Rivian Loves V-Dubs, Outage Latest, Target’s New AI

Paul J Daly: 0:09

Welcome to Wednesday, June 25. And to the month end, the quarter end of the half of the year, coming up, good people anxious today we're gonna talk about rivian and VW CK updates and targets new. I really want to know who that is and who they stopped to stay when they see me sick in a day when we were, I was looking at this AI story that Jen it said it, I think it I think it was this one or it was another story about same thing. But it used the term Gen AI. Right, right. Generative AI but I'm seeing like generation at a alpha A is it really Alpha? Should it be generation AI?

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:48

Ah, yeah.

Paul J Daly: 0:50

I mean, all it I mean, they're now we're gonna know a world without like,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:54

without it. You know, what's interesting? And this is not giving away the story. But the, the reality is, is like, if you look over the last few years and like these net new technologies that we all thought we're just gonna like blockchain. Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 1:14

Change it all. Right away.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:17

I think at this point, AI, you know, like GPT. Three, came out in fall of 2022. Good night. And it was the first time like people at a beta level had access to like, a chatbot. With AI that wasn't like, you know, your Jasper's. And yeah, content writer AIs. Yep. And the pace at which it's being developed at and the integration into everything else. Yep. is totally different than these other like three or four things that have been created in the last five years. So yes, it is. It's going to have staying power, power, period. End of story.

Paul J Daly: 1:59

Oh, absolutely. It'll be it'll, we'll see how it integrates with everything. I'm just thinking of like a four year old. Yeah, five year old six year old, understanding how to get answers and have aI like B. do its bidding?

Kyle Mountsier: 2:12

Well, yeah, you think about like, even just iPhone integrating into

Paul J Daly: 2:16

Siri, I'm excited to see how that plays out. That feels like to me the most part because I'm an iPhone user. So I feel like that's potentially the most impactful use, even though we use it all the time with a bunch of stuff. I

Kyle Mountsier: 2:27

feel like that. Timing is just like, integrated into every app, every experience, right? Like that's where it'll just, it'll take off, right? Like log into a certain thing. Well, there's one thing

Paul J Daly: 2:39

there's one thing that's not going to be aI it's gonna be actually real people in person that's generating their own thoughts is our webinar today. At 2pm Eastern you go to ASOTU con.com. Just scroll down so you can register to make sure you can get in and or get the recording. Afterward reiterate awakening your dealership with our friends. At activator, we have Bobby Goudreau, Mike Whitlow from activated plus Jake Blair, gm of Tim Dolly, Mazda southtowne talking about strategies to rebuild trust, adapt to new consumer behaviors, and includes consumers expect things now also enhancing customer you're gonna

Kyle Mountsier: 3:16

want to if you're listening to this, you're gonna want to check out this webinar, like just register for it even if you can't attend it will get you the recording afterwards, it'll kick up a registration list so far, I will Yeah, it's a heck of a registration listen, and I like the team over at activator. Honestly, they even though if you know the deal, activator vote and you know, the Dominion platform, like this team is really a startup and they're they're savvy, so you're gonna want to pay attention to what they're talking about. For sure. And big compliments

Paul J Daly: 3:45

from Kyle. Also a soda con sessions are short form podcasts that came out of a soda con, they are all live now. The one we just released single point of contact and a four day work week with Tiffany wells. She's really just thrown some fire as always, as always, but just search ASOTU CON sessions, download the all of them because they're short. You can listen while you're walking the dog taking out the trash driving to work, whatever. But they are an amazing, amazing variety of podcasts and a variety of topics. Great way to get educated across the broad spectrum and learn a few things about something you think you already know a few things about, you know, saying hey, alright, let's talk about a few things.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:26

Again, the things we're learning a few things about

Paul J Daly: 4:28

stuff. On the day on the hour on the minute. little update on the CDK outed situation. Obviously 1000s of dealers on the platform are about to enter the second week of the ongoing disruption. The company said there is no resolution expected this the update before June 30. So saying we got this for at least another four to five days, at least. CEO Brian McDonald's defending the company's crisis response in an automotive news piece amidst the rising tensions and now some legal challenges already Basically he began speaking publicly by asserting the company's proactive engagement with dealers and commitment to supporting with supporting them. On June 25, yesterday CDK wrote, we feel Do you feel it's important to share we don't believe there'll be we'll be able to get all dealers live prior to June 30 I don't know if they think they'll be able to get some dealers live but are making significant progress the company has emphasized transparency and urged dealers to use their available resource center while encouraging they did say this if you're on the platform you should start making other plans to prepare your financial statements something Brian benstock Brian like how we're going to generate a financial statement. Right? It's not just that a month and month and a quarter,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:40

half a year is the OEM still expect that financial statement for a shirt?

