By reducing delays, minimizing handoffs, and keeping the entire deal in one workflow, Masano Auto Group uses Deal Central to create a more efficient buying experience that benefits both customers and dealership teams.
Capture and attach deal documents directly within Digital Deal Jacket in Deal Central—using a mobile device or upload—so required documents are completed without leaving the deal.
What problem does this solve?
Dealers often collect documents across multiple tools, which creates extra steps and slows down deal completion.
What’s improved?
Capture or upload document images directly in Digital Deal Jacket
Easily scan a QR code to quickly capture document images from a mobile device
Images are stored directly in Digital Deal Jacket and attached to the deal, eliminating the need to save them on your device
Fulfill required document placeholders within the deal
Reduce manual steps and tool switching
Keep all deal documents in one place
How it works
Open the deal in Digital Deal Jacket (Sales View or Manager View)
Select a required document placeholder or click Add Documents
Scan the QR code to capture images using a mobile device or upload files
Edit images as needed (crop, rotate, adjust)
Save—documents are attached directly to the deal
Continue the workflow with required documents completed
Watch this on-demand webinar to get practical tips and see firsthand how your dealership can streamline operations and increase profit margins across both parts and service departments. Dealertrack DMS and Xtime experts share strategies to optimize pricing, improve workflows, increase visibility, and drive stronger fixed-ops performance with practical examples you can put into action right away.
AI-informed buyers are already here. About one in four new-vehicle buyers used AI tools during their shopping process, and that number is expected to grow.
More informed buyers are easier to work with. AI users report higher satisfaction, stronger trust in dealers, and a smoother path to purchase.
Your opportunity is consistency. When your listings, pricing, and communication match what buyers expect, you reduce friction and move deals forward faster.
“According to the Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey Study, 83% of consumers believe AI will reshape the car buying process in the next 10 years.”
AI isn’t a future trend in car buying. It’s already shaping how your customers shop today.
For the first time, the Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey Study tracked how buyers are using AI tools during their research process. The signal is clear: more shoppers are using AI to compare options, validate pricing, and build confidence before they ever contact a dealership. And 83% of consumers already believe AI will reshape car buying in the years ahead.
In the first article in this series, we showed how digital tools are helping buyers move faster. This is the next step. Buyers aren’t just moving faster. They’re arriving more informed.
For forward-looking dealers, that’s not a threat. It’s an advantage. When buyers show up with higher confidence, your team can spend less time convincing and more time closing.
Now, it’s about making sure your dealership experience keeps pace – through accurate pricing, clear vehicle details, and a process that matches the speed and transparency buyers expect. This article breaks down what the data shows and how to be ready for the AI-informed shopper already walking into your showroom.
AI Shoppers Are in Your Showroom…Now
A meaningful share of today’s buyers are already using AI tools as part of their shopping process. According to the study, about one in four new‑vehicle buyers used AI tools during their research.
This is the first year this behavior has been tracked. What you’re seeing now is the baseline, not the peak. Shoppers aren’t using AI out of curiosity. They’re using it to narrow their options, compare pricing, and validate their decisions before they ever contact your dealership.
What this means for your dealership
They already have a short list.
They already have a price range in mind.
They’re confident in their decision.
For forward-looking dealers, this changes the role of your team. When you meet an informed buyer with clear, consistent information, the conversation moves faster and feels easier on both sides.
Autotrader Tip: Make sure your vehicle listings, pricing, and details reflect the same level of clarity and accuracy buyers expect from their research. When those expectations match, the path to purchase becomes more straightforward.
AI Users Are the Most Satisfied Buyers in the Study
The study shows that 84% of mostly digital AI users reported being highly satisfied with their experience. Across all AI users, 59% reported high satisfaction levels. That puts AI users among the most satisfied buyers in the entire study.
What this means for your dealership
The informed buyer is often the easier buyer.
They’ve already done the comparison work.
They’ve already validated pricing.
They’ve already built confidence in their decision.
That means less time spent answering basic questions and more time moving deals forward.
This is where efficiency shows up. Conversations are more productive. The path to purchase is clearer. And the overall experience feels smoother for both your team and your customers. Your opportunity is to meet that buyer with the same level of clarity they expect. When pricing, vehicle details, and communication are consistent, you remove friction and keep momentum on your side.
Autotrader Tip: High-quality listings play a bigger role here than you might expect. Clear photos, accurate pricing, and detailed vehicle information help reinforce buyer confidence before and after the first interaction, making it easier to keep the deal moving forward.
