FAQ: AI in Automotive

An AI Operating System is more than just software—it’s an intelligence layer that integrates directly into your existing platforms to automate, optimize, and scale your business operations. 

Powered by advanced AI agents, it handles tasks, engages users naturally, and executes with precision. It learns continuously, adapts in real time, and connects every part of your operation—turning disjointed systems and data into a high-performance machine that delivers measurable impact at scale.

An AI Operating System blends Generative AI and Agentic AI capabilities that seamlessly engage your customers, and Copilot AI capabilities that boost your team’s performance. It ensures that you deliver an exceptional customer experience—anytime, day or night, whether your staff is on duty or not. It collects customer data throughout their entire buying and ownership journeys, enabling it to:

• Engage customers with personalized guidance while they shop
• Recommend the right vehicle based on their history and preferences
• Provide targeted service reminders aligned with their driving habits and VIN maintenance schedule
• Proactively reach out to customers when they are most likely to be considering their next vehicle purchase

An AI Operating System is more than just another addition to the dealer tech stack. It’s the central nervous system of all dealership activity, built to unify the customer experience (and the dealer tech stack) by seamlessly connecting every customer touchpoint—from the first lead to the next vehicle purchase.

Picture AI as an intelligent orchestrator for dealership operations. It listens, learns, and responds to your customers, taking over repetitive tasks while freeing your employees to focus on high value activities. Whether assisting customers during vehicle research, offering trade-in assistance, or sending personalized maintenance alerts, the AI Operating System acts as the trusted hub that coordinates the entire dealership experience.

Impel AI is the only enterprise-grade AI Operating System purpose-built for automotive retail. While most providers simply layer general-purpose AI or outdated rules-based technology onto existing tools, Impel delivers a fully integrated platform of expert models trained on 200M+ auto-specific interactions.

With a native AI Agent Knowledge Bank, advanced security guardrails, and full lifecycle coverage, it gives dealers total control, unmatched accuracy, and the highest-performing AI in the industry—bar none.

Impel AI is more than just autonomous—it’s collaborative. While AI Agents handle outreach, follow-ups, and scheduling on their own, your team gets powerful Copilot tools to stay in the loop and in control. This means:

• Real-time SMS/email alerts when human action is needed
• Conversation highlights and  AI-suggested next steps
• Full visibility and override control of every conversation
• Completely customizable customer journey maps
• Custom, on-demand campaigns sent anytime to targeted audiences

Smarter automation, stronger human-AI teamwork. That’s what teams can expect when they work with Impel AI.

The most advanced Automotive AI solutions employ a centralized AI Agent Knowledge Bank, powered by Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) technology. This architecture allows automotive retailers to feed OEM and dealership-specific data to the AI, providing a customized central knowledge hub. It’s as if you’re training your smartest, most eager employee who never forgets anything and can change talk tracks on a dime. And of course, they can handle an infinite number of inquiries without taking a break.

For example, your AI system can absorb data about:

• Dealership policies and procedures
• Promotional offers
• Service offerings
• Guidance for responses based on seasonal or market-specific conditions

Think of and AI Agent Knowledge Bank as your dealership’s “source of truth.” Based on your tailoring and the latest updates, it instantly informs customer interactions across all channels, from chat to email to service desk communications.

Hallucinations occur when an AI agent goes “off script,” delivering inaccurate or completely false information in response to an inquiry. Enterprise-grade Automotive AI solutions employ a number of safeguards to prevent hallucinations, including:

• The use of specialized vertical AI models and agents (rather than general purpose LLMs) designed specifically to drive automotive retailing business outcomes.
• Deep AI model training based on hundreds of millions of automotive retailing conversations.
• The use of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques, deep data and system integrations, and a fully customizable AI Agent Knowledge Bank to provide a comprehensive source of truth for all AI interactions.
• The addition of expert security models to identify and defend against jailbreak attempts, unauthorized access and malicious intents.

As a trusted partner to the world’s largest auto manufacturers and publicly traded dealer groups, Impel is committed to delivering secure, reliable software while also assisting our customers in complying with all relevant regulatory requirements. Our information security practices are designed to protect against threats to the security, availability, and integrity of customer data, while also safeguarding and preventing unauthorized access to data and systems.

In addition to ongoing reviews to ensure adherence to our strict security processes, Impel continuously invests in systems and resources aimed at ensuring that our infosec program meets the highest standards. In addition to being GDPR, CCPA, TCPA, and USDP compliant, Impel is the only enterprise-grade Automotive AI provider to be SOC2 Type II certified.

Recruitment and retention have long been challenges in the automotive industry, made even more difficult when specific experience with certain tools or software is required. Impel partnered with RockED to create an industry-standard Automotive AI certification program, designed to educate and empower automotive retail professionals. This comprehensive training program equips workers with the skills to work effectively alongside AI.

With free access to AI education for everyone, dealerships can effectively train and upskill all of their employees, eliminating the need to search for candidates with specialized technology skills. Instead, they can focus on hiring individuals based on qualities like emotional intelligence, cultural fit, teamwork, and critical thinking ability.