Dealership AI vendor evaluation checklist
Dealership AI vendor evaluation checklist: Evaluate an AI product’s permitted actions, data, safeguards, audit trail and supervised launch plan. It has 3 sections and 15 scored items to run against every provider. Start with the section on scope, then work down the list in order and write each answer on the sheet.
What this worksheet is for
Evaluate an AI product’s permitted actions, data, safeguards, audit trail and supervised launch plan. It carries 3 sections: scope, control, prove: totalling 15 scored items, printable or usable on screen, and it is meant to be run identically against every provider you are considering rather than filled in from memory after a demo. Its longest section, scope, carries 5 of them; the worksheet is a structure for recording evidence, not a certification.
| Sections | 3 |
|---|---|
| Scored items | 15 |
| Format | Printable worksheet |
Scope
Control
Prove
How to use the dealership ai vendor evaluation checklist
AI products reach dealerships faster than the questions to ask about them, so this worksheet slows the conversation down to three things: what the product is allowed to do, who can stop it and what proof exists. Use it before a demo, not after.
Start with scope. Write down which customer conversations the product will handle, in which channels and at what hours, and decide in advance which topics must always go to a person, such as pricing disputes, complaints and anything about financing terms.
Then move to control. An AI agent speaks in the dealership's name, so ask who approves its scripts, how a manager hears what it said, how fast a message can be corrected and how the tool is switched off in an emergency.
Ask whether customers are told they are talking to software and how the product records consent for texts and calls. A vendor that cannot show a log of what the agent said last Tuesday has told you something.
The last section asks for proof. Request transcripts or recordings from stores like yours, not a polished demo, and ask what share of conversations ended in a booked appointment, a handoff or a failure.
Ask how those figures were counted. Score each item while the vendor is in the room, and write what you were shown beside each score.
Bring the people who will answer for the results: the BDC manager, the service director and whoever owns compliance. Their questions will differ from the sales team's.
Keep the finished sheet with the contract so renewal starts from evidence.
Watch for three warning signs while you score. The first is a demo that uses scripted customers instead of yours.
The second is a vendor who answers a question about control with a feature about speed. The third is a result quoted without a method.
None of them ends the conversation, but each deserves a written follow-up. Ask what the product does when it does not know the answer, and listen for a plain reply.
Test that with a question your staff gets weekly and the model has never seen. Ask the vendor to describe, in plain words and without a slide, the worst conversation its product has had with a customer, what went wrong, how it was found and what changed afterward, because a team that remembers its failures in detail is usually a team that has learned from them.
Ask to see the log.
Getting a comparable result
A worksheet only works if every candidate meets the same one.
| Use the same worksheet for every candidate | Run all 3 sections against every provider: scope, control and prove. Keep the order and the people in the room the same. A shortlist scored on different questions is not a comparison. |
|---|---|
| Score during, not after | 15 items run from "exact use cases, channels and hours" to "immediate disable and rollback". Mark each one while the provider is still in front of you. Memory after three demos favors the most recent presenter. |
| Record the evidence, not the impression | Scope is the longest section, with 5 items. Against each one, write down what you were shown. Skip how it felt. "Demonstrated on our data" and "described verbally" are different findings. |
| Separate native, configured, partner and roadmap | For every capability, note which of those four it is. Demos blend them together. The difference decides who supports the feature when it breaks. |
| Bring the departments that will use it | Scope and Prove touch different people. Ask the ones who will live with each section to score it. A worksheet filled in only by management measures management's priorities. |
| Keep the completed copy | A finished copy of the dealership ai vendor evaluation checklist records what was promised during selection. Reach for it when the result does not match the demo. |
Operational diligence is all this worksheet organizes. No provider gets certified by it, and it replaces no dealer-specific legal, security, accounting, compliance or technical review.