Paul J Daly: 5:45

They sure do. So basically, and then these two two lawsuits have already popped up. I don't know if some people just like have a lawsuit generator waiting just

Kyle Mountsier: 5:52

on it. They actually they GPT two lawsuits. You think

Paul J Daly: 5:57

you think we're kidding? One filed by a vehicle let's see. You're a Glog enough on June 22. But he's writing on the game alleging negligence breach of contract unjust and all this stuff. I don't know I mean, we don't even know what happened yet but we're alleging things the second lawsuit filed by former dealership employee Eugene Braga on June 24 alleges negligence breach of confidence contract cetera violation of California Privacy Act basically saying his personal or their personal information on no has been disclosed. So CDK we know that there's going to be an uphill battle, but I've been seeing just so much about dealers communicating like a lot of positive things on process, actually. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 6:37

man, I was on the phone with a dealer that is CDK roadster e leads the whole nine yards yesterday. And they were like, I bet we're gonna be fine. They already have adjusted processes. They got their team ready. The accounting team is like bring it on. Let's go we'll be ready for it. Saw some posts this weekend about people delivering 125 cars let's go with CDK as their DMS like they

Paul J Daly: 7:03

are like what what what? No, no, no,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:07

no problem. No actor,

Paul J Daly: 7:09

right. No no factor. Good. Jaco good. DMS sounds good. I did I did see a preview of an interview CBG interview with Damon Lester and Damien Mills talking about some of this stuff and and basically Damien's perspective on this Daymond Sue, like they were joking about, like, you know, people, people like using the calculator on their phone a day was like, Yeah, you need a 10 key, like how you add this on your phone? What happens if you hit a button, right? There's no way Yeah, but But talking about keeping the calculator in the pencil a little closer in the future, but also, not griping so much when you don't have a single sign on anymore, when you have to log into multiple platforms like totally how that perspective change. Just gets us in a little bit of a frame of mind, build some appreciation and have little diversification. So I don't know. I think I just like everything's gonna be a lot of good things coming out of this. It's not over a lot of people digging into a lot of pain. We still have another wave of pain coming

Kyle Mountsier: 8:09

my way another week on this thing. So still a lot to be worried that

Paul J Daly: 8:13

no, it's gonna be that final rip current wave when the whole accounting team has got to reconcile everything. The entry happens like right on July 4, guarantee it. Oh, no, let's just just this break the barbecue grill out early. Just break it. Let's make let's make like July July 1 The fourth that way the fourth can be a work day so we can because it's a Thursday or Wednesday this week. Yeah, no, I know. I know. I'll speak to bringing people together. Segue. This one surprised me. Volkswagen is set to invest up to get this $5 billion in rivian. Aiming to strengthen its software unit support the Eevee startups next generation of vehicles. So basically, they're investing 2 billion in a joint software company using reviens technology and person then purchasing a $3 billion stake in rivian. Over the next three years. The investment obviously will provide rivian with much needed capital and cash to launch the this new affordable vehicle is$25,000 vehicle that they were teasing, proving its balance sheet, obviously revealing stock up 30% and aftermarket trading following the nationalists CEO RV Skerrit. RJ scaringe emphasized the partnership lowers parts cost they said basically focused a lot on cost cutting because of this investment. And also said this is going to be the thing that gives them enough cash to get to cashflow positive on their own operation. So that's a big, big step for this startup. VW is going to be using rivian software savvy obviously to address issues in its software you unit carry on, which has been facing quality problems for quite a long time. So make sense. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 9:56

this one makes a ton of sense for me and also I just love to see The fact that it's like legacy OEM drops a whole bunch of money on futuristic OEM stock market goes, yay. Right, like that narrative, like that little sentence, you know, very simplified version of this gets me all excited. But you know, it's actually back to, you know, rivian kind of originally had this idea of being the skateboard, right, that the the kind of thing that everything else lived, that others lived on top of. But I yeah, I think thinking of, of these net new companies as software companies as well, because they really have targeted the software over the hardware of the vehicle. And that being like a major selling point is going to, you know, you and I have been talking about this for a while that these legacy automakers are not software providers, they want to be challenged to be but they're going to need to tap on people that are better in that arena. And this is a, I think a really smart partner partnership for VW, it's also going to give them you know, they've got that Scout brand, like it's going to give them a lot of insight on on how to build that brand. And

