Why Connected Systems Matter More Than Ever for Dealers

As AI adoption accelerates and pricing transparency remains under regulatory scrutiny, dealerships face growing pressure to modernize their operations. In this episode, Michael Affronti, Chief Product & Business Officer at DriveCentric, discusses how dealers can navigate evolving compliance expectations while leveraging AI to create more consistent customer experiences.

Affronti explains why operational inconsistencies across websites, CRM systems, sales teams, and F&I departments create some of the industry's biggest compliance risks. He also outlines how responsible AI can help dealerships reduce those gaps by delivering accurate information, maintaining audit trails, and connecting customer data across the organization.

Key discussion points:

• Why pricing transparency remains a priority despite the FTC’s CARS Rule being vacated
• The compliance risks created by disconnected dealership systems and processes
• How AI can improve consistency across customer communications and transactions
• What separates responsible AI from tools that introduce new operational risks
• The importance of unified customer records and connected dealership data
• How dealers can prepare for an AI-native operating model across sales, service, and F&I

Affronti shares practical insights for dealers looking to build compliance-ready operations while improving customer experiences in an increasingly AI-driven retail environment.

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Transcript

Welcome And What’s Changing

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:06

Welcome to Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick. Technology AI and pricing transparency are quickly reshaping the dealership experience. Joining us now is Michael Afrante, who is the Chief Product and Business Officer at Drive Centric, who will also be diving deeper into these topics at the upcoming CBT News Auto Leadership Summit in DC on the 16th. So thank you so much, Michael, for joining us on the show today.

Michael Affronti 0:32

Jim, it's wonderful to be here. Thanks so much for having us and uh really looking forward to the event next week.

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:36

Great,

The New Patchwork Of Rules

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:37

great. So, Michael, the cars rule may be gone, but dealerships are still facing increased scrutiny around pricing and compliance. Um, how would you describe the environment dealers are operating in today?

Michael Affronti 0:49

Yeah, Jim, you know, as I talk to our customers and I think about what's going on, I think that although the rule, um, the the rule went away, but none of the the goals of the rule have disappeared. In fact, you know, I think the the sentiment of what's going on is that we now all of a sudden have a patchwork of, you know, regulations, state and federal level for our dealers to actually manage the compliance. And they're trying to do that and stay on top of it while at the same time delivering a customer experience that perhaps pushes against some of the regulations, depending on which ones you're talking about. So I think we have uh a bit of a patchwork right now. We have a regulatory setup that wants to ensure that the customer gets a great experience, which of course we all support. Um, but we now have an inconsistent way of measuring um exactly how you're staying compliant, which creates um, you know, a lot of work for dealers, quite frankly, to deliver that customer experience and meet the uh the letter of the many laws.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:41

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Where Pricing Risk Quietly Starts

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:43

When we talk about fair pricing and transparency, where do you see dealerships unintentionally creating the most risk?

Michael Affronti 1:50

Yeah, you know, I think that most compliance problems, I mean, in general, then specifically in this situation, they don't start with bad intent, right? They start with inconsistency. You have pricing and deal information, you know, that can subtly change. We talk about it as drift between the different, you know, surface areas that a consumer may interact with. So they're on your website, then they're actually a record in your CRM, then they're moving to the sales desk and eventually the FI. Every one of those handoffs creates an opportunity for the customer's experience to essentially drift, right? They may see one price online, they may get a slightly different explanation of the same price in text, they may encounter something completely different when they enter the dealership. And again, no bad intent there. It's subtle drift between different systems and disconnected departments and the technology underneath them. So if you look at many of the recent enforcement actions, the underlying issue is often that inconsistency between what was advertised, what was communicated, and ultimately what happened in the transaction. And I think those seams um represent the biggest compliance problem in a lot of the dealerships as they try to adapt to this changing regulatory environment.

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:54

Sure,

AI For Consistency And Audit Trails

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:55

sure. AI is one of the biggest topics right now uh in automotive. How can AI help dealerships create a better customer experience while also supporting transparency and compliance?

Michael Affronti 3:07

You know, when AI is implemented really well, um I think its greatest value isn't speed. That's a very close second, but I actually think it's consistency. And AI in particular can engage a customer immediately. We talk a lot about that time to first response. But most importantly, um, if implemented well and from a single system, it can provide accurate information at every stage that we just talked about. And then secondarily, Jim, it can also create a very detailed audit trail because it is the system that's providing the communication. So not only do you get a better customer experience where the AI is providing a consistent customer journey, you're also getting a much more detailed audit and compliance trail. And what that means is that the dealership can then answer questions like exactly what was promised when, what thing was said to which customer when. And it also allows dealership staff to start to focus more on the people side of the relationship while the technology technology can actually handle that routine communication and also keep it very consistent between channels.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:07

Sure,

Responsible AI Versus Risky AI

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:08

sure. At the same time, some dealers worry that AI itself could create compliance concerns. What separates responsible AI from risky AI?

