see something unique. But but doing it in a way that is concretely based in value, right. Because value creation businesses run on value creation and value delivery. And so if we can connect that work to how businesses add value and grow, then we're really doing our job. I think both understanding people, identifying problems to solve or values to create differentiate in the market, but then do it in a way that we can really help businesses grow. And that's where I think, you know, if if I can say, you know, in our work together over the last five years, I've seen you grow to take more and more responsibilities. And I think it's because you do this so well. You not only give the organization perspective on how we can add value for customers, but you do it in such a way that the businesses can get aligned and it can be activated, because we have to do both. And I think it's one of the it's kind of one of the challenges for, you know, folks in this profession is that sometimes I think we fall on our sword around, you know, sort of a human experience thing that we think is super important. But we've forgotten to talk about how we're going to connect that to how the business makes good beats. You know, that that will not fly for very long, right? Yeah. And when you were talking, I just kind of made the connection. It's almost like you turn co-creation internal, right? And you work through the process with your stakeholders and your other subject matter experts, and you kind of help that middle process as almost like a co-creation in itself of like, okay, well, how would we make this real? What would this look like? You know, when we truly operationalize this, you know, what are our blind spots? What are we missing? And so yeah, so it kind of made me think it's similar in a way. You know, back when Apple was still first for me, they talked a lot about back casting, which is a way about seeing into the future, but then back casting into today what's possible today. And it's kind of how, if you remember the original innovation maps that Apple had put together, it started with the computer, but then quickly grew into media and other, you know, Apple TV, and you could sort of see how it began to spider out and take more and more presence in people's lives, adding value in all different aspects of of their lives, you know, and somebody said the other day it was like like AirPods could be its own, like monster business, you know, just all by itself, you know, but they've managed to create an ecosystem now that once you're in, you know, you want to stay in. So yeah. So I love that idea of, you know, we skate to the puck by really engaging with people in a human in the loop kind of way. And then we use those insights to create future integration within the business, how we help the businesses align and transform together. And that way you build things that are really doable and you know you're adding value and you're differentiating too, because that way you can leapfrog the competition. You're not miming or mimicking what other organizations are doing. You're really taking, you know, an opportunity to leapfrog the competition and provide something really unique and new. You talked a little bit about. Kind of data overload. And, you know, we see that a lot. And it's kind of like it results in kind of an analysis paralysis. Right. And in fact, sometimes I see organizations so busy gathering data that they don't even know how to interpret the data, how to gain, how to how to turn data into insight or insight into operation, you know, like how do you kind of find the right level of, you know, finding the signal in the noise, I guess. I think it just has to be part of your operating model, so to speak, that it's always something that you're taking in first. You also have to have the right signals identified. I think that's a big that's a big point to make is, you know, there's so, so many signals, but it takes a little bit of nuance and finesse to understand which ones are really important for what you're trying to do. And so that takes, again, a really great data science partner. We love our data scientists, a really great researcher, someone that is phenomenal at going after what we need to learn, what we need to understand, and that can partner with you to create the right, the right research plans and the right way to go about them so that you're also not creating data that's not useful. Right. I have seen plenty of research studies where there's no goal in mind. Right. They don't know exactly what they're going after there. It's I built a study. It's like, well, but what are we trying to learn? What are we. What do we need to know? So I think it's it's being very specific about what you need to know, what you need to understand about the human experience and going after that, having great partners that can partner with you to find that, and then being able to take that and start to interpret it into again, projection like design is in a way like projecting, right? We're creating things that don't exist today. Yeah, absolutely. And so we can project and create based on, you know, vibes. Or we can project and create based on these amazing signals that we have available to us. But I think it does take a really great partnership to be able to distill those insights, really understand them as insights, not just data, and then partnering with them on how to go after that. And then where's the biggest business need also? Right. For for us to take these and to operationalize it. Where is it going to be the most