Do Australian car buyers use AI to shortlist? What dealers can check without local data

Is there Australian data on car buyers and AI?

Not that we could find. We looked for a survey that measures how Australian car buyers use ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI features to research or shortlist a vehicle, and found none with a published sample and method. Dealer associations and manufacturers may hold private research, but nothing citable.

That leaves two choices. A dealer can wait for local numbers, or treat the US evidence as a signal and run the checks that work in any market. Our view: wait for nothing. The checks below cost a few hours, and they matter whether the share of buyers using AI in Australia is high or low.

Everything in the next section is US data, and we say so each time. We are not suggesting Australian buyers behave the same way. We are suggesting the direction is clear enough to check your own answers.

What the US tracker shows

Car shoppers in the US expect to use AI, and dealers there are behind them. In Cox Automotive's AI in Auto Retail Tracker (US; Q2 2026 wave of about 480 dealers and 1,500 shoppers planning a purchase within a year), 63% of shoppers said they would definitely or probably use AI for their next vehicle purchase.¹

Dealers use AI themselves but have not adjusted to how buyers find them. In the same tracker, 82% of US dealers said they used AI, but only 29% had started to adjust to AI-powered search.¹ And while 69% of US dealers expected AI to drive sales growth, 22% said they had seen it so far.¹

We read the tracker in more detail in our note on what US dealers should fix first. For an Australian dealer, the useful part is the gap: buyers' intent runs ahead of dealers' preparation.

US only: Cox Automotive tracker, Q2 2026

Shoppers ahead of dealers, in the US

63%of US in-market shoppers plan to use AI for their next purchaseCox Automotive, US, 2026 ¹

82%of US dealers use AI themselvesCox Automotive, US, 2026 ¹

29%of US dealers have started to adjust to AI-powered searchCox Automotive, US, 2026 ¹

Why Google's AI Mode matters for a dealer anywhere

Google's AI Mode is the AI surface most likely to reach local car buyers, and it leans on Google's own listings. Google said in October 2025 that AI Mode was available in over 200 countries and territories.² Wherever it runs, a dealer's Google Business Profile is one of the things it reads.

Profound, which sells AI visibility software, tracked AI Mode citations between 15 April and 30 June 2026. Over that period google.com's citation share in AI Mode grew 8.4 times, driven by Business Profile and product cards, and its analysis of more than 32 million Business Profile citations found local-intent sectors most affected.³ Profound did not report results by country.

For a dealer, that means "Toyota dealer near me open Saturday" may be answered from the profile card, not the website. Our guide to fixing the Business Profile for AI Mode lists the fields to check.

Three checks that travel across markets

Three checks work in any market because they depend on how engines read listings, not on local buyer surveys. Each can be done by someone in the dealership in an afternoon.

Illustrative. Our checklist for a franchised or independent dealer.

Price is the one to fix first. An answer that quotes a price from an old classified listing, or one that leaves out on-road costs, sets an expectation your sales team then has to undo. State the drive-away price in text on each vehicle page and keep it identical across your site and listings.

Our view: separate sales and service in the profile and on the site. Many dealer questions to AI are about servicing, warranty work and parts, and a profile that lists only sales hours answers them badly.

How should you write Australian prompts?

Write them the way Australian buyers talk, because the wording decides which sources an engine reaches for. A prompt that says "pickup truck" and "sticker price" pulls US pages. One that says "ute" and "drive-away" pulls Australian ones.

• "Best dual-cab ute under 60k drive-away for towing a caravan"
• "Which dealers near me offer a novated lease on an EV?"
• "Is a hybrid SUV worth it for a family doing country driving?"
• "Where can I get my car serviced on a Saturday near me without voiding the warranty?"

Set the engine's location to Australia where it allows, and record for each answer whether you are named, which dealers are named instead, what price is quoted and which sources are cited. Run each prompt on more than one day, because answers vary between runs.

What should you measure without local benchmarks?

Measure whether you are named, not whether you get clicks. ChatGPT links to sources in only a small share of its answers. Similarweb, which sells web analytics including AI search data, found that ChatGPT answers carrying a citation rose from 1.6% in June 2025 to 6.8% in May 2026 (US prompts).⁴ In most answers, being mentioned is all the visibility there is.

Keep your own baseline and track it monthly: the share of your prompts where you are named, the accuracy of the price and stock details quoted, and the profile actions (calls, directions, bookings) Google reports. Those three numbers tell you more about your market than a US survey can.

When we run an audit, our AI answer monitor runs each prompt on three separate days across six engines: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot and Google AI. It uses official APIs where they are offered and a licensed AI-answer data provider otherwise. Prompts are written in the buyer's country and wording, which for an Australian dealer means Australian terms throughout.