Video can only be watched with javascript enabled.
Paul J Daly: All right. We're here with AJ McGowan, cofounder of AutoVision. And I think we got a little bit of a glow up on the booth this year.
AJ McGowan: We got a huge blow up on the booth this year. Yeah, no. It looks amazing. The team did a great job.
PD: It looks so, so good. You've had a very, very busy year. Obviously, rolling out AutoVision to a lot more people, but also developing a new I'll call it a product. I've heard the name: Avery AI. Well, tell me about Avery. What are they up to?
AM: Yeah, so Avery was basically last year at NADA, I actually had a little bit of a prototype for it. And basically, the idea was we have so much data inside of AutoVision that you can start to get lost in the data. I mean, we have got market trends and charts and graphs and all this other stuff.
PD: Yeah, no human could ever analyze or ingest it.
AM: No, or has the time to, you know, sit down and really look at it. Right. And so, you know, we started to think about it and said, you know, what if we could train an AI to be a super user of the AutoVision platform. So it could be like an assistant for somebody, that's using it and say, Hey, I did all the processing for you. Here's what we think this looks like and then actually explain why. So it can point you directly at all the different data points that went into making that decision. And I showed somebody a prototype last year at NADA, it was very, you know, kind of hush-hush. My favorite one that I showed was a dealer who was, you know, came in and was like, okay, show us what you got. And was, you know, kinda—
PD: They're in relax mode.
AM: Yeah. You know, they had a beer in their hand. It was towards the end of the day and they were really liking everything that they saw. And I pulled up this prototype of Avery, the guy literally dropped his beer and just spilled all over the place.
PD: That's the best compliment ever.
AM: Yeah. And I was like, okay, we're on to something here.
PD: You're like, I think we're going to do more of this. So I think you said something really interesting there, not just ingesting the insights and like doing a thing, but also explaining why.
AM: That's right.
PD: And because I think a lot of buyers or when you're valuing a vehicle, you look and people make sometimes gut assumptions based on their overall understanding of the data. But how does the explaining why bring so much value to the user?
AM: Yeah, absolutely. So it's a couple of things, right? So the first piece of it is we want, you know, we're not trying to replace the humans in the process, we're trying to make them superhuman. Right. And so every time that we have the AI do the processing and explain it, what the dealers tell us is, you know, I learned something from looking at the way that the AI looking at this. That helps me to know what to look at in the data in the future. Right.
PD: It's literally real time training. It's like having a mentor, almost.
AM: That’s exactly right.
PD: That’s interesting positioning as a mentor.
AM: Yeah. No, I agree.
PD: What are some of the things it does?
AM: So it will help you with stocking. So it'll pin a number on a car and say all in, after recon, this is where you would probably be at. It’ll tell you at that point whether or not it thinks it's a good fit for your sort. And that's based on everything. That's based on your historical performance. It's based on the market and it's based on the vehicle. All of it. Takes that into account, says, Yeah, you know, this is probably a good fit or not a good fit. Right. And then it’ll also tell you, hey, if you are going to buy this car, here's probably where you should price it. And if you price that there, here's about how long it will take to sell. And then on a daily basis, as the market changes, because, you know, in AutoVision, we revamp the market every single day. Right. We'll expand and contract and say, here's current competitors. Avery kicks in as soon as that's done and goes through and says, okay, well today I think you should be priced here.
PD: So it gives recommendations automatically. On—every day.
AM: That's right. Every day. And it will alert you if it's above or below where your price is by however many dollars you want. You can set that threshold.
PD: So, you know, we hear a lot of things. You have several competitors. Everybody uses the word AI and whatever. What are some of the main differentiators that AutoVision and Avery have from some of the competitive offerings?
AM: Sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, the big thing is the approach that we took, which is, you know, really unique, I think not only in automotive but in general. You know, when it comes to AI and generative AI, you know, this is really new territory.
PD: Absolutely.
AM: For the world, right? And so the approach that we took was instead of like, we're going to create this black box and, you know, throw all this data into this AI and it’s going to come back with an answer, we're just.
PD: That we’re just going to accept it.
AM: Yeah, we're just going to accept it because, you know, the robot knows what it's doing, right? Instead of that, we say, Hey, we're going to teach you to look at this like a user. We're going to give you access to all the same great data that we give our users. Right. So it's really looking at it like that. It's acting more like another employee on your staff, right? Like a real advisor that's looking at the same thing you are the same way that you are. But it doesn't sleep, right? It doesn't sleep. But it only takes a couple of seconds to do an hour's worth of work.
PD: What have some of the responses been from the dealers who have been implementing it and using it? Like what are some of the results that people are seeing?
AM: You know, it varies, right? So, you know, people it's a whole spectrum in terms of how people want to use AI in their business. And the approach that we've taken really lets them do that. You know, I've got everything from folks that are very, very skeptical. And when they've started using it, we've been piloting this with a bunch of dealers for the last six months. What they tell us, the skeptics, they say, hey, you know what, I'm a believer now because I have somebody to fact check my folks. So there's a you know, if the AI says it's a 25 grand, my guy says it's 26. Fine. It's all good, right? I don't have to dig too deep.
PD: Yeah.
AM: But if the AI says, it's 25. My guy thinks it's 30. I've got something I need to go look at. Right. And then you've got on the complete other end of the spectrum, folks that are just this is accelerating my business. We can focus on our customer experience. We can focus on selling cars instead of being data analysts. This is doing 90% of the heavy lifting for us. So, you know, it's everything in between, but it's been overwhelmingly positive.
PD: So it's like everything from a validation tool, like an instant validation to something that's seen is really a leverage point to spend more time with the people, which, as you know, we're big fans of. Because this is always going to be a human business. And, you know, a lot of people sometimes make the mistake of leaning into tech as a savior—saving thing instead of finding the right part in their process to let the tech empower the process. So it sounds like it's really flexible depending on whatever process a dealer has because no dealers are the same.
AM: Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right.
PD: So you got—we still have some time left on the floor. What are your hopes for not just the rest of the show, but the next, you know, we'll say six months?
AM: Yeah. So, I mean, you know, the rest of the show, we just hope to, you know, keep showing Avery. We showed a lot of people yesterday, everybody’s really excited. And a bunch of other new stuff that we're working on. We've got AutoVision Messenger which is almost like, well, it is a full scale messaging platform built in. So, you know, channels and instant messaging and all those things, they can share appraisals amongst each other. We've got some…
PD: Internal messaging.
AM: Internal messaging. Yeah. So I'm going to ask Avery what they think, but I might also want to ask my internal buying group what they think. We’ve got an easy way to do that now. Right.
PD: And this is what Avery? Oh, that’s great.
AM: So it's all about that transparency, right? It's all about getting everybody sort of, you know, singing from the same page of the hymnal, if you will. So we're really excited about that. And, you know, for the next six months, it's all about, you know, we think we've solved a lot of these tactical problems. Now, how do we go up a level and have it start looking at things more strategically?
PD: Yeah. Well, A.J., look, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in you I can tell. And in AutoVision and in Reynolds. Thank you so much for the hard work you're doing to try to help dealers and giving us some of your time today.
AM: Absolutely. Thank you. It's always good to see you.