Adam Gillrie
Founder & CEO, Savvy Dealer
Adam founded Savvy Dealer and has spent 30 years at the intersection of automotive retail and digital strategy. He writes about dealer SEO, AI search, website performance, and where dealership ad budgets actually go. His team's case studies are published with the underlying data at savvydealer.com/case-studies.
Articles by Adam
Google Will Now Watch the Market for Your Shoppers. Your Price Drops Just Became Push Notifications.
September 29, 2026 · AI & Technology
Researchers Redirected Every Search to Google's AI Mode for a Week. Clicks to Websites Fell 18.8 Points and the Users Tried to Leave.
September 22, 2026 · AI & Technology
Amazon Just Blocked a Shopper's AI Agent by Citing Its Terms of Use. That Page on Your Dealership's Website Is Now a Business Decision.
September 21, 2026 · AI & Technology
A Federal Judge Just Ordered Google to Reopen Its Ad Auction. Every Remedy Lands on the Side of the Market Your Dealership Already Left.
September 19, 2026 · AI & Technology
The Web Just Got a Toll Booth for AI Crawlers. For a Dealership, Charging One Is the Same as Blocking It.
September 18, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google's Free AI Share of Voice Report Runs on Free Listings. Your Dealership's Vehicle Feed Is Barred From Producing Them.
September 17, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Put a New Model Behind Voice and Camera Search. Your Dealership's Answer Now Has to Survive Being Spoken Out Loud.
September 16, 2026 · AI & Technology
A Page Went From 4 AI Citations to 49 After It Started Naming Competitors. Your Dealership's Pages Only Talk About Your Dealership.
September 15, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Is Now Paying Websites When Their Content Feeds an AI Answer. The Citation Your Dealership Chases Is the Part That Does Not Pay.
September 14, 2026 · AI & Technology
OpenAI's Agents Scraped Websites Through a Third Party's Servers. Every Bot Control on Your Dealership's Site Assumes That Cannot Happen.
September 13, 2026 · AI & Technology
Three and Four Word Searches Now Carry 60% of AI Overview Ads. Your Dealership's Best Queries Were Already That Length.
September 12, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Just Made Incrementality Testing Free and Open Source. The Method Needs More Geography Than One Rooftop Has.
September 11, 2026 · AI & Technology
Perplexity Now Sends Less US Traffic Than Microsoft Copilot. Your Dealership's AI Visibility Report Is Probably Weighted for Last Year.
September 10, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Just Shipped a Performance Max Toggle Built for Walk-In Traffic. The Campaign Running Your Vehicle Feed Cannot Use It.
September 9, 2026 · AI & Technology
175 Billion Impressions Show Shopping Ads Being Served Less and Clicked More. Your Dealership's Rising Click Rate Deserves a Second Look.
September 8, 2026 · AI & Technology
OpenAI Now Runs 3.1 Agent Workdays for Every Human Workday. Over Half of Its Long Agent Tasks Still Needed a Person to Step In.
September 7, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Finished Rolling Out an AI Visibility Report to Every Dealership's Search Console. It Counts Impressions and Nothing Else.
September 6, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Confirmed Your Exact Match Keywords Can Now Serve Inside AI Mode. Its Own Help Page Still Says They Cannot.
September 5, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Says the Disavow Tool 'Does Have Effects.' Its Own Help Page Sets Two Conditions Your Dealership Almost Certainly Does Not Meet.
September 4, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google's Two Shopping Surfaces Agreed on 1.28% of Products. Both of Them Run on Your Dealership's Feed.
September 3, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Business Profile Calls Fell 11.9% in Q2 While Direction Requests Rose 21.1%. Your Dealership Counts One of Those.
September 1, 2026 · AI & Technology
Every Facebook Link in Google's Forum Box Came From a Public Group. Your Dealership's Website Is Not Eligible for That Box.
August 31, 2026 · AI & Technology
A Federal Judge Called Google's AI Bargain 'Really Unfair.' Your Dealership Already Has the Escape Hatch Publishers Are Suing For.
August 30, 2026 · AI & Technology
AI Agent Tools Stopped Being a Proposal in August. One Thing We Told Dealers in July Is Now Wrong.
August 29, 2026 · AI & Technology
AI Recommended the Brand by Name, Then Linked Somewhere Else 69% of the Time. Your Inventory Already Lives on Those Sites.
August 28, 2026 · AI & Technology
ChatGPT Has 33.7% of American AI Users. YouGov Just Split the Other Two Thirds by Generation, and Your Showroom Serves All of Them.
August 27, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Starts Billing for the Calls Nobody Answers on October 1. Four Days Earlier It Added Your Whole Fixed Ops Menu to the Program.
August 26, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Ran a Spam Update Across Every Language Last Week and Never Said What It Hit. Your Dealership's Real Exposure Was Published in May.
