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AI = Awesome Intelligence

Love the topic...AI is awesome!

We built a couple agents to save the dealer time. One can stock a car into inventory, select the appropriate features and write a description. No human involvement. The other knows how to search and find cars at auction. Taking the dealers stocking criteria and building a watchlist for upcoming auctions.
 
An AI moment from Main Street. April 2026.
Got a complex project stuck? Too many experts talking past each other?
I just built an AI communication translator. I call it "The Bridge."

I'm a merchandising guy. 30 years in automotive retail. I spot opportunity the way a mechanic hears an engine knock — pattern recognition from repetition, failure, and instinct. My son James is the developer. He reads product architecture the way I read the market. In structures and flows I genuinely can't follow.
Same project. Same goal. Two completely different mental models.

There's always been a translation tax. Ideas lost in the gap between what I meant and what he heard. Between what he built and what I saw.

The Bridge kills that tax.

Each of us stays in our lane. We speak our own language. The Bridge makes it readable on the other side. No dumbing down. No over-explaining.

That's not Artificial Intelligence.
That's Awesome Intelligence.

AI isn't replacing expertise. It's letting expertise finally talk to itself.
 
We created an AI tool that learns how a dealership buys stock and generates a daily shortlist of vehicles from the platforms that they are members of.

It pulls in listings from multiple platforms, ranks them by suitability, and cuts down the time spent manually searching. The aim is to help dealers focus on the best opportunities rather than trawling through thousands of cars. So far we've seem people saving a lot of time each day

They can also add in manual rules / filters etc that aren't available on the individual platforms

 
IMO, 'Gurus, Cars, 'Trader, etc are all in big trouble. I'm going parts shopping, WATCH AI PROTECT ME:

I write: i have a 40hp outboard yamaha stroke motor model # F40LA. I need an engine starter... <snip> AI and me chatter about what I need <snip>

WATCH how AI Replies in my best interest:
The best OEM listing I found is PWCParts at $199. That is the cleanest match to the exact part number you gave: 6BG-81800-00-00.

I would skip the Wholesale Marine, PartsVu, and Defender listings unless you confirm a superseded part number with Yamaha first. Those prices are far above the others.

If your goal is lowest cost, there are aftermarket replacements around $111 to $145, but they are not OEM. That matters on a starter because fitment, corrosion resistance, and longevity can vary.

Best path:
  • Buy PWCParts if you want exact OEM.
  • Buy FridayParts or Rareelectrical/Walmart only if you are comfortable with aftermarket.
Before checkout, match these on the listing:
  • Part number: 6BG-81800-00-00
  • Engine: Yamaha F40LA
  • Year: 2013
 

✨ AI Highlights

  • Claude and Gemini replaced ChatGPT for coding, planning, and research tasks
  • AI avatars with cloned voices fooled real people including spouses
  • Dealers built agents to stock inventory and find auction vehicles autonomously

This thread is an enthusiastic, wide-ranging showcase of real-world AI wins shared by dealers, vendors, and automotive tech professionals, covering everything from tab management and VDP copywriting to custom agentic operating systems and AI avatars. The strongest consensus is that AI is genuinely transforming productivity and creative output for small teams, with Claude emerging as the preferred workhorse for complex, multi-step tasks while Gemini and Perplexity fill supporting roles. The only meaningful tension surfaces around AI reliability at scale — one contributor's frustration with shallow audits and another's concern that consumer-facing AI tools may quietly reduce effort to cut costs — but even skeptics remain enthusiastic overall. Worth a read if you want concrete use cases and tool recommendations, or if you're curious how early adopters in your space are building AI-native workflows right now.

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