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AI Is a Tool, Not a Solution with Brad Title | Auto Collabs · Auto Collabs

0:00
Pull the guitar out. [guitar strumming] There you go. [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs. Welcome to Auto Collabs. Oh. Yeah. [laughs] Got it. We, we were just, you know, someti- we're gonna do...
0:18
I, I told Michael while we were in the room, we're going to create a company that writes jingles, and the company's gonna be called Jangles. [laughs] And our tagline's gonna be, "Hit 'em in the jangles." [laughs] Right.
0:30
Yes. Oh, no. [laughs] Oh, you know who... We'll be like Joey and Jesse on Full House. [laughs] Oh my gosh. They went into the jingle business.
0:40
But they have to be, they all have to be, like, almost in tune- We don't have nearly the hair for that, Cirillo... right, almost in tune with the harmonies, but not quite. Slightly off.
0:47
Like, just n- just enough to make you mad about it. Yeah, like- I know. It's pretty perfect... Fergie singing the national anthem mad about it. I forgot about that. [laughs] Oh, that was tough. That was real tough.
0:56
Probably intentionally. [laughs] No, no, no hate on Fergie, but the national anthem tuning, it's probably hard to hear in those stadiums. I mean, you know what could have helped her was some Auto-Tune, which is- Oh...
1:09
kind of like AI for the voice. It sure is. Great segue, Michael. Thank you. Wow, what a segue. You know- [laughs]... the, the, the reason why we segued just like that [laughs]
1:20
is because today we're talking to Brad Title of Googoogoo, uh, someone who was s- has been always early in adoption of new technology.
1:29
And we're excited to get to talk to him, uh, about some of the new things that they're doing, the way he's seeing the world. Um, always an insightful conversation. So we hope you enjoy this conversation with Brad.
1:41
[upbeat music] Hey, Brad, thank you so much for joining us today on Auto Collabs. Thanks for having us. I appreciate coming on. It's always great to be on your show, so...
1:51
It was awesome to spend some time together at the NADA show this year. Um, I, I just really appreciate your straightforward way of talking about tech, of talking about the needs of dealers.
2:01
I think a lot of times people can dance around because... Not even intentionally. They can dance around because they have the, like... They think in a strictly technical way. Um, so I don't know.
2:12
I have a feeling that this conversation's gonna be a l- a lot more straight talk. Look forward to it. So, um, let's just start this way. Um, I'm just gonna go in on it. Not like people need another AI conversation.
2:24
[laughs] But I'm just gonna rip the band- What? I'm just gonna rip... I know. I... You were asking, "Can we please talk about AI again?" [laughs] But because you're s- AI, CP, man Brad's excited about it too, I can tell.
2:36
No, but because Brad, because you're such a, like, a tell-it-to-you-straight kind of guy, can you give me in one s- I'm gonna put you on the big spot. Can you give me one sentence
2:45
why we shouldn't be paying attention to AI right now? Why we should not? Correct. Oh, I, uh, think there's a huge mistake not paying attention to it.
2:56
And I think AI will help optimize and revolutionize so much of the world from basic best practices that, uh, we don't consider today.
3:07
You know, you look at title clerking and the paper process to perfect a lien and transfer titles, and the c- problems it causes. You know, AI can solve that problem for both dealers, the brand, the consumer.
3:19
And so I think AI has a huge, huge impact. You know, a lot of people say that AI will cost a lot of jobs, but AI over the next three years is supposed to create 25 million new jobs, so...
3:31
What's the risk of overemphas- overemphasizing AI? Right? 'Cause I kinda asked you the question as, like, a tongue in cheek, but what's the- Yeah... risk of over- overemphasizing the implementation- I, I mean, you-...
3:44
of AI right now? You, you immediately kill the entire personal experience, and you remove that relationship building that businesses and consumers need to have if you wanna build loyalty and retain their customers.
3:57
Um, so you know, AI is, is a tool, not a solution, uh, to everything. Of course, as machine learning and deep learning continues to evolve,
4:08
uh, with the risk of devaluing the human relationship involvement with the consumers, um, new ways to engage those consumers will always be a part of the process.
