Artificial intelligence has a branding problem.
Depending on who you ask, AI is either the key to building better customer relationships or the reason customer experiences feel cold, awkward, or frustrating. Customers see both sides every day – a helpful reminder that arrives at the perfect moment or a generic message that treats them like a number.
So which is it? Personalized or impersonal?
The answer is simple – it can be both. The difference is in its implementation.
When AI is treated like a one-off tool, it creates robotic experiences. When it’s used to complement and enhance the overall customer experience, it helps dealerships build personal relationships at scale.
When AI Goes Wrong: The Impersonal Experience
Most bad AI experiences are not caused by the technology itself. They happen when AI is disconnected from real customer data or deployed without intent.
You’ve probably seen examples like these:
- A chatbot greeting a 10-year customer with, “How can I help you today?” as if they’ve never done business with them
- Automated emails that start with “Dear Valued Customer” and end up ignored or deleted
- Follow-up messages pitching a boat, bike, or RV to someone who bought one last week
- Product recommendations that feel invasive, oddly timed, or out of touch
- Cold, scripted responses during service issues when empathy matters most
In these moments, AI doesn’t feel efficient. It feels careless. And it hurts relationships.
When AI Goes Right: Personal, Relevant, and Timely
Now consider the flip side. When AI is connected to real dealership and customer data and purposely designed to support the customer journey, the experience changes completely.
Done right, AI enables:
- Greeting returning customers by name, with awareness of their history and preferences
- Immediate answers and relevant next step recommendations
- Proactive outreach tied to real needs, such as a warranty expiring or service interval approaching
- Service reminders based on actual usage patterns, not arbitrary calendar dates
- Seamless handoffs to knowledgeable team members, where the conversation starts with context, not repetition
This is where AI stops feeling automated and starts feeling attentive.
The Winning Formula: AI + Human Partnership
The most successful dealerships aren’t the ones that avoid AI, or the ones that ask AI to replace people – they’re the ones that use both in concert to improve the customer and dealership experience.
Here’s how that partnership works best.
AI surfaces insights and opportunities. Your team uses judgment, experience, and empathy to act on them.
The feedback loop keeps improving things.
Human interactions inform AI learning. AI insights sharpen human strategy. Over time, both get better.
Making AI Create Richer Relationships
Dealers who succeed with AI focus on four core principles:
- Use AI to remember what matters.
Customer details, past purchases, service history, preferences. Customers feel valued when you remember the small things.
- Let AI find the right moment.
The best message at the wrong time still feels wrong. AI helps identify when outreach is actually useful.
- Prepare your team with context.
Every interaction should start informed. AI can surface the full story before the conversation even begins. - Use AI for consistency. Save humans for connection.
AI ensures responsiveness and that nothing falls through the cracks. People build trust and loyalty.
The Lightspeed Approach to AI
At Lightspeed, we’ve built AI with one goal in mind: help dealers create better customer experiences without adding complexity to their day.
Our new AI-assisted Email Marketing as an example. Dealers can generate professional campaigns in seconds, but the power isn’t speed alone. It’s segmentation based on real customer data. Purchase history. Ownership lifecycle. Service behavior.
The result is outreach that feels personal, timely, and relevant – not automated or generic.
This matters because dealers know their data holds value. In fact, 91% of dealers view AI as important for activating data and personalizing outreach. The opportunity isn’t collecting more data. It’s using it responsibly and effectively.
AI Doesn’t Replace Relationships. It Strengthens Them.
AI doesn’t have to feel impersonal. When implemented thoughtfully, it gives dealerships the ability to show up better informed, better timed, and more consistent than ever before.
The future of dealership relationships isn’t human or AI. It’s human and AI, working together.
If you’re curious how that partnership works in practice, join us for our live webinar on March 18. We’ll break down real examples, practical strategies, and how dealers can start using AI today without disrupting what already works.
FROM REARVIEW TO THE ROAD AHEAD: A Practical Guide to Winning with AI in your Dealership REGISTER NOW!
Because when AI is done right, it doesn’t make your dealership feel less human. It makes it feel more personal.
Taylor Allis
Taylor Allis is Chief Product Officer at Lightspeed DMS, where he leads product strategy focused on simplifying dealership operations and applying AI to remove friction across the customer and employee journey. A seasoned SaaS and product leader, Taylor is known for translating complex technology into practical, customer-driven solutions. Before joining Lightspeed, he served as Chief Product Officer at Avetta, helping deliver scalable platforms that automated compliance, reduced operational overhead, and supported growth. Earlier in his career, he led Product and Marketing at Enablon and gained early innovation experience in the research labs at Sun Microsystems (later part of Oracle). Taylor is a named inventor on multiple patents and is passionate about building technology that helps businesses operate more efficiently and profitably. Outside of work, he enjoys coaching football and lacrosse—and when he’s off the clock, you’ll usually find him gravel biking, trail running, fly fishing, scuba diving, or hiking and climbing Colorado 14ers.