Trust is Higher When Buyers Come Prepared
Buyers who use AI tools are more likely to trust the dealership and feel good about the process. The study found that 81% of AI users trusted that the dealer offered a fair deal, compared to 67% of buyers who did not use AI.
AI users were also more satisfied with how long the process took. 81% of AI users were satisfied with the time it took to complete their purchase, compared to 65% of non‑AI users.
When buyers feel prepared, they feel more in control. And that confidence carries into their interaction with your team.
What this means for your dealership
More informed buyers aren’t more skeptical. They are more certain.
They’ve already validated their choices.
They’ve already aligned expectations around pricing.
They’ve already built trust in the process before they arrive.
This shifts the tone of the conversation. Instead of questioning each step, buyers are looking for confirmation and a clear path forward.
This is where consistency matters most. The experience you deliver needs to match the expectations buyers bring with them. When it does, trust builds faster and deals move forward with less friction. Your opportunity is to remove surprises. When pricing, vehicle details, and communication align with what buyers have already seen, you create a smoother, more predictable experience that builds confidence at every step.
Autotrader Tip: Consistency across your listings is critical. When pricing, photos, and vehicle details are accurate and aligned with what buyers have already researched, you reinforce trust early and avoid friction later in the process.
Headline: Digital Tools, Real Results: Why Your Most Satisfied Buyers Are Doing More Online
Copy: Digital-first journeys shorten time at your dealership. And the payoff? Hapy customers and higher profits.
CTA: Read More
H2: The Industry Sees What’s Coming
The study shows that 83% of consumers believe AI will reshape the car buying process in the next 10 years. At the same time, 63% of dealers say investing in AI is critical to staying competitive. This level of agreement matters. It signals that this is not a passing trend. It’s a structural change in how people research, shop, and make decisions.
What this means for your dealership
You do not need to wait for this shift to happen. It is already underway.
Buyers are changing how they shop today.
Expectations around speed and transparency are already rising.
And the gap between prepared and unprepared dealerships is starting to widen.
For forward-looking dealers, the focus isn’t just on adopting new tools. It’s on delivering a buying experience that matches how customers are already behaving. That means showing up with consistent pricing. Clear vehicle details. A process that moves at the speed buyers expect.
The advantage comes from building that consistency now. Dealers who align their digital presence and in‑store experience today are better positioned to meet the next wave of buyers with confidence.
Autotrader Tip: Your listings are often the first place buyers will form their expectations. When pricing, vehicle details, and merchandising are accurate and consistent, you create a stronger foundation for trust before the conversation even begins.
Meeting the AI-Informed Buyer
Digital tools help buyers move faster. AI helps them decide sooner. When the Car Buyer Journey Study results were released earlier this year, Autotrader and Cox Automotive found that mostly digital buyers saved time and reported higher satisfaction. AI builds on that. Today’s buyers are arriving with more context, more confidence, and higher expectations for how the process should work.
The good news is that dealers shouldn’t need to replace their current process. Rather, you can ensure your process matches the customer in front of you.
What this means for your dealership
Meeting the AI-informed buyer comes down to consistency, speed, and clarity.
Here are a few ways to put that into practice:
Keep your listings accurate and up to date
Ensure pricing, availability, and vehicle details match what buyers see in their research. Inconsistencies slow deals down and create doubts.
Make vehicle details easy to understand
Use clear photos, complete descriptions, and transparent pricing to help buyers confirm their decision quickly.
Respond quickly and consistently
Buyers using AI tools are used to getting fast answers. Match their pace – delays or mixed messages can break momentum.
Train your team to work with informed buyers
Encourage your team to validate and guide, not restart the process. Buyers are not looking to start over. They’re looking to move forward.
Connect your digital and in-store experience
Align the information buyers see online with what they hear in-store. Bringing those two moments together builds trust faster.
Autotrader Tip: Treat your listings as the starting point of the conversation. When your pricing, photos, and vehicle details are complete and consistent, you help buyers confirm their decision faster and arrive ready to move forward.
Closing: Be Ready for the Buyer Who’s Already Ready
AI is already shaping how buyers research, decide, and move through the purchase process. The shift is not coming later. It is happening now. Dealers who recognize what today’s data is showing will benefit the most. Informed buyers aren’t harder to work with. They’re more confident, more trusting, and more ready to move forward.
