Welcome to another edition of the Car Dealership Guy Podcast Recap—a rundown of key lessons from top operators, founders, and execs shaping the future of auto retail.
Today’s guest is Scott Traylor, Vice President at Mia Labs.
Scott breaks down how voice AI is pulling $8,000 to $30,000 a month in after-hours revenue at stores where customers used to just hit a voicemail, why service advisors are letting calls go unanswered on purpose, and how Mia became the first voice AI company approved by General Motors for their co-op program.
The goal was always to help people become better, not sell more cars.
Running a brand new Echo Park point in Dallas, the first rule was no Saturday meetings.
The second was a 15-minute daily huddle built around encouragement, announcements, and shoutouts, in that order.
"My goal was not to get them to sell another car. My goal was to get them to be a better person. And because you pour into the people in such a manner, you help them unlock themselves. Then they run faster than they they've ever thought they could run before."
Month one, the company goal was 200 units. The store sold 250. By month five, they hit 595, and the people selling 20 to 25 cars a month stopped feeling exceptional because it became the floor.
If you're getting comfortable, that's your alarm that something is wrong.
The through line from a top-performing dealership general manager to a voice AI co-founder is a trained refusal to stay still when something feels settled.
"We get comfortable. And you have to sometimes stress yourself out. You have to put yourself in situations where you're forcing yourself to grow. And if you are getting comfortable, that should be your alarm that something is wrong."
The specific nudge that led to Mia was a gut feeling in early 2023, after ChatGPT dropped, that there was something in it for automotive, even without the technical background to know what it was yet.
AI adoption in automotive is at the ‘website’ moment.
Twenty-five years ago, a vendor walked into a dealership and told the owner they needed a website. The owner said, "What's this internet thing?"
"We're in that space right now."
His POV: Dealers who understand that AI will be deeply embedded in retail operations are the ones positioning for the next era, while others are still deciding whether to take the meeting.
After-hours is the easiest win in voice AI, with some stores are generating $30,000 a month from it.
Before Mia, a customer calling at 2 a.m. to set a service appointment either waited until morning or went somewhere else.
"My average store has revenue to the tune of like $8,000 to $10,000 a month. Some of my stores are upwards of almost $30,000 a month just after hours."
Putting AI on the first ring during business hours to triage calls so service advisors can focus on the customer standing in front of them is also working well for stores.
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1.9 seconds is what separates voice AI from a phone tree.
The difference between a 1.9-second response time and a 5-second one doesn't sound significant on paper, but in a conversation, Traylor says it's the difference between a natural exchange and the exact experience that makes people hang up on airline automated systems.
"The average latency in this industry is three and a half to four seconds. So, what is your name [long pause] for every exchange? And it's very it's friction-filled."
Getting the voice right took years, and that head start is hard for anyone starting from scratch to close quickly.
The service advisor phone problem is a math problem, not a training problem.
A high-volume service drive has a service advisor managing a desk line, a cell phone, a computer, and a customer standing in front of them.
"We have so much traffic coming in that the humans at the store level, they have no hope to try and convert at all."
Mia's job on the first ring is to absorb the blunt force trauma of key fob battery questions, store location, night key drop, oil change scheduling, and only route to a human when the conversation actually needs one.
The biggest differentiator in AI right now is whether the vendor actually listens.
Relationship quality is up there with concerns on voice quality, aka whether the vendor could be reached, whether they responded to feedback, and whether customization was possible.
"I'm an AI company and you're leaning into human to differentiate yourself."
According to Traylor, two decades of working for large dealer groups where ideas went unheard shaped his mindset about what dealers actually need from a technology partner, and it isn't more features.
General Motors approved Mia as the first voice AI in their IMR program.
The GM approval came through as a phone call while waiting at an airport, which Traylor said left him dancing on chairs and high-fiving strangers.
"I was here in Florida somewhere. I had just landed...my phone rings and it's my my contact at General Motors and he said, 'I'm proud to announce that Mia has been selected as the first voice AI company approved by General Motors.'"
Some broader context: Most OEMs haven't created an AI vendor category at all yet, which makes GM's move a meaningful signal about where the industry is headed and who's positioned inside it.
The next frontier for voice AI is internal dealership efficiency, not just customer-facing calls.
The current wave of voice AI creates efficiency between the customer and the store, but the next wave turns inward.
"Sometime in the next year, I would say that you're going to see the efficiencies turn inward. Where the store starts getting efficient in their day-to-day operations between each other, between parts and service, between service and sales, between sales and service, between accounting and everybody."
The parts department is the specific near-term target, because it receives almost no technology investment and, in his framing, functions like a black hole inside most dealerships.
The more AI floods the world with synthetic content, the more valuable authentic human connection becomes.
The closing argument is that AI's very success creates a counter-pressure that plays directly to what dealerships do best.
"The more we can get people together and you can utilize AI in that space to create this space right here. I think that's the winning formula going for it."
What he means: In a world where every video is suspect, and every interaction might be automated, the in-person moment between a salesperson and a customer becomes the one thing that can't be faked.
