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Powersports Business • August 2026 • 25
That’ s not replacing your people— that’ s giving your best people their time back so they can do the work that actually requires judgment.
AI is changing how customers find you before they ever find you. Here’ s the shift most dealers haven’ t clocked yet: your next customer may not Google“ ATV for sale near me.” They’ re asking ChatGPT or Perplexity,“ What’ s the best side-by-side for hunting property in Central Texas?” If your website doesn’ t list real prices, use natural language in your inventory descriptions, and have clean structured data underneath, the AI tools recommending dealers to buyers simply won’ t recommend you. The days of hiding the price and hoping foot traffic sorts it out are over. Optimize for the machines, because the machines are advising your customers.
Use it to make better decisions, not just faster emails. The most interesting development this year isn’ t content generation— it’ s intelligence. Modern platforms can now surface trends across your sales, parts, and service data in plain English: which categories are softening, where your margins are leaking, what your seasonal stocking should look like based on actual patterns instead of gut feel. In a market with uneven demand— and let’ s be honest, that’ s the market we’ re in— the dealer who spots a trend in March beats the dealer who sees it in the June financials.
Now, three warnings, because I’ d be doing you a disservice without them.
First, protect your data. Before anyone on your team pastes your margins or inventory strategy into a free AI tool, make sure you’ ve opted out of data training in the settings. Your competitive advantage should not become someone else’ s training set.
“
Protective worked with us to help increase our F & I profits by over half a million dollars just last year alone.”
Joe Murphy Director of Operations
TOM WOOD POWERSPORTS GROUP
Second, keep a human in the loop where it counts. AI drafting a follow-up email? Great. AI closing an F & I deal or handling an upset customer unsupervised? Absolutely not. The powersports business runs on relationships and trust— riders can smell canned in three sentences.
Third, start small. Pick one pain point— lead response is my vote— get it working, measure it, then expand. The dealers who try to boil the ocean in Q3 will be the ones telling everyone at AIMExpo that“ AI doesn’ t work.”
Here’ s the bottom line: the technology gap between
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