Olivier Francois

During a panel at the 50th Automotive News Congress held September 29th in downtown Detroit, three auto industries leaders described how AI is affecting the car buying journey.

The panelists were Olivier, Olivier Francois, Fran- Francois, the former marketing chief at Stellantis, Stellantis.

Carolyn, or I'm sorry, Karen Letchor- Tordjman, a managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting, and Joe Shaker, the principal dealer at Shaker Auto, an automotive dealership chain in New England.

Among those experts, an advertiser, a dealer, and a consultant, one message was clear, more and more buyers will turn to AI for information about their next purchase.

As AI inserts itself earlier and earlier into the car buying process, who actually owns the customer? Our own Dan Shine moderated a panel digging into that.

He spoke with Olivier Francois, CEO of Fiat and CMO of Stellantis group, Karen Lelouch, managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, and Joe Shaker, co-founder of TrueVideo and a dealer principal at Shaker Auto Group.

Here's a piece of that conversation.

Karen, you do a lot of research on kinda how AI adds that layer in the customer journey.

So, like, it's, it's kind of weird.

Yeah, you may have to go back to, to old school.

Our own Dan Shine spoke on stage at Automotive News Congress with Olivier Francois of Fiat, Karen Lelouch of Boston Consulting Group, and Joe Shaker of Shaker Auto Group.

[upbeat music] That's Daily Drive for today.

The leadership of the organization, buckle up, [laughs] you're gonna hear some names that are familiar, includes Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica, the same priest who told Bishop Schneider no for his TLM pilgrimage.

Uh, somebody called Olivier Francois.

He's the president and chairman.

He is a longtime automotive executive.

I don't think there's any kind of conspiracy behind it.

Public materials out there, though, anything that you could find on it, describe them as supported by private patrons, individual donors, and r- and board members rather than government grants.

The chairman, again, Olivier Francois, referred to more than one hundred private donors who funded the large Grace for the World concert in St. Peter's Square back in twenty twenty-five.

Named board members include Kimball Musk, yes, as in Elon Musk, relative of his, Gordon Bowen, and Paolo Siniscalco.