Michael Affronti 4:18

You know, Jim, I've been building AI for a really long time. And the thing that I've learned, uh, sort of in the trenches, if you will, is that AI is incredible. Um, but without context, it's basically blind. And that's the way that I talk to our customers about it. Your AI needs to be very, very contextually aware about your customers, about your dealership policies, about what it's authorized to communicate. We've all heard those stories of the chatbot that goes wild and gives away a car for a dollar. Uh, but more importantly, responsible AI, the type of AI that we build at Drive Centric, we think about it as it must occup must operate from a documented single source of truth, that unified customer record that traverses everything in your dealership. And then on top of that, it must be trained and grounded on real dealership and relationship data. And then the last piece we talk about with responsible AI is that it must identify itself as AI when appropriate and know how to give a really warm handoff to the people in your dealership so they can pick up the conversation when necessary. And we think about those as sort of the portfolio of a responsible AI deployment. And when you layer on top of that the personalization that can happen within your dealership, we believe that that's how you deliver AI that's actually compliant because it's contextually aware, operates on that unified record, and most importantly, it never guesses. It's really operating out of your known environment.

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:38

Yeah, yeah. That's the it's it's a little

Context Over Speed And FTC Ready

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:40

tricky out there. But you've said before that context matters uh more than speed. What do you mean by that and why is it so important in dealership communication today? If a dealer asks you what it takes to be FTC ready, what does that look like today for a dealer?

Michael Affronti 5:53

Faster response times. We talk about them all the time with our dealerships. It's one of the reasons our customers love our Genius AI products. And the thing that I often talk to them about, though, is faster response times are important. But if I have to go one second slower in an average response time from one of our agents because it's gathering the most context possible to give you an even more accurate answer or response back to your customer, we're gonna make that trade-off and then we'll go and improve the timing from a system perspective. And I that's what I mean by um response times are one part, but speed is not the only thing. It's about having that deep context, understanding the full history of the communication with the customer and bringing that context into every one of those uh those customer journeys. But then the the other thing you asked about, the FTC compliance or FTC ready dealership. Um, I'm not a lawyer by any means, but one of the things that we talk to our customers about with that regard is it's all about looking inside your systems and understanding are the agents that you're using, one, are they bolted onto your system or are they a part of the system? That's question one. Question two is are they all operating off of that single source of truth customer record? And then number three, how are you managing all of the intelligence that you're gathering when you're communicating to your customers, both with your people and your agents? And then how is that feeding back into your agent platform? Um, that that to me is when you start to think about compliance in the space and the role of AI, how you can start assessing are you ready to navigate the increasing patchwork that we've been talking about in terms of FTC readiness? And it's one of the reasons why uh that we spend so much time at Drivecentric building our AI into the platform very close to that customer data to help our dealers um do exactly what we just talked about.

The AI Native Dealership Future

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:33

Looking ahead three to five years, how do you see AI changing dealership operations? And what should dealers be doing right now to prepare?

Michael Affronti 7:42

You know, I I spent a lot of time talking about this both within our teams and with our customers. I I like to think that the industry is moving towards what we call a drive-centric, the AI native dealership. And in that mode, um, or in that model, I would say, all of your department sales and service and FI, your payments, your communications, they all operate from this single connected platform, this single set of systems that helps you understand everything about your customers in a unified way. It brings together all of the communications and intelligence data that you have. And it allows all of your systems, all of your agents most importantly, to amplify, extend, and grow the work of your teams. And although that may sound like, well, isn't that kind of what we have today? I think what we have today, especially in 2026, is the start of that. We have single source of truth systems like Drive Centric. We have engagement platforms now stretching out across on top of it. And I think in the future we're going to see more and more departments connecting together so that agents can do things that traverse the customer journey, just like we talked about.

Closing And Summit Preview

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:43

Fantastic. Well, we look forward to seeing you at the event uh next week. So, Michael LaFrante, who is the chief product and business officer at Drive Centric. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Very much appreciate it. I know our dealers will get a lot out of your visit with us. And as I said, we look forward to seeing you at the uh at the event next week.

Michael Affronti 9:02

Me too, Jim. Thanks so much for the time. I really had a great time talking with you, and I'll see you next week.

Jim Fitzpatrick 9:06

Awesome, thank you. Thanks for watching Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick.