Tens of millions of vehicles are manufactured annually, and to make that process more efficient, automakers rely on artificial intelligence and automation technologies. Machines are capable of doing a lot of the repetitive processes that used to be tough on human workers. For example, automation can assist with MIG, resistance, and laser welding during new model construction. It can help move products along through hardening, quenching, and tempering stages when the extreme temperatures may pose a risk to workers.

AI takes automation tools one step further. Alan Turing, Christopher Strachey, and Arthur Samuel are all credited as early contributors to this discipline, which involves teaching computers how to “read” a situation. Instead of having a machine or group of machines perform the same steps over and over, AI technology can do basic evaluations – executing one set of programming or another depending on what conditions have been met. These have been referred to as “decision trees.” The more complex the issue that needs to be identified, the more forks the tree has. Therefore, those wondering, “Automation vs. AI: Which is better?” will find that they are not at cross purposes; they are complementary and work better together.

AI vs. People: the Future of the Automotive Industry

AI is also being incorporated inside vehicles as well. For instance, driver-assistance programs may tell your vehicle to brake automatically if an animal or obstacle suddenly appears in your car’s way. Certain teen driver programs may prevent your newly licensed son or daughter from exceeding a specified speed limit or turning the volume of the radio up too loud. A series of protocols may be triggered if you were to get into an accident, including dialing 9-1-1 on your behalf. While these advancements are very popular, they can also be mistrusted by some, which is why they are usually fairly easy to disable if the owner thinks they will find them distracting.

This brings us to our next point. While there are many ways in which machines can support someone’s goals, they cannot hope to compete with the human touch or with human judgment. For example, people are needed to perform quality control of what is being manufactured since an error in how the machine is acting on its programming could affect a large number of products and hurt your output. If the sensors are off in a vehicle, it might perceive items as closer or further away than they are and cause the vehicle to take the wrong evasive actions. This is part of why different websites pose “Are you a robot?” questions and ask you to identify how many of the nine pictures contain a motorcycle or not. It can be hard to train a computer to know what wheels are and that motorcycles are vehicles that often have two wheels on them, let alone distinguish that from a regular bike. The human brain is a wonderful, complex thing.

Automation tools are not meant to be solely relied on by anyone. Their results and the automation tools, themselves, also need to be looked over by a human expert regularly to keep them performing accurately and optimally. In many ways, their role is not to replace humans in the workforce but to free up people’s time so that they can continue to innovate or do the kind of work that requires intuition or personal experience.

How Sales Teams Can Utilize Automation

While automation has a long history in the automotive industry – with the first moving assembly lines for large-scale manufacturing used to produce Ford vehicles back in the early 1900s – it is now starting to find new uses across other automotive businesses, including sales and auto maintenance services. For example, some dealerships or repair shops might rely on technology to “read” a comment from a client and give back a generic response. However, that leaves the door open for extreme miscommunication, scheduling mishaps, and potentially lost revenue. For some problems, there just is no automation solution.

If you’re a car dealership trying to focus your sales team’s attention on clients in-house, we don’t recommend utilizing generic computerized responses to free up their time. Instead, our team here at Strolid can help you grow your business. We utilize best automotive BDC practices to manage your appointments effectively, place outbound calls to help secure leads for your sales team, and expertly deal with incoming traffic.

This is an important, but often time-consuming, task, especially in the modern era, where companies must juggle phone calls, emails, text messages, online chatting, and more. By trusting us with this important work, your employees on-site can focus on getting cars off the lot and into people’s garages, and you won’t have to hire more in-house staff. At the same time, you will have confidence knowing that the people who are in charge of these communications on your business’ behalf are well-trained, personable, and efficient.

Contact us today to learn more about our company’s history and what we do. We would be happy to expand on how our CXM coordinates the lifecycle of a lead, gathering information that can be presented to an in-house agent team for handling. We would also love to talk to you about automation, AI, and the future of the automotive industry in general. However, the following FAQ section might provide some insight on that as well if you want to check that out first.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is automation in the automotive industry?

When one thinks of automation in the automotive industry, their first thought is likely of manufacturing plants. Robotic arms may screw together car parts, install windshields, or mount wheels by performing a series of steps over and over again. A person might perform quality control, but the strain or danger of the task is left to the machine. Artificial intelligence is a more developed extension of automation. It can assess situations a little more and perform one action under one set of circumstances and a different action under other conditions.

What is the difference between AI and automation?

Automation involves a machine performing a repetitive process that doesn’t require human intervention. For example, robotic arms may package an item or pour hot plastic into a mold. An AI system is more complex. It can be programmed to follow its own form of logic. For example, if certain conditions are met or if a certain answer is “Yes,” it can tell a machine to execute a particular action. If the answer is “No,” it will follow other instructions. If a message contains certain keywords, it might give a pre-written answer.

What are the advantages of AI in the automotive industry?

Artificial intelligence has many advantages in the automotive industry, not only for increasing efficiency during the manufacturing process but also because automakers are now incorporating them in the vehicles themselves. For example, some cars can automatically call 911 if they determine there has been an emergency or execute automatic braking if they “see” an obstacle in the driver’s path. However, AI can’t replace human judgment or creativity. It can support designers, car sellers, and drivers, but it cannot take over their roles anytime soon.