Start using artificial intelligence (AI) today for your heavy-duty aftermarket business or you are going to lose market share rapidly.

“There’s going to be people who win and people who lose out of this technology change,” warned Lauren McCullough, founder and CEO, Tromml, during an education session at Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week in Grapevine, Texas.

If a business has not started experimenting with AI tools, it’s falling behind the competition in a gap that will be hard to close, she warned.

McCullough, who has introduced an advanced analytics tool leveraging AI to boost profitability and streamline decision-making in auto parts e-commerce, said businesses could use three free tools as they dip their toes into the AI waters.

A good tool to use to research competitors is Perplexity, she suggested. An alternative to an online search, it offers more human-like responses. It also summarizes answers, cites where they are sourced from, does fact checking and research summaries.

Reduced search time

McCullough gave an example of searching competitor prices for commercial air filters online. “It’s a very redundant exercise to get information that might be out of date by the time you turn it into your boss,” she said.

Perplexity helps find answers without clicking through multiple websites. You can get results for average prices, specific brands, and specials on offer.

“This will take a three- to four-hour research project and get you 75% of the way in about 10 minutes.”

Lauren McCullough, founder and CEO, Tromml

“This will take a three- to four-hour research project and get you 75% of the way in about 10 minutes,” she said. “You can spend that last 25% refining your results and getting it to the final level.”

A paid version of the tool now offers parts sales. She noted that a company may not be showing on the list, and that company’s representatives would want to find out how to make it on that list so buyers can contact them.

How do you pore over a 250-page product brochure in PDF format for important information? Upload it on ChatGPT with a general prompt as to what you are looking for and it will spill out the information in about three minutes.

The user could then ask the AI tool to draft a one-page sales email based on the PDF information. McCullough said that 80% of the work can be done in five minutes. And if you don’t know what prompt to use, ask ChatGPT and it will help you with that too.

A word of caution

She added a word of caution, saying users should be mindful of adding private, proprietary or confidential information into the open-source AI tool.  

If you are wading through multiple-page brochures or documents like contracts and are seeking specifics like terms and conditions, plug them into Google’s Notebook LM.

It summarizes documents and even provides an audio output for those who prefer absorbing data in a podcast format. It can pull up who is the primary point of contact or what the payment terms will be, without flipping through multiple pages.

Integrating AI into business workflow

The real power of AI is when you integrate it into business workflow and the resulting return in investment, McCullough noted. She cited a McKinsey report that said there was a 5-15% reduction in procurement spend, 20-30% in inventory, and 5-20% in logistics cost.

AI is also better than a chatbot in answering customer questions. For example, McCullough said, a storm delayed shipments and triggered customer calls.

These tools can detect patterns and provide quality responses. If weather data is integrated, responses get more accurate.

Sales opportunities

On the back end, AI can track inventory and use of shelf space. For the future it can put alerts as to what products need to be stocked. McCullough said you might be doing this ahead your competitors, leading to sales opportunities and better relationships with customers.

McCullough urged businesses to start finding partners and seek out low-hanging fruit during the first deployment. The key is finding instant return on investment and reinvest that margin back and continue to iterate over and over again for continued success.