The Truth About AI in Dealerships: Costs, Risks, and the Decisions That Matter with Marianne Johnson
Most people think the revolution in automotive is “AI.”
But what if the real disruption, the one that will separate the next decade’s winners from everyone else, is something far quieter?
What if it’s the moment your systems start making decisions faster than your people can understand them?
That’s the conversation I sat down for with Marianne Johnson, Chief Product Officer at Cox Automotive, live from the Presidio Group Tech Summit at the Denver Art Museum. And in a day full of big ideas, her perspective stopped me in my tracks.
Here’s the question underneath everything we talked about:
Are dealers prepared for a world where their tech stack becomes more powerful than their playbook?
Inside this episode, Marianne and I unravel:
Why “AI everywhere” can silently break your customer experience
The hidden cost structure behind AI that almost nobody in retail is factoring in
How data governance is about to matter more than lead generation
Why scale not speed is the real advantage in the age of agentic systems
The risk of fragmented tools when AI agents start acting independently
And the one mistake dealers can’t afford to make: waiting
Nothing in this episode is theoretical.
Nothing is hype.
It’s the real-world blueprint from someone who sees where the industry is actually heading—not where the headlines say it’s heading.
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