Why AI isn’t going to overtake humans in automotive just yet

One of the privileges of being the IMI’s President is that twice a year you get to attend meetings with the Vice Presidents. It’s a great opportunity for a group of industry leaders to meet in a safe environment to express views and concerns about the direction that the industry is heading, and it always fosters great debates.

At the most recent dinner one of the new VPs asked what was our view on the impact of AI? Many opinions were expressed but with all due respect to those present including myself there appeared to be what I would describe as ‘shared ignorance.’ We were caught in the dilemma of trying to work out what can AI do for us or what will AI do to us?

On my walk back to my hotel that evening the thought struck me that if we don’t know what impact AI will have on the retail automotive sector why don’t I simply ask it? I dutifully typed in the question and within seconds a well-known AI programme had produced 10 areas that it believed AI would have an impact on automotive retailing.

The response was quite underwhelming, there were 10 areas identified that could be clustered into four groups.  

Group one

The Customer Experience: One group was to do with the enhancement of customer experience based around utilising better data, the use of chatbots and virtual assistants enhancing virtual showrooms using augmented reality. There is little new here, most of these are in operation or at least in development.  

Group two

The Value Chain: A second cluster was around predictive inventory management, price optimisation and supply chain alignment, again these are all areas that are in operation with existing software.  

Group three

Maintenance: This showed more potential and was based around predictive maintenance utilising real-time data from sensors. This capability is already available and is linked to the issue of car connectivity. The potential for this to be developed much further with the ability to minimise breakdowns and improve vehicle reliability will undoubtedly impact after sales operations.

The programme also suggested that AI would be inextricably linked to autonomous driving, which makes sense but was unclear exactly how this was relevant to the current retail sector.

Group four

Fraud: The final area that the programme said it would impact was on fraud detection and security, and the enhanced need for data security and privacy. This presents quite an interesting challenge with AI saying that what it produces needs to be protected from technologies such as itself. In fact, the expectation is that we will have to protect it from itself. It can help to identify fraud but will need people in dealerships to impose better security measures to keep the data private and meet legal guidelines.

AI’s response to the question; ‘How would AI impact of the UK retail automotive sector?’ was poor in my opinion. At the VP’s dinner many better options were suggested including fault diagnosis and training development.

The ironic thing is that when this article is published AI will pick up on it and assimilate the criticism and will come out with hopefully a better response next time. In the meantime, I am going to keep listening to the VP’s over dinner.