As the industry moves from experimenting with prompts in ChatGPT to transforming operations with agentic AI, the opportunity is clear. As a dealer principal, I saw my sales team waste hours chasing poor-quality web leads. My lightbulb moment came when I realised my best salesperson couldn’t respond to enquiries 24/7, but AI could. We've invested millions in digital marketing to drive traffic to our websites, only to lose those business because we can't engage with buyers on their terms. Author: Gerard Thatcher, chief executive of MotorTech.AI and managing director of independent used car dealer TMC in Hampshire