Car Dealers Are Losing Inventory — AI Is the Only Fix

2025-12-19

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Car dealerships are losing inventory — and most don’t realize why.Consumers now expect instant pricing, zero friction, and immediate engagement, yet most dealers still rely on slow callbacks, manual workflows, and outdated acquisition models. The result? Cars go straight to Carvana or CarMax.In this episode of Built This Week, Sam Nadler and Jordan Metzner sit down with Anthony Monteiro, CEO & Founder of Auto Acquire AI, to break down how AI is fundamentally cha...

Car dealerships are losing inventory — and most don’t realize why.

Consumers now expect instant pricing, zero friction, and immediate engagement, yet most dealers still rely on slow callbacks, manual workflows, and outdated acquisition models. The result? Cars go straight to Carvana or CarMax.

In this episode of Built This Week, Sam Nadler and Jordan Metzner sit down with Anthony Monteiro, CEO & Founder of Auto Acquire AI, to break down how AI is fundamentally changing how dealerships acquire vehicles directly from consumers.

Auto Acquire AI gives everyday car dealers — small, medium, and large — the same capabilities as Carvana: instant offers, automated inspections, AI-driven pricing, and real-time engagement, without massive engineering teams or bloated operations.

Jordan also walks through a live AI workflow he built for Auto Acquire, showing how dealerships can automatically analyze inbound intent, score leads, and trigger the right action — SMS, email, or phone — without tying up staff.

This is not theory. This is AI running real dealership operations today.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why dealers can’t compete at auctions anymore
• How AI enables instant vehicle pricing without human intervention
• Turning web forms into real-time SMS conversations
• Using intent scoring to decide when to text, email, or call
• Why engagement speed determines who wins the trade
• How computer vision automates vehicle inspections from a phone
• Why structured automotive data is perfect for AI
• How dealers already have inventory sitting in customer driveways
• Why most “AI companies” aren’t actually using AI
• The real difference between demos and production AI systems

We also dive into autonomous vehicle news, including:
• Waymo’s $15B raise at a $110B valuation
• Tesla vs Waymo: cameras vs lidar
• Why Tesla may license Full Self-Driving to other manufacturers
• The reality behind “Full Self-Driving” marketing claims

⏱️ Timestamps

(0:00) Why car dealers are losing inventory
(0:38) Welcome to Built This Week
(1:07) Introducing Auto Acquire AI
(1:42) How Auto Acquire works
(2:24) AI workflow demo: intent → action
(3:11) Automated SMS conversations
(4:55) Why AI removes staff bottlenecks
(6:29) Dealership behavior by geography
(7:38) Why instant pricing wins
(10:34) AI-powered vehicle inspections
(12:03) The real pain point in dealer inventory
(13:31) Why dealers already own the data
(14:46) What “real AI” actually means
(17:00) Structured data and real-time pricing
(18:05) Waymo raises $15B
(19:03) Tesla vs Waymo economics
(21:44) Will Tesla license FSD?
(24:29) Is “Full Self-Driving” misleading?
(27:09) Final thoughts and wrap-up