August 25, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Says Your Dealership Needs No Special GEO Strategy. Its Own Guide Names the Two Levers, and a Vendor Probably Owns Both.
August 24, 2026 · AI & Technology
Reddit's Share of ChatGPT Citations Fell 86% in Four Days. The Change Underneath It Points Straight at Your Dealership's Website.
August 23, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Started Generating Calculators Inside the Search Result. In Its Own Test, They Beat the Top-Ranked Page 90% of the Time.
August 22, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Shipped a Button That Lets One Customer Pin Your Dealership Into Their AI Answers. It Is Two Lines of Code.
August 21, 2026 · AI & Technology
Gemini Named the Same Top Business 8% of the Time. Google's Map Pack Did It 90%.
August 20, 2026 · AI & Technology
22.4% of AI Overview Traffic Books as 'Direct' in GA4. Your Dealership's Organic Report Is Undercounting the Channel Everyone Is Arguing About.
August 19, 2026 · AI & Technology
Someone Paused $113,000 a Month in Paid Search. Before You Do the Same at Your Store, Read What the 89% Actually Means.
August 18, 2026 · Paid Search
Google Just Measured the Gap Between What AI Knows and What It Will Say. Your Dealership Lives in That Gap.
August 17, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Refiled Its Scraping Lawsuit on August 10. The Data Pipe It Wants Shut Feeds Your Dealership's Rank Reports.
August 16, 2026 · AI & Technology
Cox Says 82% of Dealers Now Use AI. Only 29% Have Started on the Part That Decides Whether Shoppers Find You.
August 15, 2026 · AI & Technology
ChatGPT Answers 'Dealer Near Me' From Yelp and Google Maps. New Data Shows Your Website Barely Enters the Room.
August 12, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google's AI Now Writes the First Read on Your Dealership's Ad Account. The 'Similar Businesses' It Benchmarks You Against Are Undefined.
August 11, 2026 · AI & Technology
ChatGPT's Ad Platform Learned to Chase Conversions This Week. There's an August 17 Deadline Buried in the Announcement.
August 8, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Turned On Call Recording in Your Ad Account. Its AI Now Decides Which of Your Calls Count as Leads.
August 7, 2026 · AI & Technology
Reddit Just Told Investors It Plans to Resurface Years-Old Reviews. That Includes the Thread About Your Dealership.
August 6, 2026 · AI & Technology
On September 15, Blocking AI Bots Starts Blocking Google Too. Your Dealership Site May Already Be Set to Do It.
August 5, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Just Wrote Down the Rules for Disclaimers in Search Ads. Two of Them Will Bite Dealership Accounts.
August 4, 2026 · AI & Technology
5.3% of Google's Top Three Results Are Fully AI-Written. The Number Your Dealership Should Worry About Is 40.35%.
August 1, 2026 · AI & Technology
AI Decides Which Brands to Look Up Before It Runs a Single Search. Automotive Is the Most Locked-Down Category Measured.
July 31, 2026 · AI & Technology
AI Is Using Your Dealership's Pages Without Saying Your Name. Two Studies Put It at 40% to 62% of Citations.
July 30, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Built a Button That Removes Your Dealership From AI Search. It Just Showed Up on US Sites.
July 29, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Stops Beating Your Cost-Per-Lead Target on August 17. Dealership Ad Accounts Are the Textbook Case.
July 28, 2026 · AI & Technology
Nearly Half of Job-Specific AI Use Is People Doing Another Job's Work. At Your Dealership, That Job Is Marketing.
July 27, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Just Published What Americans Actually Ask AI. Two of the Ten Biggest Gaps Are Comparison Shopping and Car Repair.
July 26, 2026 · AI & Technology
ChatGPT Ads Can Finally Bid for Leads Instead of Clicks. Two Lines in OpenAI's Own Docs Decide Whether Your Dealership Can Use It.
July 25, 2026 · AI & Technology
ChatGPT Just Signed a Deal With Yelp. The Review Site Dealers Wrote Off Is Now an AI Input.
July 24, 2026 · AI & Technology
A '68% of Local Searches' AI Stat Is Making the Rounds Again. For Dealers, It Points Somewhere Nobody's Looking.
July 23, 2026 · AI & Technology
70% of Top Retailers Just Failed the AI Shopping Agent Test. Your Dealership Runs on the Exact Same Plumbing.
July 22, 2026 · AI & Technology
The No. 2 Source in Google's AI Is Now Google Itself. Your Dealership's Answer Box May Not Be Your Website.
July 21, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Just Renamed a Bot That Ignores Your Robots.txt. Your Dealership Site Has Until August.
July 19, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Says AI Search Is Sending You 'Billions of Clicks.' It Won't Show You the Number Behind It.
July 18, 2026 · AI & Technology
ChatGPT Is Handing Dealers Their Hottest Callers. New Data Shows Your Phone Is Where the Deal Dies.