Your role is to meet those buyers with consistency at every step. When your listings, pricing, and in-store experience align with what buyers have already seen, you remove friction and build trust faster. That’s how you turn preparation into progress and interest into a completed sale.
Explore the Full Car Buyer Journey
Want to see the full picture of how buyer behavior is evolving?
Read the full breakdown of trends, insights, and data in the latest Car Buyer Journey Study.
Deal Central now ensures Cash Down on cash deals is applied consistently across the deal, so totals, lender checks and documents reflect the correct values without needing additional steps.
The Problem We Solved
Dealer-entered Cash Down values routed to a generic field rather than a distinct field causing downstream issues across the deal:
Deal recap math did not include the cash down payment.
Contracts were mislabeled, causing dealers to manually correct deals to move forward
Funding escalations increased due to discrepancies
What’s Improved
Cash Down now routes to a dedicated field automatically
Deal Breakdown reflects Cash Down as a separate, visible line item
Total Amount Due calculates consistently using Cash Down
Print Proposals show Cash Down clearly labeled and deducted
Lender checks for outside lienholders are calculated accurately
No changes to the user interface or how values are entered
How It Works (At A Glance)
Enter Cash Down—no new process required
Value is stored in the dedicated location automatically
Deal math updates correctly across the workspace
Documents reflect accurate values end-to-end
No manual corrections needed
Summary: Why This Matters
Lender checks align with the deal
Funding issues are reduced
Contracts and proposals stay consistent across the deal
Deals move forward without manual re-entry or correction
At ASOTU Con 2026, Jade Terreberry and Noah Lee joined client Lonny Soza for a main stage conversation on how AI is reshaping shopper discovery, and what it means for dealer visibility, trust, and readiness in the rapidly evolving retail landscape.
Together, they explored how AI-driven search is influencing how buyers find and evaluate dealerships, and why showing up in these moments increasingly depends on clarity, credibility, and the ability to be understood by both people and machines.
Why the future of dealership visibility starts with your website, not just your marketing. Today’s shopper journey is no longer a series of clicks. It starts with a question, and ends with an answer generated by AI.
That shift changes everything. And if AI can’t find, understand, or trust your dealership, you’re not just losing traffic; you’re being excluded from the decision entirely.
AI Search Isn’t About Ranking. It’s About Inclusion
Traditional search rewarded visibility. AI search rewards confidence.
To be included in AI-generated answers, your website must do three critical things:
Be Found AI systems must be able to reliably access and index your inventory, pricing, and offers as they change in real time, not hours or days later.
Be Understood Raw content isn’t enough. AI needs structured context, like vehicle data, service offerings, pricing details, hours, and relationships between them, to accurately interpret your business.
Be Trusted AI models favor sources that are consistently accurate, complete, and technically accessible. Trust is built through clarity, consistency, and reliability across your digital presence.
It all Starts with Your Platform
Before you can optimize AI, your website needs to be built so AI systems can find and understand it in the first place.
Three foundational elements determine whether your dealership is eligible for AI-driven discovery:
1. Indexing: Real-Time Access to What You’re Selling Technologies like IndexNow enable real-time indexing by signaling changes directly to search engines, improving the likelihood that AI systems reflect accurate, current information. If your inventory, pricing, or offers aren’t consistently indexed and refreshed, they simply won’t surface. In a world of instant answers, recency and accessibility are non-negotiable.
2. Structured Data: The Difference Between Content and Clarity AI doesn’t interpret websites like humans; it relies on structured schema to understand what your content means. This allows it to recognize vehicle details, interpret your services, and connect information into a cohesive view of your business. Without it, your website becomes ambiguous, making it far less likely to be confidently referenced or recommended.
3. Accessibility: If AI Can’t Read It, It Doesn’t Exist AI needs clean, consistent site architecture to navigate your content, extract information accurately, and trust what it finds. Fragmented structure or hard-to-parse elements introduce uncertainty, which removes you from AI-generated answers.
Foundation First. Optimization Next.
This leads to one of the most important distinctions in AI search strategy: Platform Readiness vs. Ongoing Optimization
They are not the same and they’re not interchangeable.
Think of it this way:
Your website platform = The Foundation
Enables AI to find, crawl, and understand your site
Determines if you’re included
Ongoing optimization (GEO) = The growth layer
Influences how often AI recommends and prioritizes your dealership
Determines if you’re preferred. Without the foundation, optimization has nothing to build on.
Why It Matters Now
AI is already reshaping how shoppers discover and evaluate dealerships. If you’re not in the initial answer, you’re not in the comparison, consideration, or buying journey.