4:20
But you know, there is that risk where you think, "Oh, all straight AI," you know, you're, you're, you're dehumanizing the entire experience. You gave me a T-shirt idea in there. Uh-oh. It... No, it's just very simple.
4:33
It's a simple statement, "AI is a tool, not a solution." Dude, that, well, that was my ch- my takeaway. Ding. Like, I'm taking that to the bank because- That's gonna be the title of this episode.
4:43
[laughs] Everybody has been saying, like, "AI can solve that," right? But I think AI is a tool in the tool belt in which humans solve the problems- Correct... utilizing the efficiency around AI. Right.
4:59
And that is, like, a narrative shift, I believe. Absolutely. See, you don't even need to... W- we can streamline the shirt and just, it'll say, "Don't be a tool." [laughs] I think, I think they made that in '93.
5:14
[laughs] That was, like... [laughs] You know what's interesting though? You got me thinking about, uh, Brad, which is this: today there, there are two sides of this narrative. There are those that are like, "I see it.
5:25
I get it. I'm an early adopter. I can see how this is gonna revolutionize" your point of creating 25 million jobs. Then there's the other side of this, the, the narrative which is
5:36
the people that, dare I say, are butt hurt over the concept because they're like, "No, this is gonna take our job"
5:45
But if we're being honest, most of the people that feel that way weren't providing a better experience than AI for their customers to begin with. And I wonder if that's the reason they feel- Oh... so threatened by it.
5:58
Yeah. Wow. AI can, AI delivers the follow-through, guys, right?
6:02
I mean, if you have poor follow-up and you have poor engagement-Um, when you're using AI on, you know, CRM databases, and you're automating the engagement and the follow-up and reading the leads and being able to engage the consumers, that's where I think people become insecure when you think about in sales, for example.
6:21
I, I personally believe that, uh, you know, with the evolution of AI and the jobs that people fear it'll take away, it's gonna create more jobs in different ways because we're not erasing the human element. Yeah.
6:37
And, and where we're at in the timeline here is it's kind of okay right now to not know exactly what those jobs will be. Like, that's part of the fun of evolution, is figuring it out as we go. Yeah.
6:49
I mean, AI is gonna absolutely revolutionize and move us forward faster than we've moved in the last 80 years. There's no question about it. And, uh, you can't really see in the... what the future looks like.
7:02
I always picture it like The Jetsons. Um, but in reality, AI can solve a lot of problems and make people more effective, more efficient, and be able to improve their job.
7:13
But, you know, when we started with AI about eight years ago, when we started learning about these bots in the chat space and testing them with stupid questions, and they would answer you with awful responses, you know, we quickly learned that we prefer to use AI as an assistant, a solution.
7:28
So we actually call it AI Assist. And what it would do is it would focus on, you know, the conversational intent of the question.
7:36
It would focus on the contextual awareness of the question so that it could understand the question, be able to know it could answer it, whether it's appointment, pricing, the vehicle availability, the trade, payoff with actual trade value included.
7:51
Um, it could answer questions repeatably and save time for the operator resourcing this, especially when you have four channels with one operator.
7:59
Three minutes to answer one question leaves three other people waiting nine minutes on one question. So three, four questions deep, you have a long time.
8:07
So we use the AI to assist, assist us to find the answers, keep the operator involved, review the response, and then submit it to the consumer so that there is that human element still, right?
8:19
I mean, AI's great on so many levels, but it won't convert at the same level if it answers every question 'cause the consumer doesn't need to. So there's that, uh- Do you think it'll ever get there?
8:30
Yeah, absolutely, 100%.
8:32
The machine learning that's going on, the deep learning that's been invested in, um, all the new things that people are investing in AI to solve problems for, like I was talking about title clerking.
8:43
You know, there's groups that have 60 people handling title perfection and transferring when, when you don't have, when you don't have to deal with a wet signature and you can connect to all the DMVs,
8:53
all those jobs will change. And the, the complaints and the impact of not having the title transfer properly will improve consumer experience, the dealerships.
9:02
And I think that just like that, AI is already playing a role in how omni-channel providers can assist the customer more effectively, efficiently. I think it will also affect the entire online retail.
9:14
You know, like your first question, you know, the problems with going from online to in-store. Yeah, being able to continue where you left off when you're in the dealership.