useful for the guest. And that's again understanding the whole customer experience, the whole journey and where it fits best. So it's it's a it's a way of being I guess what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Well we have to form habits around this. This has to be a cultural thing, right? As a business, it can't be like a project that we do. It has to be like the way that we work is to really be human centric, but also to be business centric by knowing how the business makes money, how the business differentiates. So we know whether or not we should take advantage of an opportunity in a particular future area. I mean, there's all sorts of things that could be interesting, important, you know, I think is one thing I always try to to, you know, when I teach and when I work with my team, I'm like, you know, the interesting is, you know, what's interesting is, is fun, but what's important is impactful, you know? So how do we really dial in on that? I think about strategy and design and how businesses grow. It's sort of like the difference between stories of today and stories of the future, right? You think about a story of today about how somebody buys a vehicle, for example, or services a vehicle. We want to really identify in our in our future casting kind of work. Like what's the story of tomorrow? What's the aspirational story that adds more value, that that creates greater customer engagement, that delivers on emotional and functional benefits? If we know that gap is what we need, then then all of our insights programs can really be focused on what do we need to learn, what decision needs to get made and who's going to consume it, that information. And if we know that, then I think we have a high ROI on the kind of the kind of work that we do. You mentioned that one of the jobs of UX and CX professionals is the sort of understand the ripple effects of the things that we do like, or as an organization, if we're going to make this change, what's the ripple effect to the customer experience downstream and in the future? How do you kind of look at that, the impact of decision making and how it impacts the organization? I think it's our responsibility as experienced professionals to help the business understand the ripple effects of their decisions. We can do that a lot through research, through insights, through data being plugged in in those ways and knowing what to look for. We have a wonderful researcher on staff, and he's always kind of bubbling to the top. Different customer feedback and sentiments and, you know, things that he flags to make sure that we understand, like, hey, I'm seeing this. This is a trend. This is a pattern. We should watch this, that sort of thing. And so I think just the fact that we have someone in place that's responsible for those things, we can start to influence the business to say, hey, we don't have to just guess. We don't have to guess and say, well, let's just try it. Maybe it'll work. I don't know, you know, we don't have to guess, like, there's a lot of signals and we can also do preliminary testing before we make a decision so that we can make really powerful decisions and not have these ripple effects that occur. So I think there's an opportunity to help the business, you know, understand that there's a lot more that we can know. We don't have to guess. Yeah. And then also, you know, it's it's courageous patience a lot of times too is sometimes we, you know, we educate and we bubble up those insights. And it's just a decision that's been made. And so then we're it's our responsibility to continue to go after that and to continue to advocate for our guests and the best customer experience, because ultimately that's what's going to make the business more money is when they have happy customers that want to come back. So I love that the war against guessing. I really think a lot of organizations because, I mean, organizations need to move. They can't stand still and they can't wait around for us either, you know? So how do we create a habit or a culture of human in the loop kind of culture where we test new ideas and we're confidently making decisions or helping the business make decisions in a confident way? Yeah, I really think we're talking a lot more these days about it's less about like research, research part of it, but it's really more about decision making. What does a business need to do? What decision needs to get made? Who needs to make it and how do we get ahead of that process. So so we're always creating confident go to market kind of decisions you know and then and then being able to measure you know one of the I think useful data points is how do we measure the effectiveness of our work so that we can continue to refine it. Not only can we build a culture around it, but we can build a system of a continuously improve improving system of insights that help us see into the future. Yeah. Love that. I think you guys are doing an amazing job, and I'm excited about the kind of transformation that can happen in your business. You know, it's big business. And and I think about the difficulties that people still have today going through the process of of understanding what's what's available to them, understanding, you know, the capabilities that new vehicles have. How do you make a good decision for your family that's of high value. Nobody wants to throw away money. Especially, you know, today things are expensive and affordability is a challenge. So I really appreciate the human centered work that Sonic Automotive and you and your team are doing to stay ahead. It's great stuff. I'm excited to see where you go from here too, you know. