AI Conference Readiness Guide for Dealers
A practical way to vet AI vendors before you sign: one test for every booth, five red flags, one scorecard, one rule. Written by the Council of Responsible AI. Shared here with our own scores attached, because a vendor that will not score itself in public has already answered the transparency question.
About this guide
CORA is an industry council of automotive technology companies that signed a responsible AI pledge. Savvy Dealer is a member. CORA does not endorse Savvy Dealer or any other vendor, and membership is not a product rating. CORA calls this a living document and updates it on their site, so treat their copy as the master and ours as a convenience. Get the current version from CORA.
What's inside
Five short sections, one page each
Before you go
A quick internal audit: where is the friction, what is already in the stack, what data would a new tool touch, and who owns the outcome. Then three must-solve objectives with a baseline, a target and a timeframe written down before the first demo.
On the floor
The same three questions for every vendor: what problem do you solve, how do you connect to our DMS and CRM, show one comparable dealer result and how it was measured. Plus five red flags worth slowing down for.
Evaluate
A seven-category scorecard, each scored 1 to 5, with a decision rule that matters more than the total: a governance failure is not offset by a high score anywhere else.
After the event
Debrief within 48 hours, build a short list instead of a shopping list, and design a pilot with a baseline, stop conditions and a decision date.
Take with you
A one-page checklist covering 14 days before, on site, and the 48 hours after.
The scorecard
Seven categories, in plain terms
Score each one from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong) and write down the evidence behind the number. Use the same sheet for every vendor so the comparison is about substance, not the polish of the pitch.
Business fit
Does the tool solve a named problem for named users, with a measurable outcome and a real advantage over what you do today?
Integration
Does it connect to your DMS, CRM and workflows in both directions, without creating new manual re-entry work?
Data governance
Who owns the data, who can access it, how long is it kept, how is it deleted, and is any of it used to train models?
Human control
Is there a clear path to a person, can staff override it, and can you shut it off?
Transparency
Can the vendor explain what the system does, where it fails, and how it is monitored?
Operational fit
Training, support, workflow changes and a named owner on both sides.
Commercial value
Transparent pricing, contract flexibility, verifiable proof, and a time to value you can hold them to.
The decision rule
A high total does not rescue a governance failure. Data rights, security, compliance, human escalation and the ability to stop the system are pass or fail. Fail one and the rest of the score does not matter.
Score vendors on your phone
This scorecard is now an interactive tool from CORA. Add up to eight vendors, score each one, write the evidence, mark the gates, and compare. It saves in your browser and sends nothing anywhere. We host a copy here; the same tool runs on coragroup.ai.
Open the AI Vendor ScorecardOur answers
How Savvy Dealer scores
We are a vendor. Some of what we sell uses AI. So here is the guide applied to us, scored the way we would want a dealer to score us: honestly, with the evidence written next to the number. Where we are a 4, we say why. Bring this page to our demo and push on any of it.
Business fit / 5
Every engagement starts with a named problem (get found in Google and AI search, turn traffic into leads) and a baseline we write into the proposal: organic sessions, lead volume, cost per lead. Users are the GM and the marketing manager, not a new role you have to hire.
Integration / 5
Website leads land in your CRM as real leads. Inventory comes from your existing feed provider or DMS. GA4, Search Console and Google Ads live in accounts you own. Not a 5 because we do not write back into the DMS, and we will not pretend we do.
Data governance / 5
You own the domain, the content, the analytics and the ad accounts. If you leave, the pages and URLs go with you. We do not train models on your customer data. SOC 2 readiness is in progress, not complete, which is why this is a 4.
Human control / 5
Campaigns are built and changed by people, not generated. Chat and text leads go to your BDC, a person answers. Month to month means the off switch is a 30-day notice, not a lawyer.
Transparency / 5
You have read access to your own GA4, Search Console and Ads accounts, so every number we report can be checked at the source. Where we lose a point: our Anti-Dashboard monitoring can pause a campaign on its own, and the trigger rules for that need to be in your onboarding doc, not just in our heads.
Operational fit / 5
Named customer success manager, onboarding plan, a ticket system your team can see. We ask for one named owner on your side. Not a 5 because onboarding still takes real hours from your staff and no vendor should tell you otherwise.
Commercial value / 5
Pricing quoted in writing before you sign, no long-term contract, cancel with 30 days notice. Proof is cost per lead and organic growth measured in your own accounts, with named case studies. We do not claim modeled sales or store-visit attribution, because we cannot independently verify them and neither can you.
The pass or fail items
Data rights: Pass
Domain, content, analytics and ad accounts stay yours.
Security: Pass, with a note
SOC 2 readiness underway. Ask us where it stands on the day you ask.
Compliance: Pass
Pricing and specials pages are built to FTC and state advertising rules, and we change what your counsel flags without an argument.
Human escalation: Pass
Every lead reaches a person on your team.
Ability to stop the system: Pass
30-day notice. No early termination fee.
One more thing the guide gets right
The goal is not more AI. It is better decisions about AI. Most of what a dealership needs from a marketing partner is still people doing the work well and showing you the numbers in accounts you control. Score the AI parts hard. Score the rest just as hard.
Bring the scorecard to our demo
Twenty minutes, your questions, our answers. If we come up short on a category, you will hear it from us first.