Over the past two months, the topic of search visibility has been rife, writes Jacqui Barker, Keyloop’s global engagement vice president.
In my previous column we explored the shift towards a world where LLMs like ChatGPT and Google’s AI overviews are becoming the first point of contact between car buyers and your brand. And while it feels like this topic is everywhere right now, it’s worth dealers acknowledging the need to shine a spotlight on their search marketing and act now, or risk falling behind the herd.
But here’s the thing I keep coming back to, particularly after conversations at a string of industry events this Spring: being found is only half the story. The more important question is what happens next.
Because a customer who discovers your dealership through an AI-generated recommendation arrives with a certain expectation already formed. They’ve been told you’re the right fit. The AI said so. Now they need you to prove it, and quickly. And the uncomfortable truth for many dealerships is that the moment after discovery is where the experience falls apart.
Get your structured data right, build authority, stay visible in AI-generated results, and you earn the right to be recommended.
The expectation gap
I recently hosted a webinar panel with Sophus3, Google and Keyloop’s Marketing Services team, exploring how today’s car buyers are arriving better informed than at any point in the history of our industry, and how retailers can show up as part of that discovery process.
According to CarGurus’ 2025 Consumer Insights Report, 83% of consumers now prefer to do more of their car shopping from home before they ever speak to anyone at a dealership. They’ve compared models, checked finance options, read reviews, and formed a shortlist, often guided, in part, by AI tools. By the time they make contact, they’re not browsing. They’re deciding.
And yet, the experience they typically encounter on the other side of that first enquiry rarely reflects what they’ve been led to expect. A Fullpath study from 2025 found that while 28% of dealers believe they use customer data very effectively, 62% say they only do so “somewhat effectively.” That gap, between the sophistication of the discovery experience and the relevance of the response, is where deals are being lost every day.
This is the real challenge sitting underneath the LLM visibility conversation. It’s not just about getting into the AI’s recommended results. It’s about whether, when someone acts on that recommendation, you can deliver a response that feels like you know them.
Data is the engine personalisation runs on
The mechanics of this are less complicated than people assume, but they do require a deliberate shift in how dealerships think about their data.
Personalisation at scale; the kind that means a customer who browsed three SUV listings online last week, financed their current car on a PCP deal three years ago, and is approaching contract end is greeted with a relevant offer rather than a generic response, only becomes possible when the data that tells that story is connected. Purchase history, website behaviour, service records, finance profile: individually, each of these is a fragment. Together, in a unified view, which AI tooling can bring together for you, they are the foundation of a conversation that feels personal rather than transactional.
The Salesforce research from February 2025 puts it plainly: 61% of drivers want AI to find and recommend vehicles on their behalf, and 37% would use an AI agent to book service appointments without having to call. These aren’t hypothetical preferences. They’re where consumer expectations are already sitting. The dealerships closing the gap between those expectations and reality are not necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets; they’re the ones that have done the harder, less glamorous work of getting their data in order.
The moment after discovery matters most
The personalisation gap is often at its sharpest outside business hours. A customer researching at 10pm on a Sunday reaches out through a dealership website. If all they get is a holding message, the window closes quickly. By Monday morning, they may have already moved on.
This is where the connection between LLM visibility and personalised experience becomes most tangible. Being recommended by an AI gets the customer to the door. What greets them when they arrive, and how quickly, determines whether that recommendation converts into a relationship. The data from deployments of AI-powered chat platforms tells a clear story: 42% of customer conversations happen outside business hours. That’s nearly half of all enquiries arriving when no human is available to respond. The question for any dealership serious about capitalising on improved AI visibility is: what is your answer to that?
From being found to being chosen
The shift I’m describing is one of strategic priority as much as technology. The industry conversation has rightly focused on how to show up in AI-generated results, and that remains important. But showing up is now table stakes. The competitive edge, increasingly, belongs to the dealerships that use the data flowing through their systems to make every subsequent touchpoint feel like it was designed for that specific customer.
Stock recommendations matched to browsing behaviour. Finance proposals shaped around a customer’s real profile rather than a generic rate card. Service reminders timed to the vehicle and the mileage, not to a monthly mail-out schedule. These are not futuristic capabilities. They are available now, to any dealership willing to treat connected data as a strategic asset rather than a byproduct of daily operations.
According to BCG’s October 2025 analysis of AI in automotive, the most immediate commercial gains are in marketing and sales, and the dealerships pulling ahead are those where AI operates within the transactional system rather than bolted on at the edge of it. That distinction matters enormously. AI that sits outside your core systems can observe. AI that is embedded in them can act.
Search is changing. So is the standard.
If there is one thread connecting everything I have written in this column over the past few months, it is this: the bar for what constitutes a good customer experience in automotive retail has moved, and it has moved in both directions simultaneously.
Getting found is harder, and the rules are changing fast as LLMs reshape how customers discover businesses. But being chosen, once found, is also harder, because customers arrive with sharper expectations, faster timelines, and less patience for responses that feel generic or slow.
The dealers who will win in this environment are not simply the ones who optimise their content for AI visibility, though that matters. They are the ones who understand that the data their business generates every day: every enquiry, every test drive, every service visit, every renewal, is the raw material of a personalised relationship. And that mining it intelligently, at every touchpoint, is no longer a competitive differentiator. It is the new baseline.
Author: Jacqui Barker, global engagement vice president, Keyloop
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