Impel Chief Product Officer Matt Muilenburg joins Car Dealership Guy on the CDG Podcast.
Dealership AI adoption sits below 50%, at least the deliberate kind. Matt Muilenburg, Impel’s Chief Product Officer, has a sharper way to frame the real number: 100% of dealerships are already using AI. More than half just don’t know it, because their people are quietly running customer lists through ChatGPT on their own.
But Matt’s bigger point wasn’t the percentage. It was the mindset. Dealers keep buying AI like it’s software they switch on. The ones pulling ahead treat it like an employee they hire, train, and manage.
And the dealers who wait? Matt’s blunt about it. Their customers erode out from under them, and they don’t see it happening until the customers are already gone.
3 Insights You Can’t Ignore
1. Your First AI Dollar Belongs in the Service Drive
If a dealer has one dollar to spend on AI, Matt knows exactly where it goes.
The Old Way: A thin tech budget gets spread across whatever department shouts loudest, while the existing service base sits unworked in the DMS.
The New Way: Start in fixed ops. Point AI at the DMS and reengage customers who haven’t been in for over a year. Then build the discipline of service-lane car buying on top of it.
The Result: Matt says disengaged customers reactivate in the first 90 days, every single launch. And the equity rolling through your service drive turns into inventory you can actually buy back and resell.
2. Hire It. Don’t Buy It.
The single mistake Matt sees most: treating an AI purchase like software instead of like staff.
The Old Way: Buy a product, flip it on, expect it to work. Most dealers use new software for about 90 days, then keep paying for nine more months before they notice they stopped using it.
The New Way: Ask the questions you’d ask about any new hire. Who manages this employee? What are its success metrics? Who’s responsible for training it? AI you manage like a person keeps using its skills, over and over, because that’s the job.
The Result: The mindset shift that separates the dealers getting real value from the ones filing another forgotten invoice.
3. The Smallest Dealers Have the Most to Lose
The argument Matt hears from single-point and rural stores is always the same: “We can’t afford it, and the return isn’t there.”
The Old Way: The smallest dealers sit it out, assuming AI is a big-group luxury.
The New Way: Matt flips it. For a smaller store, AI isn’t the expense you skip. It’s the one that keeps you in the game, extending your reach into every surrounding town where buyers already drive to reach a dealer they trust.
The Result: The bigger groups are consolidating and using their data to out-compete on cost. Wait, and your customers quietly erode away. Move, and a rural rooftop can punch far above its size.
From the Conversation
On the trade-in lead almost everyone mishandles: Matt’s favorite example. A customer requests a value on their car, and the dealer assumes they’re ready to sell today. The data says otherwise. Most are testing private-party value first and will shop it for three or four weeks. So their phone explodes with “I want to buy your car,” and the experience sours fast. The better play: ask which of three things they’re actually doing, considering a future purchase, selling private party, or trading in now, then support the private-party seller with a value update every seven days. Earn the trust, and you’re first in line when they’re ready to deal.
On the AI already loose in your store: Roughly half of dealers tell Matt they haven’t formally adopted AI. Then he walks the store and finds staff running customer lists through public chatbots on their own. That’s live legal and data exposure most dealer principals never see. His fix is two-part: set a clear AI-use policy in the employee manual, and give teams a licensed, contained solution built for automotive so the data stays yours.
On why he’s here: Thirty years ago, a dealer named Jim Johnson asked Matt whether he was in it for the franchise business or just the industry. Matt picked a side and never left it. His other motivation is personal. He wants his kids, his daughters especially, to walk into a dealership and feel in control of the process. His bet: make the store’s best veteran salesperson even better, hand them leads that are qualified and ready to buy, and the experience improves for everyone on both sides of the desk.
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About the Guests
Matt Muilenburg is Chief Product Officer at Impel. He’s spent more than 30 years in automotive and AI, with leadership roles at the Cobalt Group and Marchex before joining Impel to lead product.
Car Dealership Guy (Yossi Levi) hosts the Car Dealership Guy Podcast, one of automotive retail’s most-followed voices on the business of buying and selling cars.
Frequently Asked Questions
| Question | Answer |
| Where should a dealership invest its first AI dollar? | In fixed ops, according to Impel CPO Matt Muilenburg. Launching AI against the DMS to reengage lapsed customers reactivates disengaged owners within the first 90 days, and it creates the foundation for service-lane car buying, where equity driving into the service drive becomes inventory the dealer can buy back. Impel recommends dealers build the fixed-ops motion first, then layer sales on top. |
| Why are the smallest dealers the most at risk from AI? | Because the stakes are existential, not optional. Matt Muilenburg argues that single-point and rural dealers who skip AI will watch larger, consolidating groups use their data to out-compete on cost and customer experience. Their customers erode away gradually and invisibly. For a smaller store, AI is what extends reach into surrounding towns and keeps the rooftop competitive. |
| What percentage of dealerships have adopted AI? | Deliberate dealership AI adoption sits below 50%, based on Matt Muilenburg’s read of the market. But he notes that 100% of dealerships are already using AI in some form, because staff use public tools on their own. More than half of dealers don’t realize it’s happening, which creates hidden data and compliance exposure. |
| Should dealers buy AI like software or hire it like an employee? | Hire it, says Matt Muilenburg. The dealers getting the most value stop treating AI as software they switch on and start managing it like a new employee: assigning a manager, defining success metrics, and owning the training cycle. Impel’s AI Operating System is built for this model, where dealers train the system once and manage it like staff. |
| What should a dealer do if staff are using ChatGPT without approval? | Two things, per Matt Muilenburg. First, set a clear AI-use policy in the employee manual so staff aren’t exposing customer data through unapproved tools. Second, give teams a licensed, automotive-specific solution that contains the data safely. Impel builds purpose-built AI for dealers so sensitive information never leaves a controlled environment. |