If you’ve been to any automotive events lately, you’ve likely heard lots of similar messaging around AI, like “futuristic,” “powerful,” “maximizing your profit," and so on. AI itself is a buzzword. And it’s not that the messaging is incorrect, but good AI can’t overcome bad data. If you aren’t feeding your AI engine clean and connected data, the results range from inefficient to downright embarrassing at times.
At ASOTU CON 2026, Travis Hafer (VP of Strategic Partnerships, Reynolds and Reynolds) and Perla Romero (Assistant Manager, Herson’s Auto Group) sat down with Michael Cirillo (More Than Cars) to move past the buzzwords, look at what happens when data goes wrong, and how to fix it in order to get the most out of your AI tools.
Disjointed Data Hurts Your Reputation
Dealerships are drowning in dirty data, and it forces sales teams to run in circles. Take Hafer’s experience for example: he moved from Ohio to Florida eight years ago. Yet to this day, he is still receiving mail from dealerships in the Ohio area about buying a minivan. Not only does he no longer live in the area, they’re trying to sell him a vehicle he’s never driven or expressed interest in.
Mishandling sensitive customer information can also have severe consequences on your dealership’s reputation. Hafer and Cirillo discussed a situation where AI used an improper note on a customer and sent a message which put the conversation in an awkward spot.
“Hey I hope everything is going okay with your divorce. You ready to come in and test drive that Malibu?”
Without clean data, your customer experience suffers. If your first-party data isn’t clean and isn’t marketable, automating your outreach is going to lead to a lot of problems for both your salespeople and your shoppers.
The Solution: Curator
For Herson’s Automotive Group, the solution was Curator, the industry’s first Unified Intelligence Engine. When your data is clean and connected, your sales team doesn’t have to spend countless hours researching leads, and can focus their efforts on what they do best: selling the customer. Hafer broke it down:
“Curator allows sales reps to know who to contact, when to contact, what type of vehicle to contact about, and possibly what type of payment method. It allows the sales reps to do what they are naturally good at: just connect, help, answer questions and move on to the next deal.”
When a customer takes action on the dealership’s website - browsing VDP’s for example - Curator connects that intent to the Unified Customer Profile (UCP) and injects the opportunity directly into the CRM. From there, the UCP offers actionable insights and generates personalized templates to help start the conversation with the customer. For Romero’s team, it’s completely changed how they handle hot leads:
“Let’s say a customer is clicking on our website 10 times. In the Unified Customer Profile, it tells you your web activity, the text message activity, talking points, email options, text message options. We look at those hot leads that Curator picks up and try to get those customers in.”
When your AI is fed accurate data, it becomes a powerful tool that maximizes your team’s efforts. Not only is everything more efficient, but every interaction with your shoppers is more personalized, leading to a better customer experience.
The Gift of AI
Your data is constantly shifting, and you need a system that can keep up with it. Cirillo put it bluntly:
“If you have data available and you don’t enhance your connection with your customer, you stink. But if you use AI to optimize your data it becomes a gift… AI can speed up human connection.”
Clean data enables AI to create quality leads and help close more deals. Curator ensures you get the most value out your data, by equipping your team with the information they need to build a winning relationship with your customers.