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. And it's been I think it was an interesting thing that you brought up about the our the vehicles are getting more complex. Right. It's we're now having positions within dealerships where there's geniuses that are a standing position just to help people understand how do I operate this computer essentially, which is wild to me that that it's it's gotten that far. And so then we're also expecting all of our salespeople to fully understand it, be able to train and teach someone on it. It's a whole different skill set. So there's so much complexity. I think that's what I'm a sucker for complex problems. So so I think that's what's really interesting to me about this industry. There's a lot of, you know, complexities to it. There's legal implications. Again, inventory implications and franchise and OEMs all this you know, have to come together in just the right way to make the experience. And so there's there's a lot to navigate to make sure that a customer can have a great experience. I think that I think that auto is going to be even more ripe for disruption in the near future, especially with AI. I think because it's such a complex, highly regulated industry, it's been difficult to do a lot of big transformation just because just trying to move in this space. I think most people are just afraid to touch it because it is so complex from a from an innovation perspective. Right. And I think with, with AI, there's going to be a lot more where we're going to be able to do and to be able to understand about our customers, for sure, but even about the experience and where things are going wrong and where we can really put our efforts. I think it's going to be an amazing tool that helps kind of unlock auto in the future. So you maybe give the audience. An example of how AI might transform our future buying experience. Oh it's interesting. So there was an article recently. You can look it up. I think there's a company out of, I want to say, China or Japan that is creating an AI salesperson, and they are selling that, as you know, the experience in the store that there won't be necessarily a salesperson helping you. It'll be fully AI. So I thought that was really fascinating, especially in auto. I mean, imagine the differentiator that is because because it's hard for people to trust salespeople, right? In general, you know, any kind of salesperson. And so it's also difficult for people to trust AI. But I'm going to be really curious to see if there's more trust for AI versus a salesperson. And what does that mean for our industry going forward? I think it's it's there's going to be some wild things that are going to be brought into play. Some people are going to love, and some people are going to be like, no, that's not for me. Yeah, yeah. I love that idea, though, of unlocking trust in the process. I would, you know, that must be a a significant core value driver for you and for Sonic Automotive. How do we establish and maintain trust at every point in that process? And and how does trust look, feel, speak, and act at every moment in that process such that you feel good about your experience? And I, I think we've done some work with AI as like a health and wellness concierge, you know, like helping people make better decisions. I think the same kind of idea, you know, kind of like your, your auto buying concierge that sort of goes with you and helps you make good decisions so that you, you come away from these are large purchases. You know, these are things that people can't do on a whim. And so, you know, if you had sort of a copilot to go with you to help you make good decisions, and you had good human interactions when you needed them to feel confident, you know, that that you're having a good, sensitive human interaction because trust is an emotional thing, right? Trust and confidence, highly emotional things. You you put trust and confidence in a pool with like with significant financial purchase for for a family or for an individual. You know, it's like that's a soup that can go bad quickly if we don't, if we don't really tend to it and design for it. So I love that, you know, you're taking that approach. I could see AI having a huge sort of you know possible value driver, you know, for that kind of experience. So yeah, I love that. Yeah. And then I also think, you know, the other thing about automotive and really any kind of brand is I always talk about when you purchase something, it's a promise made. And then when you need help with it or you need it service, that's a promise kept, you know. So so there's a lot of that to where doing simple things on the servicing side saying yes, more on the servicing side can build huge customer equity for repeat business and things like that. And that's sometimes I see businesses fall down a little bit on the service side because you know, they’re so, they’re so driven to sell that then they forget about what happens after the sale. And that's really where I think a lot of the value can be had. You know, again, back to the emotional aspects of that experience. So I think it's such a great space to be in. And I'm excited about the kind of work that you're doing to put your customers in the loop, to see into the future, to to really understand what's possible, and then using that insight to really align and drive business. Just I think it's exactly I love your concept of kind of future integrator. I