July 16, 2026 · AI & Technology
AI Is Quietly Shrinking Your Google Ads. The 'Shortlist Economy' Is Why, and Bidding Higher Won't Save You.
July 14, 2026 · AI & Technology
Only 28% of Americans Trust AI Search. The Panic Crowd Missed What That Number Means for Your Dealership.
July 13, 2026 · AI & Technology
Your Dealership's 'AI Visibility Score' Is Mostly Noise. New Research Shows Why a Single Reading Can't Be Trusted.
July 12, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Just Started Labeling AI-Made Ads. For Dealers, the Danger Isn't the Label. It's the Photo Behind It.
July 11, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Just Gave AI Agents a Way to Use Your Website, Not Just Read It. Most Dealer Sites Will Fail the Test.
July 10, 2026 · AI & Technology
Getting Cited by AI Isn't a Win You Keep. New Data Shows How Fast Your Dealership Can Lose the Spot.
July 8, 2026 · AI & Technology
ChatGPT Now Sends 92% of AI Referral Traffic. The Finding That Should Actually Change Your Dealership's Playbook Is Buried Underneath It.
July 7, 2026 · AI & Technology
Google Just Published How It Wants AI to Read a Business. Your Dealership Website Is Still Written for Humans.
July 6, 2026 · AI & Technology
A Competitor Can Delete Your Best Google Page With a Single Form. Here's the Fake-DMCA Attack Every Dealer Should Know About.
July 5, 2026 · AI & Technology
Your Google Reviews Might Be Vanishing Right Now. Here's What's Happening and What Every Dealer Should Do This Week.
July 4, 2026 · AI & Technology
OpenAI Is Building a Real Ad Business Inside ChatGPT. The Format That Matters for Dealers Isn't the One Making Headlines.
July 3, 2026 · AI & Technology
AI Overviews Aren't Taking Your Tire-Kickers. A New Study Says They're Taking Your Best Shoppers.
July 2, 2026 · AI & Technology
The 'Get Cited in AI' Pitch Landing in Your Inbox Is the New Link Farm
June 30, 2026 · AI & Technology
We Ran 1,100 Car Shopping Searches Through Google. Here's Who AI Overview Actually Cites.
May 21, 2026 · AI & Technology
Your DMS Doesn't Have a Plan. Your Customers Already Do.
April 16, 2026 · Dealer Operations
The Whole Internet Is Going to Break, and It's OK
April 16, 2026 · AI & Technology
You're Paying for SEO. Where's the Content?
April 8, 2026 · SEO & Content
The FTC Just Sent 97 Letters to Car Dealers. Here's What Everyone Is Missing.
March 30, 2026 · Industry Analysis
Why Dealers Keep Firing the Wrong Vendor
March 16, 2026 · Website Performance
Your Next Customer Might Never Visit Google. Here's Where They're Shopping Instead.
February 17, 2026 · AI & Technology
The Facebook Ads Metrics That Actually Matter for Selling Cars
February 15, 2026 · Digital Advertising
We Released the AI Compatibility Tool. Here's What We Found.
January 19, 2026 · AI & Technology
Lightning-Fast Dealer Websites: The Short Version
January 16, 2026 · Website Performance
Why Paid Search Costs Are Rising for Car Dealers in 2026
January 15, 2026 · Paid Search
What the 2025 Kerrigan Dealer Survey Means for Your Digital Marketing Strategy
January 6, 2026 · Industry Research
Why Savvy Dealer Outperforms the Competition
January 5, 2026 · Company News
How AI-Optimized Websites Help Dealers Do More With Less
January 5, 2026 · Industry Research
Impressions Up, Leads Flat? The Dealer KPI Reset for Google's AI Search (2026)
January 2, 2026 · Digital Strategy
How AI Search Engines Rank Your Dealership: What New Perplexity Research Reveals
December 31, 2025 · Digital Strategy
Your Website Speaks Two Languages. Is It Fluent in Both?
December 30, 2025 · Digital Strategy
Your Next Customer Might Not Visit Your Website. Their AI Will.
December 22, 2025 · AI & Technology
How AI Is Introducing New Instability to the Internet
December 15, 2025 · AI & Technology
Google's AI Browser Changes Everything: What Car Dealers Need to Know Right Now
December 15, 2025 · AI & Technology
Google's December 2025 Core Update: What Car Dealers Need to Know Right Now
December 12, 2025 · SEO
The Yahoo Problem: Why Whitelisting AI Bots Is a Losing Strategy for Auto Dealers
December 2, 2025 · Digital Strategy
We Tested 50 Independent Dealer Websites. Less Than Half Passed Google's Standards.
November 21, 2025 · Website Performance
The Shift From SEO to GEO: The New Search Battle Dealers Can't Ignore
November 18, 2025 · Digital Strategy
Are You Accidentally Blocking Your Future Customers? The AI Dead Zone Problem
September 10, 2025 · Digital Strategy