You have probably been bombarded with sales reps wanting to convince you that AI ( Artificial Intelligence ) can greatly assist your business.  Here are some things you should know about AI, and how it relates to Auto Shop Writer.

1). AI is in it’s infancy no matter what you hear.  When you look at an AI engine, the first notice is that you should NOT trust the information to be accurate without further verification.  At it’s current stage, AI is generally guess work because it is based on patterns detected when scanning data, and the computer is trying to make sense of all the information it sees.  It will get better, but right now it is not generally ready for prime time.

2). Much of the information AI provides is quite generic.  It may have some very good answers, but generally the responses are pretty broad.

3). AI is not free.  To use the services, you will have to create an account and pay for “tokens”.  You are charged for the size of the question, and the size of the response.  A very specific question may be brief where a general question could be long, and costly.

How good is AI ?  Many large corporations now are using AI for their tech support.  When you go online, or call in, you are likely speaking to a “digital assistant”.  How good are the responses ?  When you have a very specific need, can you get the proper answer / solution ?  Probably not.  That is because the systems are still in the learning process, and don’t have enough data to give you good answers.  However, getting to a person who can resolve your problems may be quite frustrating, if not impossible.

With all of this in mind, we do have the ability to add AI capabilities to Auto Shop Writer ( and have done so for testing purposes ).  A while back we added the F3 key to let you ask a question of Microsoft CoPilot and it will then display the answers in your web browser.  It’s not a specific, single page, response, but it helps you find what you need, shows you other relevant articles on the subject, and is cost free.

Currently we are testing a more direct AI interface with some of the major providers ( Google, ChatGPT, OpenAI, and DeepSeek ).  In each case we can ask specific questions and get back responses that are readable, saveable, and printable.  Our interface works fine and we can do it with a function key from anywhere withing the program.  You can even copy the responses into your online notebook ( in the program ).  

Our results have not been surprising.  When it relates to the work you do, the information is generally not specific enough to be useful.  We can ask it how to perform an oil change on a 2022 Honda Civic Sport and it will give us very general instructions ( jack up the car, collect the tools, move a capture pan into place, remove the drain plug, remove the oil filter, wipe the surfaces clean, replace the oil plug, install a new filter, refill the oil ).  However, the critical information ( like where the components are found, which parts to use, any special notes on accessing those parts, etc ) are missing.  Thus, as we test the various services, we are seeking one that can give you excellent responses, and so far, we haven’t found them.

At this point, we will not be activating the AI specific capability.  You would end up investing money on an AI account, and feel it wasn’t worth it because the information is not accurate enough or specific to your needs.  We will continue to work in this area, and test the various AI resources ( there are many ).

The point of this is to let you know this is an area we can, and will, implement for you, but we want to be sure what we put in place is valuable to you.