just think it's so it's a great way for us to sort of think a little bit differently about what we do. Yeah. Thanks for that Gifton. And you know, we've had the opportunity to talk a lot about superpowers today. And I like that idea. You know, what are our superpowers as UX and CX leaders. And what we've talked about the importance being able to combine art and science and to be able to project people in the future and align businesses. What you know, what do you think if you were going to advise young people who are coming up, maybe in their profession, to grow and work on superpowers, like what? What ones would you think would be most important for them to develop? We talked a lot about clarity also as our responsibility to we talked about operating models, right. Or just like who we are as people. I think in the experience space, we have that superpower being able to bring clarity to all of these complexities. So having that be something that's at the forefront of who you are. First and foremost, because then you're going to start to look for places that are unclear. And if you've worked in business for any amount of time, there is plenty of spaces where things are unclear. They don't know what decisions to make. They don't know the next step, right? They're not confident even internally. You know, for internally it's an emotional thing, right? There's lack of confidence. And so I think we have that superpower to be able to bring those things together to integrate data. Behavioral science. Right. What we understand about the business, what we understand about where the business is going strategically and connect those dots. And so listen for those spaces where people feel a low confidence or there isn't clarity because they're going to pop up and offer to share your thinking. Right. We're amazing strategic thinkers, and so don't be afraid to share your thinking and to visualize your thinking, because the more you do that, the more you bring clarity, because that's what you're going to do, the more you're going to be invited into those rooms to continue to help bring clarity. Yeah, yeah. Take a user centered process, as you say to your inside your in the walls work as well as the outside the walls right with customers. So I think it's yeah, it makes so much sense. And I think we need to find ways that we can be the glue to sort of integrate and help teams make better decisions, help, you know, and it might not always be the decision we think they should make, but if we can help them in that process, that's okay. You know, it's kind of a bigger, bigger pie mentality, right? We are part of a larger team. So yeah I really appreciate that. And then what about for business people that are trying to get better, business leaders that are trying to grow a business in a real customer centered way, what kind of advice might you have for them? Invest in clarity early. I think there's there's so many decisions made or you go down a path that you never should have went down. But if you spent the time and energy to gain some clarity early, to put things in front of your customers, to work with a great, great companies that do great research, work with people that have the data and the analytics and and kind of do some treasure hunting. Maybe we'll put it that way to, to find out where are people having the most loss of confidence in your process, in your experience, and where can you start to plug those holes? I think it's those insights are everywhere. It's just if you just stop and take a minute, it's worth the investment to take a pause, especially if it's a high risk decision like invest the time and energy into understanding your customers at a deep level. Yeah, yeah, totally. With you on that. I think one of the continuing, you know, growing opportunities for businesses are to create kind of an institutional knowledge of the customer that can be mined over time. And I think too often it's like, well, we have insights, but they're all kind of spread out in email reports and things like that. But we don't have kind of a single place where they come together and help us make better decisions, and then bringing that customer to life within the organization so that, you know, all the team members have to think about their customers. And I've seen that in some different, different ways where people will create like customer experience centers, where you can go and you can host, you can have meetings and make decisions with your the insights of your customers surrounding you, or kind of like, you know, we for one program, we made six foot tall personas. And every time they, you know, somebody got up and went to the lunchroom, they had to walk by their customers. It was just a way. That's amazing! to create more culture around you know, the customer. So it's great. So Gifton this has been an amazing time. Thanks so much for spending your time with us today. We know you're super busy. So I appreciate, you know, the insights you've shared with us and look forward to the success you know, you're going to continue to have with Sonic Automotive and your team, just maybe by way of wrapping up, can you share like 1 or 2 things about people that you've learned in your, you know, in your journey that has really changed the way you think about the kind of work that you do and the impact you have? Yeah, I think in recent years I've worked in industries that are far more kind of digital physical, you know, versus SaaS companies, which are a little or we imagine them as being more totally digital, right? And I think