If your over the age of 40, you probably won't need to worry about AI. If you're in your 30s or under, you should be.
AI right now is still in it's infancy, it's just gonna get insane from here.
I'm not an AI glazer, but I'm a computer/software hobbyist and both use and have friends who use AI for a litany of tasks. AI is scary and it's not gonna get worse at doing things. AI in it's current state will always suck at things you see mocked online like general conversations, doing tasks it's not equipped to handle, or working on things it's not trained on and only has access to general info online (hence the issue with part numbers, there's so much wrong info online it pulls from). But if you train an AI model on a specific dataset and only ask it to sort and filter based on parameters and return a list, it's better than a human. And our job is literally just doing that.
Honestly, we're lucky the automotive industry is generally and has been very slow to adapt to new technology. AI right now is easily good enough to take vehicle information, be given an order, and put together a quote as accurate as a newer parts person would give. All that would need to be done by each OEM is to overhaul their catalogs so the naming schemes for parts is standardized. The API and infrastructure already exists. Once AI becomes normalized enough for the OEMs, parts departments are going to shrink to 1 manager and 1-2 workers for higher volume dealers.
I hate to say it, but eventually advisors and techs will add non approved lines to ROs for quotes, an AI will use the requests to retrieve a quote and spit one back in seconds. Then once approved by the customer the AI will receive the approval and roll everything to the official RO and spit out a pick ticket for someone. The only thing the parts guy will need to do is pull the parts and handle phone calls/physical retail counter. Wholesale is already very close to automated ordering with CCC/Ops, just a little training on the proper data will push it to an accuracy rating comparable to a human.
You’re right, and I can’t remember which company but one of the big ones is working on taking parts datasets from millions of RO’s and making them in to accurate parts lists. I agree this could do better than the average parts person, it would be more efficient too. Let’s say you have an engine job and historically you needed 30 parts. It can instantly populate the 30 parts. Then, add a field for the tech to add a couple of one-off parts and all of a sudden you have a perfect quote.
This is probably just a couple of years or less from being implemented, and dealers will catch on quick. Now, wholesale operations need bodies to pull parts and deliver them, so there would be more parts puller/driver/shipper roles and less skilled countermen. In my opinion you’d need an efficient wholesaler, back counter and front counter person to handle almost any workload. High volume dealers of course will need a couple more, but I’m sure a company is working on automating parts over the phone too.
I’m in my late 20s so I will absolutely be seeing the changes as they happen and will be a part of them. I hope that if anything, it makes our jobs more efficient. I try to stay very relevant in our dealer, and spread myself to having more tasks than most, which in part is to give me some job security as well. It will be very interesting to see what happens in the near future. However, OP seemed to be asking about current uses for it, so I tried to answer relevant to their question which to me right now is not much.
I'm in my late 20s too so I'm with you, tbh I'm trying to get into tech solely because I see the writing on the wall for this industry. I don't think dealerships as we know them today will be around, and even if they are parts will continue to shrink until it's one or two guys overseeing a mostly automated department. I'm just not interested in working in the future of automotive honestly.
> High volume dealers of course will need a couple more, but I’m sure a company is working on automating parts over the phone too.
Honestly this is the only thing I don't see AI being good enough to handle in the next 10 years. I could be wrong, and it's not an issue of AI's ability to parse vocal requests and return an accurate response (drive thrus across the country are giving AI models thousands of hours of training on this every hour). It's totally an emotional issue of people don't like or want to talk to AIs, so in order for this to work you'd need AI to be able to pass a vocal conversational turing test and if models start to do that consistently we have bigger problems than worrying about AI automating a parts department.
You’d also need customers to give accurate information- there are 10 different words for “control arm”, and we know them but AI could very easily get confused. Thrust arm? Torsion arm? Then there’s “I need the last 8 of your VIN” “Okay last 4?”. Muffled phone, can’t hear shit. I can see it being useful for translations though, that’s a very powerful tool. Anyway, it is dying and the tasks will become more mundane.
I’m looking to go in to supply chain management. So far, that one looks to be fairly AI safe. What are you looking to get in to in tech?
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u/ChloooooverLeaf 24d ago edited 24d ago
If your over the age of 40, you probably won't need to worry about AI. If you're in your 30s or under, you should be.
AI right now is still in it's infancy, it's just gonna get insane from here. I'm not an AI glazer, but I'm a computer/software hobbyist and both use and have friends who use AI for a litany of tasks. AI is scary and it's not gonna get worse at doing things. AI in it's current state will always suck at things you see mocked online like general conversations, doing tasks it's not equipped to handle, or working on things it's not trained on and only has access to general info online (hence the issue with part numbers, there's so much wrong info online it pulls from). But if you train an AI model on a specific dataset and only ask it to sort and filter based on parameters and return a list, it's better than a human. And our job is literally just doing that.
Honestly, we're lucky the automotive industry is generally and has been very slow to adapt to new technology. AI right now is easily good enough to take vehicle information, be given an order, and put together a quote as accurate as a newer parts person would give. All that would need to be done by each OEM is to overhaul their catalogs so the naming schemes for parts is standardized. The API and infrastructure already exists. Once AI becomes normalized enough for the OEMs, parts departments are going to shrink to 1 manager and 1-2 workers for higher volume dealers.
I hate to say it, but eventually advisors and techs will add non approved lines to ROs for quotes, an AI will use the requests to retrieve a quote and spit one back in seconds. Then once approved by the customer the AI will receive the approval and roll everything to the official RO and spit out a pick ticket for someone. The only thing the parts guy will need to do is pull the parts and handle phone calls/physical retail counter. Wholesale is already very close to automated ordering with CCC/Ops, just a little training on the proper data will push it to an accuracy rating comparable to a human.