9:22
If you calculate a payment online but are never considered the payoff, you're gonna find out when you get in the store, and it's gonna upset the customer that they're gonna find out what the payoff is and the payment you saw wasn't accurate.
9:33
And then there's also the whole connectivity, being able to connect the online to back office systems. Not just the DMS, but the CRM and the finance tools, all the way to sending and submitting contracts to in transit.
9:45
So, you know, these, these processes can be improved now with AI. Absolutely. Well, yeah, one of the things that I think that as, as the auto industry world that we've done is betray the trust of the consumer, right?
9:59
And I-- every single element that you've just pointed to, whether it be title clerking or payments or the process in store or contracts in transit or anything like that, there are so many opportunities, whether intended or not intended, to actually betray the trust of the consumer because human error or, or intervention actually gets in the way of what could be an automated process, right?
10:23
And so it, it unintentionally or intentionally, we have not created software ecosystems that, that ensure trust is transferred all the way around the vehicle, uh, the purchase process.
10:37
And that's where, like, the human can now be enabled to, like, build trust in the relationship and not have to also build trust in a potentially lackluster process. Mm-hmm. Right? Sure. Which is...
10:52
That's a hard thing for, like, for, for a human to build trust in a process is a lot different than a human to build a trust in another human. Mm-hmm. Right?
11:02
And that gives- Well, the trick is, the trick is right when, when systems betray the employee's trust, right? You got someone coming in, they saw a payment online, they gave the trade information.
11:15
The AI or the, the technology quoted a payment, and then they have to explain to the person when they come in that they don't have the payoff included. That's when those people lose the trust, right?
11:26
So the systems have to be able to work together so that the end users trust the systems. Once the systems are trusted by the end users,
11:34
then when they're using AI to deliver accurate information that's ac-actually effective and accurate, um, then the individuals actually bring the authenticity to the experience, is what I believe. Yeah.
11:47
Because how many...
11:48
Uh, I mean, you, you guys probably deal with this a lot, but like, you know, when I was at the dealership, we, we used to look at, like, monthly active users in all of our systems, like how many people are actually logging into the systems.
11:59
Mm-hmm. And typically, it wasn't because the system was, was, was bad, uh, by nature or even, like, there's a lot of argument like, "Oh, there's too many systems." Well-G- shoot.
12:10
People log into, like, 33 social media accounts a day and check five emails. [laughs] They know how to log into multiple systems. That's not the issue.
12:17
It's that that system has betrayed the trust of the actual employee at some level, right? Varying degrees of trust. Or, or the customer- Yeah... and the employee doesn't- Or the customer, so they're mad. Yep. Right. Yep.
12:27
And I, and I believe that that's where the AI,
12:31
um, as it's getting smarter, more effective, more efficient, um, and as just the consumers of the world, like everybody on the planet that, you know, had to start adopting texting or emailing and stop mailing, start adopting the trust of AI on the site with the questions.
12:48
When those-- As this improves, I believe that the human element is what brings the authenticity to the, the, to the full process. So I think there's a, an equal balance between the two. I think the AI brings- Now-...
13:01
efficiency and effectiveness.
13:03
Here's a question that I have for you just from, like, a, a product building perspective, 'cause this is, this is one that's interesting that I haven't really poked at with anyone that is building a lot of AI technology right now.
13:13
But you, you've, you know, you just said eight years ago you were starting to experiment at Goobagooe with AI at, at whatever level it was then, right? A lot more machine learning, less AI, right? Yep.
13:24
Um, until, you know, the, these large language models came into play. But when you think about, like, the... What's the difficulty right now of,
13:36
you know, pivoting so quickly for a SaaS company that has to rely on something that's, like, not yet fully baked- Mm-hmm... and build it into- Hmm... the, the entire ecosystem of a product, right?
13:51
Because you've got product roadmaps, you've got things that dealers are asking for, things that you've had on the roadmap that are three, four, or five-year product roadmaps, and now you get this injection of a net new thing that is altogether better.
14:04
But actually, like, that takes a lot of work to kind of pivot and figure out how it works into the roadmap and how you shift and move and, and gain the dealer's trust on the product roadmap.
