Charles Fordin on AI Workflow Automation for Dealerships

Operational speed and cross-department visibility are becoming defining advantages for dealerships, and Charles Fordin, co-founder of Deelr.io, explains how AI-driven workflow automation is helping stores reduce recon cycle times and unify performance management. On Driving Solutions, Fordin outlines how Deelr.io’s platforms connect fixed and variable operations under a single framework built around measurable objectives.

The company’s Pulse business intelligence system delivers leadership-level projections and exception tracking, while Flow centralizes every step of a vehicle’s physical lifecycle. An embedded AI inspection agent, Fixed Eye, supports consistency and documentation across appraisal, reconditioning, and service workflows.

• Using AI to reduce recon cycle time and improve time-to-market
• Centralizing inspections, vendor coordination, and photography workflows
• Turning business intelligence into proactive management decisions
• Aligning fixed and variable operations under one performance structure
• Expanding multi-agent AI to support inventory and service goals

The result is a more coordinated operating model where automation enhances accountability and execution.

Driving Solutions is the go-to podcast for dealership professionals who want to stay sharp, informed, and ahead of the curve. Hosted by Jim Fitzpatrick and powered by CBT News, each episode brings you real strategies, smart tools, and expert insights to help you run a more profitable operation.

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Transcript

Announcer 0:01

This is Driving Solutions exclusively on CBTnews.com.

From Dealer BI To Pulse

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Hey everyone, Jim Fitzpatrick. Thanks so much for joining me on another edition of Driving Solutions right here at CBTnews.com. Today we're talking with Charles Forton, who is the co-founder of dealer.io, to discuss how his company is helping dealerships streamline operations and drive performance. Thanks very much, Charles, for joining us on the show today. So last time that you were here, two years ago, you had just started working on Dealer BI. What's happened since then? And tell me about the flow.

Introducing Flow And Inventory Inspections

SPEAKER_01 0:38

That's right, Jim. Two years ago, we were just beginning our journey building dealer BI. And since then, a lot has happened. It's taken on a new name, which we've uh affectionately called Pulse. And it's very fitting because the reality is this business intelligence tool really is the heart of your dealership, right? It's um it's done a great job for a number of large groups and a whole bunch of smaller independent dealers as well. We've also built out uh a product called Flow, and uh, and I have to say we were obsessed with the quality of building out flow. So uh we started on it over a year ago, and we've been uh heads down building the absolute best inventory management and inspection platform that's out there. And we believe we've done that. We tested it in real life scenarios with large-scale enterprise dealers. We got it into many dealers, got it into many dealership hands, and really got it to the point where we believe it's it's perfect. Flow is uh your complete inventory management system and it includes inspections. And um those are all types of inspections from your trade appraisals, your recon inspections, your new card pre-delivery inspections, uh, and soon service inspections. Of course, that's where Ford Automotive comes from with our uh history and fixed operations. And we were thinking about flow, we wanted to bring all the workflows that incorporate um speed and time to market and the physical interactions with um the actual vehicle itself. And the vision is to create a platform that puts together every possible necessary workflow in that dealership uh when dealing with these cars physically. So that's appraisals, inspections, estimates for service, um shop and detail uh work, vendor interactions, and photography.

All-Workflow Vision Across The Lot

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Wow, that that sounds very exciting. You've been working on some AI-powered inspection tools. Walk me through how that works and give me a real example.

AI Inspection Assistant Fixed Eye

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, uh so we call that fixed eye. And when we started on um this product, you know, we realized that natural language processing and LLM was um sort of very firsthand and and in everybody's uh tools these days. And so um we realized that we had something that um was becoming much more readily available to people, and that that whole user experience of human-computer interaction was actually changing once again right before our eyes, right? And so many products these days have an AI assistant built in, right? We have co-pilot and Microsoft and your AI assistant in Zoom and Gemini and Google, and it just was fitting that um you know inspections deserved an AI assistant as well. So the AI assistant inspection helper, uh, it's here to uh you know expedite the entire process and assist the user, and uh it basically interacts with any type of inspection workflow whatsoever.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Okay, okay. You mentioned uh AI agents. What else are you doing with that technology and where is this in terms of readiness?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah, that's a great question, Jim. So Fixed Eye is our inspection agent. Think of it as your entire uh fixed operations parts and service agent.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

And we're working on other agents that expedite the process of uh inventory management and photography, and together they orchestrate as ones. So um your users and your dealership have a process that you know is fluid and ever-changing, uh, and we're always focused on time to market and time to line, and often it's a very lagging indicator, right? And so uh with the automation and these agentic helpers, we're able to see this process better orchestrated in a more fluid manner. So uh goals are the primary objective of our agents, um, they're built around the dealership's objectives, often coming from pulse, right? So we've able been able to tie the two together where your projections and your exceptions that are built into Pulse at the management level help drive the goals and decisions made by your agents, right? And we summarize uh their their uh their jobs and tasks, and if and when they need uh humans to interact for approvals uh or to physically get involved with something, they're the ones who call on tools and notify those those people to get involved.

Go-To-Market And Production Status

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Okay, okay. So, what's your go-to-market strategy? How do dealers get access to this?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Uh we are we are ready right now with go to market. Uh, we have a lot of the product that's uh being fully used today. And obviously um mentioning the the agents working together, that's our roadmap right now. Uh the fixed eye uh inspection agent is in production and in use. So uh in the entire flow workflow from the point of appraisal uh through to you know your reconditioning and remarketing, you have that inspection agent there to help you. Um and the roadmap for us basically involves just you know putting out more of these agents and having them manage and orchestrate with each other in a in a multi-agent environment uh throughout 2026.

Roadmap Into 2026

Expansion Into Service Workflows

SPEAKER_02 6:11

That's fantastic. What's next for dealer over the next 12 to 24 months?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Well, over the next 12 to 24 months, we'd really like to see some some growth, Jim. We've made some uh excellent strategic partnerships that we'd you know like to announce in the near future. Um as mentioned earlier, we are uh getting into service as well. You know, that's where we came from. Uh and so you will see Flow uh able to manage workflows from you know the very uh beginning of a vehicle uh being appraised, whether on-site or off-site, and all of the uh allocation of vehicles and movement of vehicles on a lot and all the way into fixed operations and repair, remarketing and readiness. So we're gonna build out the product and you know make some large strategic partnerships and integrations and see some growth in the next 18 to 24 months.

Unifying Front And Back Of House

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Wow, that that sounds very exciting. I mean, once this is done, you're gonna have both both front and back of the house taken care of.

Best Practices Into Platform And AI

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, that was a big part of the vision, right? Uh we really wanted to uh, you know, we looked at it as traditionally very bifurcated and we wanted to bring that together. And, you know, um variable operations managers and fixed operations managers often collaborate and they come up with um best practices in the dealership that certainly work. And we know those are out there, right? We've talked to so many dealers over the years, and and uh we we really did focus on the that being a goal, a mission, if you will, of flow to bring that together and also bring together all of those goals and best practices so that they were no longer bifurcated and they were no longer uh hidden secrets, right? And we can bring them to a platform and you know ex kind of expedite that with uh new tools and and automation and AI.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

That's right. That's fantastic, very, very exciting stuff. Charles Fortin, co-founder of dealer.io. Check them out online. I think you're gonna really like what you see. These guys are on the cutting edge of uh technology and and and work solutions for dealers. So thank you so much, Charles. Love to have you back to do a follow-up to see how this is moving along.

Closing And Where To Learn More

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Always a pleasure to be on CBT News. Thank you for having me, Jim. See you next time.

Announcer 8:30

Thanks.com.