Your platform determines whether you’re visible. Optimization is what helps you win.
See What AI-Readiness Looks Like in PracticeIf you’re evaluating how prepared your dealership is for AI-powered discovery, or where gaps might exist, we break it down in detail in our latest webinar.
In this session, you’ll learn:
What “AI-ready” means (and what it doesn’t)
How AI search engines evaluate dealership websites
The exact framework to assess your own AI-readiness
Where ongoing optimization (GEO) fits and when it matters
Check out the full webinar to see how to build a foundation for AI visibility and turn it into a real competitive advantage.
AI isn’t just changing search, it’s deciding who gets chosen. Our latest video takes you beyond AI readiness and into real performance. As shoppers shift from search to answers, visibility alone isn’t enough, you need to be the answer. In this session, Dealer.com product expert, Dan Durick, breaks down Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): how to improve your presence, influence sentiment, and earn citations across AI-driven platforms. Plus, see how new reporting reveals where you’re winning, where you’re vulnerable, and exactly how to take action.
Continue the video series built to help your dealership stay relevant in AI-driven search
Dan Durick Director of SEO and Copywriting Cox Automotive
Dan Durick is the Director of SEO, GEO, and Copywriting at Cox Automotive and a recognized expert in search marketing and AI-driven discoverability. He began his SEO career in 1997 and has spent nearly 30 years helping businesses adapt to changing technologies and consumer behaviors. Today, Dan focuses on the impact of artificial intelligence on search, content strategy, and customer engagement, helping automotive retailers optimize their presence across both traditional search engines and emerging AI-powered platforms.
Summary: Dealers can turn their service lane into a powerful used-vehicle acquisition channel by identifying high-value vehicles during scheduled service visits, using real-time inspection data to inform appraisals, and proactively engaging customers with transparent trade-in offers. With customers holding vehicles longer and showing increased interest in value discussions during service, dealerships that connect service, inventory, and CRM workflows can acquire vehicles more efficiently while protecting margin and improving customer experience.
A hot topic in the industry right now is finding better ways to source used vehicles. With vehicle and transportation costs higher than ever, dealers are looking for alternatives to sourcing at auction. Increasingly, they’re turning to their existing customers instead.
In the latest session in our Fixed Ops Focus Series: Vehicle Inventory Sourcing Featuring vAuto and VinSolutions, Cox Automotive experts Taylor Finch-Thompson, Jonathan Brown and Brett O’Rear discussed the trend of sourcing used vehicle inventory from the service lane.
The opportunities presented by shopping your service drive are clear:
Maintenance and repair records, including multipoint inspections, already on file
Customers with scheduled service appointments
The chance to sell another vehicle to an existing customer
That sounds great, but how do you create a system to regularly add vehicles to your used inventory? Fortunately, the full suite of Xtime solutions encompass every single touchpoint and engagement that your dealership will have before, during and after the service visit with your customers. Then, vAuto and VinSolutions help cement the acquisition with valuation and a predictable process.
Let’s look at how each of these solutions play a role in the used vehicle acquisition process.
The First Step: Scheduling
Scheduling the appointment is a clear starting point because it gets customers back into the store to have their vehicle worked on. Xtime Schedule lets customers conveniently schedule an appointment from any device, 24/7 and in the background, it’s aligning available appointment slots with your service lane capacity and expertise.
It also presents the customer with good/better/best menus, open and active recalls, and vehicle warranty information to help them choose the right service package for their needs and budget.
But one more important thing Schedule does is automatically inform you about potential acquisition targets coming into the dealership. So, now you know exactly when a desirable vehicle will be pulling into the service drive.
Setting the Stage with the Inspection
As the technician is doing the inspection, they’re making recommendations of services that the vehicle needs. Xtime Inspect helps you do a better job selling the work during the service visit, increasing the RO value, and capturing any work that gets declined.
You can leverage that data to present those services to the consumer again during the next visit. But you can also use the data to build a vAuto appraisal and inform your vehicle acquisition manager of the work that needs to be done to get the vehicle frontline ready.
The Cox Automotive 2026 Fixed Ops and Ownership Study shows that consumers start considering trading in their vehicle instead of repairing it once the cost exceeds $3,000. So, many of your customers are open to an appraisal after the inspection has been completed.
With Xtime Inspect data feeding into the appraisal, your dealership can proactively identify owners already raising their hand through a service appointment.
