Then I Lost My Personal Assistant…

• By: Gabrielle Faust
• On: 07/12/2026 13:41:18
• In: Federal / National Posts
• Comments: 0

By Jeff Owings
 
A guy in his sixties, who thought AI was just a fancy way to pick restaurants, just built a full-blown data science department in his used car dealership.

I've been in the auto business for decades. Like a lot of us who've been around a while, I was always worried about getting left behind. A year ago, if you'd asked me if I used AI, I'd have said, “Sure, it tells me good places to eat in a different city.” That was about it.

Then I lost my personal assistant. The thought of replacing her felt overwhelming, so I had this wild idea: what if I built an AI that could do a lot of what she did? I hired a young guy with a master's in data science, figuring he'd build a couple things and be gone in a few months.

I was wrong. What started as a morning report tool turned into something I never saw coming.

We built a personal dashboard that pulls all my KPIs automatically—mine, my collectors', the whole portfolio. Then we started flagging high-mileage gig drivers before they became problems. We built reports comparing the quality of our current portfolio to accounts we've already closed out. And eventually we created a forward-looking accounts receivable predictor—a model that uses five different metrics to tell us, with real confidence, exactly what we're going to collect.

All of it lives on dashboards my team can actually use. My collectors can see exactly where they rank. The guys in the shop can see what kind of inventory we need more of right from their phone app. And the really wild part? We can now ask the system, “If we want our portfolio to collect out two percent better, what should we change?” It literally tells us what mix of notes we need to write.

I'm not letting this data science guy go. He's permanent now, and he keeps finding new ways to add value every week. Turns out a sixty-something year old dealer can still learn some new tricks.
If you're in this business and even a little curious about AI, I'd tell you to look into it. It might surprise you how much it can do—and how fast it stops feeling like “tech” and starts feeling like a real team member.