AI won't replace your team. It will coordinate it: Impel at Automotive Management Live
The next wave in dealer operations isn't about swapping people for software. It's about making AI the orchestration layer that connects CRM, DMS and marketing-so your team spends less time wrestling systems and more time serving customers.
Matthew Muilenburg, chief product officer at Impel, joins the Technology and Innovation panel at Automotive Management Live on November 12 at the NEC, Birmingham. The session will focus on how dealers can use AI to remove friction, unify tools and deliver faster, more personal customer journeys-without losing the human touch.
Why this matters for operations leaders
- Reduce handoffs and delays: Use AI to route, respond and enrich leads across channels in seconds.
- Clean data, fewer errors: AI can standardize entries and update records across CRM and DMS automatically.
- Predictable follow-up: Every customer gets consistent, context-aware communication-no missed steps.
- Capacity without headcount: Scale engagement during peaks while your team focuses on high-value conversations.
AI as the orchestration layer across CRM, DMS and marketing
Muilenburg's core point: AI should connect the stack you already have, not replace it. By coordinating data and conversations across systems, you get speed and consistency without ripping out tools that work.
Example: Impel's collaboration with Marketing Delivery links AI-powered conversation with automated outreach. When a customer replies to a campaign, AI can continue the dialogue instantly and hand off to sales with full context. That's a clean move from static blasts to real-time engagement.
New roles to staff now: the human that guides the AI
Dealers once hired internet sales managers to handle digital leads. That responsibility became part of every salesperson's day. We're at that same moment with AI-someone must manage, interpret and improve what the tech is doing.
- AI Operations Lead: Owns prompts, playbooks, routing rules and QA.
- Data Steward: Ensures clean inputs, deduplication and field mapping between CRM/DMS.
- Compliance Owner: Monitors consent, opt-outs and audit trails across channels.
Agentic AI and RPA: what's changing over the next 36 months
The stack is maturing fast. Agentic systems can read context, choose next steps and take actions. Rule-based automation (RPA) still has a place for structured, repeatable tasks like record updates and document moves.
- Agentic AI: Handles multi-step conversations, schedules appointments, qualifies leads and escalates intelligently.
- RPA: Pushes data between systems, updates statuses, triggers follow-up tasks and posts notes to records.
Together, they deliver speed without chaos-provided a human sets the guardrails. As Muilenburg notes with a chess analogy: pair human intuition with machine execution and you get better decisions, faster responses and stronger outcomes.
90-day implementation plan
- Week 1-2: Map the customer journey from first touch to handover. Identify gaps, duplicate work and slow steps.
- Week 3-4: Define AI-in-the-loop rules: what the AI handles end-to-end, what it drafts for human approval and what always stays human.
- Week 5-6: Pilot one use case (e.g., lead response and qualification). Set clear SLAs and escalation criteria.
- Week 7-10: Integrate with CRM/DMS for data writes; enable automatic logging, tagging and appointment scheduling.
- Week 11-12: Expand to service follow-ups and missed-appointment recovery; review results and refine prompts/playbooks.
KPIs that prove it's working
- Response time to first contact: Target sub-60 seconds on all inbound channels.
- Lead-to-appointment rate: Track uplift by source when AI handles first touches.
- No-contact and aging lead reduction: Measure week-over-week drops.
- Data completeness: Required fields filled, duplicates reduced, accurate source attribution.
- Service show rate and RO value: For AI-driven service follow-up and deferred work.
Guardrails you need in place
- Consent and compliance: Enforce opt-in status and channel preferences before any outreach.
- Brand and offer controls: Lock pricing rules, disclaimers and availability checks.
- Human escalation: Route complex or high-emotion cases to a person within defined thresholds.
- Auditability: Log every AI action, message and data change in CRM/DMS timelines.
Session details
- Topic: From adoption to advantage: how AI is reshaping automotive marketing
- Time: 14:00, Technology and Innovation Theatre
- Chair: Neil Smith, Motorvait chief executive
- Panelists: Matthew Muilenburg, Impel chief product officer; Michael Bell, Available Car chief executive; Jeremy Evans, Marketing Delivery chief executive
- Where: Automotive Management Live, NEC Birmingham, November 12
- Who should attend: Dealer principals, operations directors, marketing and service leaders
Helpful resources
- Overview of RPA to plan which tasks to automate first.
- AI courses by job role to upskill your operations and marketing teams.
The takeaway is simple: use AI to coordinate the work, not replace the people. Build the role that guides it, wire it into your stack and measure what matters. The stores that do this now will set the standard for customer experience and operational efficiency over the next three years.
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