EngagedAI: Keeps the Conversation Going When the Sales Team is Busy

Powering modern car sales requires instant responses, often over text and consistent follow-up whenever a customer shows interest. This level of responsiveness has shifted from a feature to a baseline expectation. For dealerships juggling hundreds of leads across multiple channels, gaps emerge quickly. Calls go unanswered, CRM records grow stale, and test drive appointments slip through the cracks.

EngagedAi steps in, taking over the follow-up dealerships struggle to maintain, acting like the perfect business development center (BDC) representative that never forgets to follow up. It embeds a fully integrated AI sales agent into the dealership’s CRM to close these gaps and keep leads moving. Unlike templated CRM workflows, every response is contextual and dynamic, adapting to each shopper’s intent and history. Built for the automotive industry, the platform does far more than send automated replies. It reads incoming leads, manages appointments, nudges sales reps, and sends reminders so no opportunity is overlooked.

“Dealers don’t lose sales for lack of leads; they lose them when speed and follow-up slip through the cracks. EngagedAi ensures every customer gets the right response at the right time, without adding work for the sales team. It’s like giving every store their best BDC rep on their best day, 24/7,” says Gregory Cooper, founder and CEO. That was the case for Murdock Hyundai of Lindon, which, in its very first month with EngagedAi, set 168 appointments, 92 of which resulted in sales. This marked a significant improvement over the previous month, achieved just at the start of their partnership.

“EngagedAi has helped us keep the main thing the main thing — guest engagement and salesperson involvement,” says Phil Pecoraro, GM at Murdock Hyundai of Lindon. “Gregory Cooper has been hands-on every step of the way, making sure the tool truly drives results in our store.”

Sales Agents That Understand Inventory, People, and Process

With over a decade of automotive CRM experience at DealerSocket, where he rose to VP of Sales across all product lines, Cooper saw firsthand how even well-staffed stores struggled with missed responses, outdated records, and inconsistent outreach. Traditional CRMs notify teams when a lead comes in, but rarely ensure sustained follow-up. Converting an internet lead often requires six to seven contact attempts, and most weren't designed for a text-first world, despite texting now being the preferred method.

Equally critical is immediacy, as most shoppers send leads to multiple dealerships, and the one that responds first usually wins. The first five minutes after a customer inquiry can determine whether that lead converts or disappears. EngagedAi ensures a win by embedding AI agents directly into CRMs like VinSolutions, Elead, and DealerSocket, enabling cradle-to-grave engagement, from the very first inquiry through the entire sales journey and beyond. For sales teams, it looks and feels like the CRM’s own communication app, seamlessly integrated without extra steps. At a Harley-Davidson dealership in Canada, this consistency resulted in a 450 percent increase in CRM-recorded appointments in just one month, giving sales teams more opportunities without additional staff.

The platform's depth shows how agents manage interactions. Unlike traditional CRMs that depend on rigid templates, EngagedAi never recycles the same canned lines. Instead, it parses Automotive Digital Format (ADF) leads so details like vehicle trim or financing preferences guide responses. Through a partnership with Inventory Command Center, the AI can answer VIN-specific questions, whether a car has a tow package, is on the lot, or similar models are inbound. The accuracy rivals that of an experienced salesperson but is delivered instantly and at scale.

This depth extends to varying roles, tailored to each dealership's tone, with agents configured as internet directors, BDC managers, and inventory assistants. For instance, each step in DealerSocket’s sales process, from “unqualified” to “contacted,” “demo,” “write-up,” “F&I,” and finally “sold or lost,” is tracked and updated automatically, ensuring no lead falls through the cracks.

The intelligence isn’t just customer-facing, but also reshapes work behind the scenes. As conversations unfold, the agent updates opportunity status (e.g., from “uncontacted” to “contacted”), schedules calendar entries, logs notes, and flags key details for assigned reps. After an appointment, it sends a concise summary so the salesperson walks in informed. If a customer emphasizes interest in a truck with a sunroof, that preference is highlighted in the CRM for a seamless handoff.

Customers notice the difference. They receive reminders about upcoming visits, directions to the store, and prompts to confirm or reschedule via text. They can also self-schedule through a secure link, with every confirmation or change syncing automatically to the CRM and notifying the salesperson. If an appointment is missed, the AI re engages proactively.

Text is now the dominant way customers communicate, with 94 percent preferring it. EngagedAi was built to handle entire sales conversations over SMS and email without missing a beat.