Paul J Daly: 11:06

I mean, if you look at a few like the scout models that I like, look at the to look at all Caribbean. They really, really do. They really do. You know, like I you know, you and I were like, Hey, Ruby and Apple get together. Yeah. But I mean, this doesn't this doesn't get in the way of that. But again, it's just it's a new world we live in. Right. And I tell you what, rivian might be the dark horse that just

Kyle Mountsier: 11:33

can't be on that especially if they're going to cashflow positive this quickly.

Paul J Daly: 11:37

Yeah, people are gonna react to it, people are starting to figure it out. You're not

Kyle Mountsier: 11:40

the easy thing. Yep, kind of speaking, figuring out things. Segway. Artists going to help their people figure out things because they're introducing a get this new gen AI powered chatbot tool, their kind of store companion want a clever name to early 2000 Us stores by August, aiming to do things for their employees, like streamline daily tasks, enable coaching customer assistance for associates, it'll be available on an app on the team members, handheld devices that they currently have, and will serve as a store process expert and coach aiding in onboarding, especially with new and seasonal staff, which they have to staff up for. And

Paul J Daly: 12:29

that's a big deal.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:30

Here's a note from the press release. For example, team members can input prompts like how do I sign a guest up for a target circle card? And how do I request the get the cash register? Or how do I restart the cash register in the event of a power outage. And then there'll be able to get those instructions and resources in seconds. They've basically taken FAQs, process documents, from teams across the nation, embedded it into this tool and then plan stuff over the next six months. So yeah, I mean, everything

Paul J Daly: 13:04

she says the beginning like this is what generative AI is best at. Yep, it's best that and so it makes sense to target just implementing this, the seasonal part of it is brilliant. Because you think of how many people need to be brought up to speed be on boarded, or like just the burden, it takes off management to have to answer and have like multiple levels of like supervisory, you know, people in the cashiers laying in the stockroom and the online checkout. It just lowers that burden, which means they should either be able to do one of two things, or both in balance, lower costs and expenses. But they should also be able to spend more time with the consumer and improving consumer experience, which is I think what every retailer wants to do. I had I've you've probably seen this too. I've been asking Google is another story. But like, I've been asking Google so much less. Like, oh, he's like way less. I mean, I'll talk in 50% City yet. No. perplexities, like,

Kyle Mountsier: 14:01

oh, that's, oh, that's

Paul J Daly: 14:02

the one that Seth Godin likes. Yeah. Well, and

Kyle Mountsier: 14:05

the reason is, is because it slides down every source and the beauty of it so that's it's really cool because it does it cites the source where it kind of like gets the material Yep. But prepare their like tagline is, is the future of search. Right? Because it's this like conversation thing that has source material that refines it and edits? Oh, that's, that's,

Paul J Daly: 14:31

that's a great fi. Yeah, that's a great combination. I mean, it's very interesting. I mean, this weekend, I have a really old motorcycle so means is broken most of the time. And like, I started up for the year and I got ended like one of the carbs it's got carburetor for them. And one was leaking. I'm like I can't right now is is leaking gas. And like I was like, so I just literally GPT I was like I have a 1979 Honda CB 750. I just started it up for the year carved number four is is leaking gas. I've tried this and this what else can I try? And it was like, Oh, do this, do this, do this because you think of the vast amount of knowledge on an oil, especially on 79. And literally, it was like rubber mallet tap on carb for while you're working the throttle this and I didn't you know what I fixed it, like, a minute. That's Unbeliev and then I wrote it. Thank you. GPT

Kyle Mountsier: 15:21

That's wild. Yeah, I mean, so like, if you take this down to why is this important for any retail or any any operation is like, imagine a retail store or retail group has a series of 30 Run books or playbooks across the organization for how someone should do their job, right? training manuals, all that type of stuff, load that sucker into dealer X, you know, store training manuals in Eygpt. And enable every single user in your dealership to be able to hit that thing whenever they need training. It's

Paul J Daly: 15:55

gonna be a new world out there. It is a new world out there. Some things are still the same. We want to do all these things. So we can take care of the people, the consumers, the team members that take care of us. So go out there keep that at the center and I think we'll all be just fine.

Unknown: 16:31

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