Last week, I was honored to serve as a panelist at DealerConnect25, the inaugural conference bringing together automotive and AI experts to explore how dealers can use artificial intelligence across their businesses. My panel focused on how AI can help dealers create content, though, as often happens, that discussion quickly turned into a bigger conversation about AI’s impact on automotive SEO and search.
I’ve spent the past year-plus talking with dealers about what “AI Search” really means, what it looks like, and how to guard against unnecessary AI Search upsells. So it was refreshing to spend a few days surrounded by people who shared that healthy skepticism, and who wanted to understand and experiment, not just jump on the latest buzzword.
Here are four major takeaways that stood out to me from the conversations I had and the panels I attended at DealerConnect:
1. Dealers Shouldn’t Need AI Search Upsells
Let’s start here, because this has been the most common topic in my dealer conversations lately. There’s a growing list of new acronyms — AEO, GEO, SGE — sometimes positioned as distinct offerings from traditional SEO. But these are simply evolutions of SEO, not entirely new disciplines. Dealers shouldn’t be asked to pay extra to “opt in” to AI Search readiness.
If your SEO fundamentals are centered on creating helpful content, deploying strong local optimizations, and maintaining accurate listings, you’re already ahead of the curve. The core tenets of good SEO are what drive success in AEO and GEO, too.
Where I do think dealers should invest is in better AI Search reporting. We all need to stop relying on screenshots or self-searches from tools designed to deliver different results for every user. You can ChatGPT your dealership name for an illustrative example of how AI Search works, but your customers won’t see what you see in your private ChatGPT instance. Though AI Search reporting is in its early days, good partners can provide legitimate insights into referral traffic from LLMs, Google AI Overviews appearances and more.
2. Keep a Healthy Perspective on AI Adoption Rates
Here’s the point I see missed most often: ChatGPT users don’t stop using Google. They use AI chatbots in addition to traditional search. It’s not an either-or situation, and your SEO strategy shouldn’t be either. Here’s one of my favorite charts on the topic from SparkToro:
That doesn’t mean you should ignore shifting consumer behaviors around AI; it means you should prepare for them while continuing to focus on what drives results today. AI Search isn’t replacing Google Search: it’s expanding the ways consumers look for information. Dealers who stay grounded in the present while keeping an eye on what’s next will win on both fronts.
3. Creating Content? Helpfulness and Uniqueness Reign Supreme
Whether dealers create content themselves or work with a partner, the goal hasn’t changed: make content that’s helpful to consumers and unique to your dealership.
Over my 12-plus years in automotive SEO, I’ve seen far too many dealers fall into the trap of paying for volume-based content strategies — churning out page after page for potential short-term gains that offer no long-term relevance at best or, at worst, lead to search engine penalizations. AI makes that trap even easier to fall into because it removes friction. Suddenly, you can generate hundreds of pages in minutes. But if those pages aren’t useful or original, they could hurt more than they’ll help. And if they’re not properly implemented, tagged and optimized, they serve no purpose anyway.
In an AI-saturated market, authenticity is the new differentiator. Automotive shoppers value a human touch, whether via local insights, honest comparisons, or even a bit of personality. A small dose of customization still goes a long way.
4. We’re All Still Students of AI
One of my favorite parts of DealerConnect25 was how open everyone was about not having AI all figured out. No one — not vendors, not OEMs, not the biggest tech companies — fully understands where this is headed.
The pace of change is staggering. We used to say what works today in automotive SEO might not work in six months. Now, it’s more like six weeks. That reality demands flexibility and curiosity.
Dealers need partners who keep testing — new models, new search entities, new approaches — and who aren’t afraid to say, “we don’t know yet, but we’re learning fast.” Anyone who claims to have it all solved right now probably isn’t telling the full story.
The best thing we can do is stay curious, stay humble, and stick to what’s proven: using AI to reduce time to market and scale original ideas without sacrificing helpfulness, uniqueness, or quality.
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At C-4 Analytics, we preach an “AI-forward, people-first” approach — and that mindset was on full display at DealerConnect. Using this guidepost, our SEO Team continues to uncover new insights dealers can use to succeed in AI search, while our Content Team finds smarter ways to help dealers produce more content, faster, all without sacrificing quality, helpfulness, or uniqueness. I look forward to learning from and collaborating with more industry experts at events like DealerConnect as we work together to help dealers thrive in the AI search era.