14:14
How-- What does that look like over the past couple years? That's the story of my career. [laughs] We're, we're, we're all in a feature war race, right? We're all chasing the features.
14:25
We're all chasing the best experience. We're all trying to connect with all the APIs. You know, at the end of the day, um,
14:33
you know, we're, we're building a new all-in-one CRM platform, so the FieldKast platform that will encompass and include our entire retailing tools from Goobagooe, our omni-channel tools, so that, uh, we reinvent the new CRM 2.0, I call it.
14:49
It's not just contact management, but it's omni-channel real-time engagement.
14:53
So I don't have to email somebody or I don't have to send a, a text to them, 'cause I can see they're on WhatsApp typing and I can deliver the message.
15:00
And I can use the retailing tools to communicate through that channel. So we're streamlining all of this right now. We're working on a big CDP project called, uh, Curator.
15:10
And of course, you know, with the influence of AI, I mean, there's so many areas of the business that companies never or people didn't try to go change or optimize, like, you know, improving titling 'cause it's such a laborious role, right?
15:25
With AI, you can do these things now. So we're looking at our investments and our strategy with AI.
15:30
And as we're bringing everything into the all-in-one CRM platform, um, and introducing our own CDP with all first-party data, you know, we're looking at how the AI is going to automate marketing best practices for dealers and their agencies.
15:44
We're looking at how the AI can read the information in the CRM from inbound leads or texts, uh, to the attachments, to opportunities based on age, day, last response time, to be able to continuously re-engage.
15:56
So, um, to me, AI is a, is a, is a strong instrument, a very flexible tool that can optimize many different individual inefficiencies that, you know, people have in their work to help them become better and more effective and scale better.
16:12
Less pe- By the way, thank you for not using the term CDP and AI in the same sentence- [laughs]... 'cause you might have just broken the space-time continuum. [laughs] He at least gave it a period in the middle of it.
16:25
It was great. There was a period in the middle. You know, yeah, um, when we had our last interview at NADA, I was just introducing a prototype for our vision plan for CDP.
16:33
And, you know, it's funny, you know, eight years ago, conversational commerce was used everywhere. And then now CDP has been used so many different ways that I, uh, I don't even know the true definition.
16:44
Don't even know what it means anymore. Other than my own. Other, other than my own. What is yours? You know what, what's interesting to me is I, I, I can't help but think that technology
16:58
is only progressing at lightning speed for those that weren't paying attention, to a degree. Like, wait, where did all of this come from? It's like, have you not used Google over the last 30 years?
17:10
Like, have, have you not understood that machine learning was the precursor to where we're at now and we have language learning mo- and before that it was programmatic. Like,
17:20
some form of a seed of AI has existed since like the '50s. Mm. Right? And the reason it feels like it, it's happening so fast now is because you just popped your head up.
17:33
There's a new hype around things like GPT or Gemini or whatever, and it's really making people hyper-aware, and then they, and then they get all freaked out.
17:41
But I feel like for guys like you, Brad, you being in it for quite some time, even bringing up George Jetson, which by the way, that's a side topic 'cause he was born two years ago. Yeah.
17:53
So if we're really tracking timelines, by the time he's 40, when the show takes place, we will have flying cars 'cause they're- [mimics flying car]...
18:00
you know, like, people then, 40 years from now, will be like, "Where'd all these flying cars come from?" And you're like, "Dude, do you not remember 2024 when the- [laughs]... FAA approved the first proto-" You know.
18:14
So-From your perspective in building out these, these, you know, softwares and these AI tools, how do you envision getting broad adoption? Right? 'Cause there are a lot of...
18:31
There are early adopters, but there are gonna be a lot of people that are like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is moving too fast for me." What's the inroad to help everyone understand that this isn't going away? Well,
18:43
so if I think about when I entered the chat space in 2010, there was three big companies. And, um, for us, our strategy was a feature war to get ahead in order to grow.
18:55
Then when we s- started to hear about online retailing, um, if it wasn't for COVID, I don't think retailing online would've been where we are today. The, the fast tracking of it was pretty impressive.
19:08
Um, speaking for understanding my business, the growth it had during the times when, you know, chat wasn't, not an essential product. Retailing wasn't essential.