I've grown a great empathy for people having a lot more that they're handling than we understand or know on a day to day basis. Right? It's not so cut and dry as just optimizing something. You know, there's there's a lot more happening in the real world and with real people. That's why I appreciate research so much. And I think that overflows even to my team. Right. There's things that are going on in their day to day lives and and that are affecting their work and how they perform and all of that, and just realizing that we're all carrying more than than we we know. And to have empathy for that in the way that I work and in the way that I lead. Yeah, yeah, I think that's so sharp. I when I was started my career, I remember I was going through a particularly difficult time and one of my coworkers, you know, just acknowledged that, you know, hey, it's it's not like you turn off your life when you get to work. You know, all that. And especially today where the line between work and life is really blurred. Right? Absolutely. So I love that idea of of taking empathetic approach to, you know, the team and what they're doing and what they're capable of. I think that's the other thing is people are capable of so much. If you can empower them, you know, if you can help, help them take a confident step. And I think as a leader that's our job is to, you know, it used to be we did the work, it did all the sort of, you know, rolling up the sleeves kind of work. Now, our work’s changed a little bit where our job is to help other people succeed. And it could be our team or the business or whatever. So that's great. Spot on. Thanks for sharing that. Anything that's inspiring you right now, or that you're, that you and your team are working on right now, that has you focused. You know, this past year, I have really been focused on being more involved in my community. So just at a personal level, what's inspiring me? I've started to work more with small businesses, local businesses and just supporting them, helping them navigate all of the things that go around trying to ramp up a business. And that has been really rewarding just to see these entrepreneurs and how excited they are about starting something new and creating something beautiful for the community. So that's been very inspirational to me. And I think with going going back to AI, I think AI is going to enable people or empower people that maybe would not take a chance on themselves to actually feel confident enough to do so. So I really think we're going to see the rise of the small business, the rise of the entrepreneur and people feeling really confident in being able to take a step out and and do something different. So, really excited about that. And then with my team, of course, we're, you know, exploring and experimenting with AI as all teams are right now. But I think it's been really interesting to kind of shift more into that anticipatory way of designing, right? Trying to anticipate what people are going to want or need and being able to train AI in that way. And it's it's a strange world that we live in, that we're trying to train the AI to be more empathetic, almost more human. But that's why we're, you know, it's important for us to continue to do this work and continue to be involved with AI, especially. Yeah, I really do think of AI as a copilot, an accelerator. You know, I think there's a lot of fear around it. And, you know, it's understandable. But I think the more as human centered designers, you know, and strategists, the more we can think about how AI can be a super charger or a, you know, a copilot, I think that's really where the value is going to come excite. So excited for the future there. So Gifton thanks again so much for spending your time with us today. We know you're super busy, so thanks for your insights. I really enjoyed our session today. I hope you had a good time and I hope you'll come back to our Seriously Curious Podcast. Anytime! I love chatting with you Chris. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah for sure. Tell us where people can get ahold of you if they have questions or want to learn a little bit more LinkedIn or what's the what's the best way to get ahold of you? Yeah, easiest way to get ahold of me is LinkedIn. And I love it when people reach out to me. Honestly, if you have a question, please reach out. I try to answer, you know, as quickly as I can, but I love being able to to coach people and answer questions. So happy to to connect. Yeah. Sounds good. So I hope everyone will take advantage of that. Reach out to Gifton for more on the kind of things we talked about today. And if you want to learn more about how to take customer centered strategy and design for your company further, visit Lextant.com We'd love to to talk to you about where you're at and how we can help your business get to the next level. Thanks again for joining us today on Seriously Curious. Stay tuned for future episodes. We're going to get into the future of retail and how it's changing. We're going to talk about the future of healthcare, and specifically around how patients are taking more control over the of their medicines and their future care. And we're also going to be getting into the future of mobility and some of what's happening with smart cities and smart highways. So I'm glad Gifton that you brought that up earlier today. So stay tuned for future episodes of Seriously Curious. Thank you again. I'm Chris Rockwell from Lextant, Gifton thank you so much for being with us today. Have a good rest day.