San Antonio – September 24, 2026 -- Sixty-three percent of in-market vehicle shoppers say they will definitely or probably use AI during their next vehicle purchase, while only 29% of dealers report actively adjusting for AI-powered search, according to Cox Automotive's Q2 2026 AI in Auto Retail Tracker. The survey, fielded in May 2026, polled 483 franchise and independent dealership decision-makers and 1,502 consumers planning a vehicle purchase within 12 months.
AI tools now rival automotive websites as a research channel
Cox Automotive found 36% of shoppers now use AI tools for vehicle research, nearly matching the 38% who rely on automotive-specific websites. Among AI users, 26% ask AI to generate questions for dealers and 24% say it makes them feel more prepared for dealership visits, while only 17% cite avoiding dealership staff as a benefit -- indicating AI use is largely preparatory rather than a replacement for dealer interaction.
CarLocal.io scales infrastructure to close the dealer adoption gap
San Antonio-based CarLocal.io is expanding an automotive AI answer engine and dealership visibility platform built on answer engine optimization (AEO), generative engine optimization (GEO), structured dealership data and local automotive intent coverage. The platform is also developing MCP-ready infrastructure around the Model Context Protocol, an open standard for connecting AI applications with external data and tools, intended to prepare dealership data for AI assistants and agents.
"The biggest change isn't simply that consumers are using AI," said Chris J. Martinez, founder of CarLocal.io. "It's that the starting point of the shopping journey can now be a question instead of a traditional search."
Internal audit flags over 68,000 broken links across dealer sites
CarLocal's internal analysis of automotive retail websites identified recurring technical issues complicating machine discovery, including orphaned content, conflicting canonical signals, sitemap gaps and unverified promotional claims. In a quality initiative across its dealership network, CarLocal corrected more than 11,000 promotional claims, removed more than 23,000 unsupported promotional references and resolved 573 canonical conflicts, while applying more than 68,000 internal links to reduce orphaned pages.
Platform supports 21 dealership deployments as of September 2026
As of September 2026, CarLocal supports 21 active dealership deployments and has analyzed more than 49,000 live automotive web pages. The company states these figures describe platform deployment and technical analysis activity only, and are not presented as independent evidence of consumer adoption, search-ranking gains or AI citation performance.