🔥 Top Story

Kerrigan Advisors just dropped its fourth annual OEM Survey, and the headline is one dealers should love: OEM executives expect dealership blue sky values to hold firm or rise, as 59% project AI will increase future dealership profits, while OEMs plan to navigate softening new vehicle sales and absorb the lion's share of tariffs. As Kerrigan's own leadership put it, "the story of this year's survey is that OEMs see the economics of the dealership model getting stronger, not weaker... They expect AI to increase future dealership profitability, and they plan to shoulder the bulk of tariff costs themselves rather than pass them to their dealers."

Source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260707469261/en/AI-to-Lift-Dealership-Profits-as-Automakers-Plan-to-Absorb-the-Bulk-of-Tariff-Costs-2026-Kerrigan-OEM-Survey-Finds

📰 Other Notable Stories

  • Lokam.ai's voice-AI follow-up platform is growing 45% month-over-month with zero churn — the company just hired a sales director and landed a partnership with QoreAI, and one dealer client reportedly added $20,320 in gross profit in its first 21 days just from re-engaging dead showroom leads. Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/lokam-ai-accelerates-u-expansion-121900789.html
  • Spyne says 2026 is the warm-up — 2027 is when AI becomes non-negotiable. Spyne's latest Auto Retail Intelligence Quarterly report projected a "pivotal shift" in AI use next year, saying those that embed AI within core operations will separate from those still treating it as a side experiment. Source: https://www.autoremarketing.com/ar/
  • UK dealers are getting their own "AI Week." Car Dealer Magazine is launching a dedicated AI deep-dive after chatting to dealers large and small about the practical ways they are using AI right now — worth watching for cross-Atlantic ideas. Source: https://cardealer.substack.com/p/is-the-stock-market-the-right-place
  • Shoppers are increasingly Googling your dealership through a chatbot first. Fullpath's Auto Intelligence Index found use of AI and large language models emerging as a "significant driver of online engagement" with dealerships in 2025, with LLMs becoming a major referral source for car shoppers. This one's a few months old but still relevant context for anyone rethinking SEO/AI-visibility strategy. Source: https://www.autoremarketing.com/ar/analysis/study-shows-consumers-increasingly-turning-to-ai-to-research-dealerships/

💡 Tool Spotlight

Lokam.ai — a voice-first AI follow-up platform built specifically for dealerships. Lokam.ai systematically re-engages every unsold showroom lead to help bring customers back and close, while its voice agents follow up with every customer after service, escalate dissatisfied customers to management instantly, and automatically request Google reviews from promoters. One dealer investor reported Google ratings moving from 4.0 and 4.1 to 4.8, and selling an additional 15 vehicles a month from unsold traffic the AI is calling back. Pricing is not publicly listed. Best for: dealers sitting on piles of "dead" showroom and service leads who don't have the BDC bandwidth to call every single one back.

📊 Stat of the Day

59% of OEM executives believe AI will increase dealership profits (37% expect no change, just 4% expect a decrease) — from Kerrigan Advisors' 2026 OEM Survey, released July 13, 2026. This is a primary-source industry survey (not a vendor self-report), based on roughly 150 manufacturer executives surveyed. Source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260707469261/en/AI-to-Lift-Dealership-Profits-as-Automakers-Plan-to-Absorb-the-Bulk-of-Tariff-Costs-2026-Kerrigan-OEM-Survey-Finds

🔮 Trend Watch

The center of gravity is shifting from "does AI work" to "who's making money with it right now." Three patterns stand out today: (1) Voice AI for follow-up is the hot niche — Lokam.ai's growth numbers and Spyne's investment data both point to voice agents and lead-recovery tools as the fastest-moving category, not flashy showroom robots; (2) OEMs are now co-signing the AI-profit story, which changes the internal sales pitch for GMs trying to get dealer principals to invest; and (3) the industry is moving from "point solutions" to "AI as infrastructure" — surveys and reports keep hammering that isolated chatbots and tools are giving way to unified platforms (QoreAI, Impel, connected data layers) that touch every department. The dealers winning aren't the ones with the most AI tools — they're the ones treating AI like a system, not a gadget.

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Reading about AI won't train your team

The stores pulling ahead aren't the ones with the most tools — they're the ones whose people know how to use them. That takes a strategy, a readiness baseline, and real training.