But will they like it better when they're replaced by AI "chatbots"?

Imagine it. Instead of dealing with a human – however pushy – you'll be dealing with a machine intelligence that  (per the original Terminator movie) cannot be bargained with any more than the "customer service" phone tree that prompts you like the Rhesus monkey they think you are to push "9" for this and "*" for that and – just maybe – you'll get a reward in the form of something approximating what you needed.

It's coming soon, to a showroom near you, says Aharon Horwitz – who very much wants it to, as his company, Fullpath could make a lot of money selling its Customer Data and Experience Platform to dealers, who could then save money by getting rid of salesmen.

And customers, too.

They can talk to the Hand – another Terminator reference – in the form of the screen. Where they'll be prompted through the process like the Rhesus monkeys they are becoming.

"I think we're talking a year to a year and a half where [ChatGPT is] doing a huge amount of the car-buying process itself in an automated way," Horwitz told the trade publication Automotive News the other day. 

TrueVideo CEO Joe Shaker – who also has AI/chatbot skin in the game as well as skin in the car-selling game as owner of the Shaker Group car dealership chain in New England (its web site has a predictably Woke main page) says "It will touch every department  . . . I think it is going to be incredible  . . . a lot of people won't even realize they're using ChatGPT."