Its role doesn’t end once a car is sold. EngagedAi prompts buyers to leave reviews and helps them draft feedback. These reviews are vehicle-specific, search-optimized, and structured for Google indexing, turning each review into SEO content that drives organic traffic. Frank Fletcher Subaru saw this firsthand, as before EngagedAi, the dealership averaged only four five-star reviews a month. After rollout, that jumped to 27 in the first month alone — a 575 percent boost to reputation and visibility.

From Showroom to Service Lane and Beyond

For EngagedAi, customer relationships extend past the sale, supporting the entire journey. If a walk-in customer leaves without making a purchase, a message is sent within 24 to 48 hours to reignite their interest. If a previously lost prospect resurfaces months later, the AI resumes outreach with context intact.

The platform also manages proactive campaigns, like notifying customers when a vehicle's price drops, incentives are added, or similar inventory becomes available. It also re-engages “fresh ups,” walk-ins who didn’t purchase on their first visit, while their interest is high. Additionally, the AI can generate SEO-optimized vehicle descriptions for inventory listings, replacing templated text in most native dealership tools and boosting search performance.

For dealerships handling high call volumes, critical for trade-ins, service inquiries, and financing, EngagedAi provides tracking, recording, transcription, and AI-driven summaries. It transcribes, flags missed details or errors, and automatically escalates issues to managers. If a customer requests a credit application during a call, the AI can send it immediately. Follow-up tasks are automatically created and assigned to either the AI or dealership staff, depending on whether the action is digital or in-person.

Every interaction feeds back into the CRM. This closed-loop design avoids duplicate entries and maintains continuity across channels. The AI’s working memory, tracking test drives, missed appointments, and prior conversations, ensures every interaction is informed by context.

This same continuity supports long-term loyalty. Active development is underway to integrate with service schedulers like XTime, enabling AI-driven outreach to service leads, campaigns for declined work, and maintenance reminders. A recently launched pixel adds another layer, enabling the de-anonymization of website visitors, identifying returning shoppers, and matching them to CRM records for real-time re-engagement. It can also track viewed vehicles and trigger outreach around that with stock and price drop alerts.

Built to Scale, Engineered to Evolve

“The future of automotive retail belongs to dealers who can create instant, authentic connections with every shopper. EngagedAi makes that possible at scale, ensuring no opportunity is missed and every customer feels heard. It’s not about replacing people, but empowering dealerships to deliver consistency and personalization like never before,” says Cooper.

Extending AI into service and beyond is only the first step in EngagedAi’s broader vision. Adaptability lies at the heart of its design. Rather than competing with large AI infrastructure providers, the company leverages the most advanced LLMs, from the likes of OpenAI, Google, and others, selecting models to fit each use case. Layered with dealership data, this intelligence goes further than securing open opportunities. Through its Otto 360 feature, EngagedAi mines data for buying signals, predicts when customers are likely to trade in or trade up, and flags when they may be ready for service based on historical patterns. This is data mining at its finest, built not only to surface opportunities but to engage, nurture, and convert them into lasting dealership relationships.

Planned enhancements include visual analysis for vehicle appraisals, real-time desking based on credit data, and fully conversational digital retail flows that guide customers through payments, trade-ins, and approvals, all within a single AI-driven interaction. Future iterations will also incorporate math-driven trade-in evaluations and payment calculations, enabling AI to walk customers through payment scenarios and equity positions without waiting on a desk manager.

Equally important is seamless CRM integration. EngagedAi is designed to resemble the CRM’s communication platform, making adoption effortless for dealership staff. Instead of forcing teams onto yet another standalone system, it minimizes friction and drives measurable ROI. Dealers report higher appointment show rates, faster lead response times, and less reliance on overextended BDC teams.

Today, EngagedAi’s footprint spans franchise and independent dealers, with applications expanding into power sports, salvage-title vehicles, and reputation management. In many ways, it’s evolving beyond CRM automation toward a customer data platform (CDP) model, unifying behavioral, transactional and conversational data to enable deeper personalization and longer-term engagement. The platform’s modular architecture supports this breadth while maintaining a singular outcome: owning the conversation from first contact to final sale, and often well into the ownership journey.

“With EngagedAi, we’re not just giving dealerships an automation tool, but helping them convert conversations into customers,” says Suman Poluri, CTO and partner.

With the right prompts, precise timing, and seamless communication, EngagedAi is reshaping how dealerships interact with their customers — and how they listen.