TrueCar $TRUE ( ▼ 0.41% ) founder Scott Painter is coming back to the company a decade after stepping down. Last week, TrueCar announced that Painter’s firm, Fair Holdings, will acquire the company in a $227 million go-private deal.
Driving the news: At 57, Painter says he's learned some hard lessons from building TrueCar the first time. "I think the first lesson is to collaborate instead of trying to take on a system," he told Daily Dealer Live hosts Sam D'Arc and Uli de' Martino.
Early TrueCar "became a hero brand with consumers," Painter explained, but the company missed on dealer relationships. "What we missed in the first round is saying, how can we collaborate with the industry?"
That collaborative mindset is what brought Painter back to TrueCar now. He sees a window opening thanks to technology that has finally caught up to what he's been trying to build for two decades.
"I'm personally excited just because we see so many technologies that just didn't exist five years ago,” he said. So, in terms of where we see the world going, I think we're going to be positioned to be very relevant in that conversation. But we're also always open-minded and want to hear from dealers who are thinking about what's next.
The opportunity: Dealers are investing heavily in AI to improve their CRMs, business development software, and back-office efficiency. But the bigger transformation, according to Painter, is agentic AI.
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For context: Agentic AI platforms operate as autonomous systems that can make decisions and perform tasks with limited or no human intervention.
For car buyers, this means handling things like vehicle research, trade-in valuations, and financing—all at once through natural conversation rather than clicking through websites.
"We're very quickly moving to a reality where we're not going to be moving sliders around and filters to see what choices we have. We're going to be simply talking to the technology," said Painter. "I think the fear is that if you're a retailer, will that agentic AI optimize against my best interests?" Painter said.
Why it matters: Painter sees dealer participation as necessary for this system to work. The alternative is AI optimizing purely for consumers with no regard for dealer economics, which creates an unsustainable race to the bottom.
His pitch: "I do think this is about really connecting consumers and dealers in a way that's going to be more efficient, more effective. I do want to move away from the mentality of we're just a business that processes leads or we're just a business that's trying to provide information," said Painter.
What's next: Dealers who wait for proof of concept for AI technology will find themselves late to a market that's already moved. But those who participate in building the infrastructure alongside providers, have a chance to shape how agentic AI integrates with franchise operations for the better.
“I would say be open-minded and curious. Pull the string, but prioritize the solutions that are going to focus on customers, not just back office stuff. This is not just a process improvement revolution. This is a transformational moment for consumers,” said Painter.
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