19:17
Dealers could spend 10 different ways and still hit their number and afford the big ad budget. And, um, and then it changed and became essential, right?
19:24
But in the last two years, I have never seen anything like the impact that AI has taken hold all of a sudden. Where, like you said- Right... everyone's head has popped up. Because, A,
19:35
everyone learned quickly and through viral, the ChatGPT site, people could play with and started to recognize personally how the value of this can, can impact them personally.
19:45
Whether it's generating code or generating PowerPoints or any question you can ask, you get the answer. So it started to build the trust, and it went viral. And with that- Right... the world has embraced it.
19:57
And it's just growing faster than I've seen any segment of technology the last 20 years. I mean, it's super fast right now.
20:04
And the reality is, there's so many areas of AI that if the world opened up APIs to everyone, you could connect the data and do so much more. But it is a fragmented space in automotive, so how do you use the tools?
20:18
How to build it to make it work? I don't think that the tech was ever designed to disappoint or let people down.
20:25
Um, retailing, for example, was a fast track during co- uh, during COVID, where not everybody was in place to open up APIs from lending down to credit information to trade data. So
20:38
the tools were built as the best we could, acro- I believe across all the competitive landscape, and it's been a feature war since the adoption of COVID with retailing to get the payoff. Connect to the DMS.
20:51
Connect to the CRM, right? And so letting those people down was just a matter of the way, the speed of the market, right, and the adoption.
20:58
And AI is the perfect example of something to me that, 24 months, you know, it used to be called bots and was pretty worthless in my opinion, eight years ago. [laughs] Right. Now, it's come such a long way so fast.
21:11
Except bots were worthless to all of us perceptionally, right? Today, AI is n- still a bot by definition, but super powerful. And with quantum computing, it's even gonna grow even faster, so- It's gonna be crazy...
21:24
I, I think that the world has recognized how AI can impact every single person on the planet individually, and that's why there's such an interest. I- Right...
21:34
am personally a little bit frightened, because I can only picture me never leaving a recliner 'cause AI will- [laughs] They have a movie about that. It's called Wall-E... do programed to do everything for me. Wall-E.
21:45
It's called Wall-E, Mike. [laughs] Oh, man. Well, listen, Brad, we're so glad that you were able to share some time with us today on AutoClubs. Uh, thanks for sharing all of your wisdom with us. We really appreciate it.
21:57
I appreciate it as well. Thank you for having us.
21:59
You know, we, um, we have a lot of stuff coming out with AI being released and new platforms with, with our CDP connecting all the customer data, first-party platform, uh, data in our platform that will, um, be able to connect all of our retailing, our omni-channel tools, the CRM.
22:15
Um, you're gonna see some big stuff coming out over the next year. [upbeat music] I feel like there should be a musical outro. Come on, we're gonna do it. Gooba who? [upbeat music] Gooba goo. Gooba goo.
22:33
[laughs] Well, we helped you out with that one. Um, man, the, the, like, simple statement that he was like, "You know, eight years ago we were messing with this thing called AI." Right. Like, duh.
22:47
Of course you were, right? It- Yeah. I, I think what came up in that interview is rarely, rarely talked about. It's like
22:55
the, the seeds of this, Michael, you said it, have been, like, if you're paying attention, you've seen it coming. You've seen it coming. You've seen it coming. But may- I mean, obviously now the momentum is picking up.
23:05
That's still happening. What was the shirt title that, that, uh, that he gave us- Oh. About AI? Oh. Oh. Now I've lost it. Oh, my goodness. What am I doing? It's right there. Eh. Ah, we're fine.
23:19
It's- Uh, oh, oh, it's not a, it's, it's, uh, it's a tool, not a solution. It's a tool, not a solution. Right? Oh, gosh. I'm gonna be wearing the- That's a- "Don't be a tool" shirt. "Don't be a tool" shirt, right? Don't.
23:30
From 1993, right? Yeah. And I think that that's really key for us to think about as an industry, just, and, and with any net new tool.
23:41
Instead of just believing that they're the silver bullet solution, like, "Oh, AI can solve everything. Oh, if I had a CDP, I'd be good." Yeah. "Oh, if I-" Just turn it on.