Setting Up Your Acquisition Workflow
Acquisition has never been more competitive or more expensive than it is today. So, why not start by targeting the lowest hanging fruit already engaging with your dealership?
The workflow described below is designed for whoever owns the acquisition strategy at the dealership, whether that’s the used car manager, the acquisition manager, used car director, or any variable ops leadership.
The goal is to create a process for buying the most profitable vehicles from your service lane.
First, you’ll set up automated searches within your inventory tool based on filtering criteria such as service appointments, inventory needs, and vAuto ProfitTime® GPS value scores. That way you can identify the vehicles that make the most sense for the dealership.
Once you’ve identified a potential acquisition, you’ll push it as a lead to your VinSolutions CRM. That will let you confirm whether the customer is already in your CRM, which mitigates duplicate lead creation and keeps your data cleaner. You can then set an appraisal appointment with the BDC or sales rep.
The acquisition team can actively track who has been contacted, who has engaged with each lead, who has not yet been sent a lead, and how the opportunities are progressing.
Making the Offer
After identifying the opportunity within any lead and completing an appraisal, the dealership can generate a professional, consumer-facing offer directly tied to that customer’s vehicle.
Today’s consumers expect a level of transparency and immediacy, so it’s not enough to tell them the dealership is interested in their vehicle – they want to know what their vehicle may be worth today and why.
The consumer offer helps you tell the story of their vehicle’s actual value, minus the repair costs you identified during the inspection. That gives them good insights into what their vehicle is worth today, and you can often present them an offer right away.
Implementing Your Service-to-Sales Acquisition Strategy
Instead of relying exclusively on outside inventory acquisition channels where competition and costs continue to rise, dealerships can now leverage key solutions as a scalable acquisition engine that they can actively monitor across the entire Cox Automotive ecosystem.
By connecting Xtime, vAuto and VinSolutions to create a powerful acquisition workflow, the dealership gains valuable visibility, timing, and proactive engagement with customers they already know.
AI is transforming automotive retail, from how shoppers search to how dealerships market, personalize, and perform. Tools powered by AI can move faster, surface insights instantly, and automate what once took hours. But the dealerships seeing the strongest results aren’t relying on AI alone. They’re pairing AI with human expertise.
At Dealer.com, we believe the best outcomes happen when advanced technology and experienced specialists work together, turning speed and automation into real, measurable impact.
Why AI Matters More Than Ever
Today’s shoppers expect fast, intuitive, and relevant digital experiences. Increasingly, they’re researching through AI‑powered tools, not just traditional search. That means dealerships must stay visible, perform well, and deliver personalized experiences across every touchpoint.
Dealer.com’s AI-powered platform helps dealerships do exactly that, by focusing on three outcomes that matter most:
Performance through faster updates and smarter optimization
Personalization that adapts to each shopper’s intent
Presence wherever shoppers search and engage
AI That Predicts, Creates, and Automates
Dealer.com uses multiple forms of AI to support modern dealerships:
Predictive AI analyzes data and trends to forecast demand and optimize decisions.
Generative AI creates content, layouts, and messaging to keep sites fresh and conversion‑ready.
Agentic AI automates tasks like campaign optimization and performance tuning.
Together, these capabilities help dealerships move faster and operate more efficiently.
But knowing what to automate and how to apply it still requires people.
Where Human Expertise Makes the Difference
AI can recommend and optimize, but dealership strategy comes from experience.
That’s why Dealer.com pairs AI with dedicated experts who help:
Set the right goals before changes go live
Validate AI recommendations against dealership priorities
Fine‑tune messaging and campaigns for local markets and inventory
This combination ensures technology supports the business, rather than running unchecked.
Smarter Marketing, Managed the Right Way
Dealer.com uses AI to power precision bidding, audience targeting, retargeting, and video personalization using Cox Automotive data. At the same time, expert teams guide strategy, monitor performance, and make informed adjustments.
The result? Advertising that’s more efficient, more relevant, and easier to manage, without losing confidence or control.
Built for the Future of AI Search
As AI-driven search and conversational tools grow, discoverability means more than ranking on a page.
Dealer.com websites are optimized for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), helping dealerships stay visible and credible in AI-generated answers. AI handles the technical foundation, while experts ensure content, reputation, and messaging build real trust.
The Power Is in the Combination
AI moves fast. Experts bring strategy, context, and confidence.
Together, they help dealerships move faster, personalize shopper experiences, and stay visible wherever buyers search.
That’s why the best results don’t come from AI alone.
