canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/api.dealerai.com/dealerai # DealerAI API The DealerAI API manages customer contacts and outbound engagements for automotive dealerships and looks up new and used vehicle inventory, including an individual vehicle by its VIN. It captures showroom leads by creating or updating a contact, queues a follow-up engagement in a single call, and retrieves past customer conversations so an assistant can respond with context. ## For AI agents Look up new and used vehicle inventory, capture showroom leads, and queue customer engagements for an automotive dealership. Retrieves past conversations so an agent can respond with context. ## Scope Does not handle financing, payment processing, or service scheduling. Use for dealership contact and vehicle inventory management only. ## Capabilities - Look up new and used vehicle inventory, or fetch a single vehicle by its VIN - Capture a showroom lead by creating or updating a contact record - Queue an outbound engagement for a contact in one call - Retrieve past customer conversations to give an assistant context - Upload new and used vehicle inventory to keep dealership listings current ## Use cases ### AI Sales Assistant for a Dealership An AI assistant answers buyer questions on the lot or website by reading live inventory and capturing the lead in the same session. It looks up new and used vehicles, fetches a specific car by VIN, and creates a contact so the sales team can follow up. Through Jentic the agent discovers these operations by intent and calls them without hand-wiring the API. Example prompt: Look up used inventory for a Honda Civic, then create a contact for the interested buyer with their name and phone number ### Vehicle Inventory Lookup Retrieve current new and used vehicle inventory for a dealership, or pull the full record for one vehicle by its VIN. This backs shopping tools, price checks, and availability answers without scraping the dealer website, and keeps responses grounded in what is actually on the lot. Example prompt: Fetch the vehicle record for VIN 1HGCM82633A004352 and report its availability ### Lead Capture and Engagement Turn an inbound inquiry into a tracked contact and a queued follow-up. The agent creates or updates the contact, then queues an engagement so the dealership reaches out, and can read prior conversations to avoid repeating questions. This keeps lead handling consistent across chat, web, and phone channels. Example prompt: Create a contact for a walk-in prospect and queue an engagement to schedule a test drive ## Key endpoints | Method | Path | Description | | --- | --- | --- | | POST | `/ailm/contact` | Create or update a contact | | POST | `/ailm/engage` | Create a contact and queue an engagement | | GET | `/conversations` | Retrieve customer conversations | | GET | `/inventory/new` | List new vehicle inventory | | GET | `/inventory/vehicle/{vin}` | Get a vehicle by VIN | ## Key resources - **Contacts and engagement** — Create or update contacts and queue outbound engagements through the ailm endpoints - **Conversations** — Retrieve past customer conversations for context - **Inventory** — Read and upload new and used vehicle inventory, and fetch a vehicle by VIN ## Why Jentic - **Setup:** Wiring the DealerAI API by hand means setting up HTTP basic authentication and handling its inventory and contact endpoints yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import DealerAI from the API Directory, store the credential once, and your agent calls it. - **Permission scoping:** DealerAI carries the contact and engagement details in the request body, so rules bound which operations your agent may call, not which contact it touches. You choose the operations it may call, so write operations like uploading inventory are not included unless you add them. - **Credential handling:** Your DealerAI credentials are stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. They never enter the agent's prompt, logs, or context. - **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'look up used car inventory' or 'create a dealership contact', and Jentic returns the matching DealerAI operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs. ## Related APIs - **Salesforce** — General-purpose CRM versus DealerAI's dealership-specific contact and inventory model - **Zoho CRM** — Full CRM suite compared with DealerAI's focused lead and vehicle operations - **Salesloft** — Sales engagement cadences that act on the leads DealerAI captures ## FAQ ### What authentication does the DealerAI API use? The DealerAI API authenticates with HTTP basic authentication using your API credentials, per its OpenAPI spec. Through Jentic the credentials are stored encrypted by your own Jentic One instance and injected at call time, so they never sit in the agent's prompt or logs. ### Can I look up a vehicle by VIN with the DealerAI API? Yes. A GET request to `/inventory/vehicle/{vin}` returns the record for a single vehicle, and separate operations list all new and used inventory. An agent can use these to answer availability and price questions grounded in the dealership's current stock. ### What are the rate limits for the DealerAI API? The OpenAPI spec does not specify rate limits. Check the DealerAI developer documentation at https://api.dealerai.com/api-docs/ for current limits before running high-volume inventory syncs. ### Is there a DealerAI MCP server? You don't need an MCP server to give your agent the DealerAI API. Jentic connects it directly from the API Directory: import it, store your credential once, and your agent calls the inventory and contact operations it needs. ### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the DealerAI API? Yes. Write a rule that allows only the inventory-read and contact-create operations, so the agent can look up vehicles and capture leads but cannot upload inventory or read conversation history, and every call it makes is logged. ### How do I capture a lead with the DealerAI API through Jentic? Search Jentic for 'create a dealership contact', and it returns the POST `/ailm/contact` operation with its input schema so your agent submits the lead directly. To run it on your own infrastructure, install Jentic One from its GitHub repo.