23:51
"Whatever X is, just turn it on and it's-" Oh, my gosh. Remember just, like, a couple years ago, it was like, "I have digital retailing on my website." Solved, right? Yeah. No.
23:58
It's a tool that humans implement in order to create the solution to have better guest, guest experiences. And, and build systems around it.
24:05
And this is why, this is why I asked the question about people paying attention. Because, like, Google's existed for how many years now? Let's just say 30. 25? Yeah. I don't know, whatever it is.
24:16
20.Fast-forward to today when we've even made it a verb, you know? Yep. Goog- goo- you know, just Google it, right? How many people en masse still don't know how to use Google effectively enough?
24:34
And- Right, or just a little sliver of it... so, like, that's what, that's what I think about with AI. I'm like, well, I look at my, my in-laws.
24:41
Like, my mother-in-law, bless her heart, still believes that if she does not specifically click the sign-out button on her Yahoo Mail account, that her emails will seep out into the ether.
24:52
[laughs] You know what- Oh, man... you know what bless her heart means when you live in the South. Yeah, I know. In the South. [laughs] I knew that. Yeah, yeah. Bless, uh, she doesn't listen to this.
25:00
They don't, uh- She doesn't listen to the pod- They don't follow it... good. Okay. We're fine. We're fine. The point is, is like, will there come a time where certain people, maybe our age demo, Paul- Yeah...
25:09
will age out of all of this and just be like, "Who care, I don't even care what's going on in the world. I just wanna read the newspaper again" [laughs]? No. I still do want- I don't, I don't, I don't-...
25:18
to read the newspaper... I don't wanna read the newspaper. The, I wanna age out of having to read the newspaper at all. [laughs] Right? There. There. [laughs] like, I don't even care.
25:26
I wanna start every day- I'm on a beach... just like we started this podcast with a guitar and some, writing some songs for our company jangles. [laughs] Company jangles. Yeah.
25:36
You know what never ceases to amaze me, though, is just how much innovation is happening in the automotive industry. I know- It's fantastic...
25:42
sometimes we get a bad rap, and we're like, "Oh, no, we're behind the times and this and that." When you really pull out, you look at a company like Gobagu or- Mm-hmm...
25:49
many of the others, like, we're, we're at the forefront of a lot of innovation, and I think a lot of industries are actually looking inward to ours. So, uh, with all that in mind- Great point...
26:01
hey, hope you guys enjoyed this episode with Brad. Uh, if you're listening to this before ASOTU CON, it's not too late. Nope. Just saying. It's not too late. Grab your tick- We'll sell you a ticket at the door. Yeah.
26:12
Hey, hotel rooms selling out fast over, what are we up now, 100 speakers? Close. 90, 93. 300, something crazy. Yeah. 93 speakers, panelists, subject matter experts. Uh, ever heard of the book Unreasonable Hospitality?
26:27
Wilbert Snow- I've heard of that... is gonna be there. Like, we can't- I've heard of that one... toss over that. That is worth the price of admission alone. Go to asotucon.com. Grab your tickets.
26:35
We'd love to see you there. If you're listening in the future, FOMO. [laughs] You missed out. Hope we see you at the next one whenever it is, uh, in the future. You might be listening in 2062- May 2025, just-...
26:47
and Paul and I roll in on a scooter... just circle the middle part of May whatever year you're in- [laughs]... and be like, "That's when ASOTU CON's gonna happen. Let me block it off." That's perfect.
26:56
If you can't tell, we're super excited, super passionate about it. We're digging into a lot of topics that are gonna help you dominate through the next 18, 24,
27:05
48 months, especially through all the volatility of the market. Don't do it alone. There's no reason you should be doing it alone. Get in the room where we are coming up with active solutions.
27:13
Hope to see you there, ASOTU CON. And on behalf of myself, Michael Cirillo, Paul Jay Daly, Kyle Mounseer, thanks for watching Autocollabs. Peace. Peace.
27:23
[upbeat music] Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news in automotive, retail, media, and pop culture. You can get it now at asotu.com. That's A-S-O-T-U.com.
27:37
If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
27:46
[upbeat music] Welcome to Autocollabs. Welcome to Autocollabs. [laughs] Why are we recording? Are we rolling yet? Not yet.