CarSignalOpen Shop Brain from the sidebar for the full-page chat, or press Cmd+K (Ctrl+K on Windows) anywhere in the app for the quick floating panel — same brain, same conversation, two ways in. Shop Brain reads your live shop data, so answers come from what is actually on your board, not generic advice.
What you can ask
About your shop, right now
- "What's on the floor today?"
- "Which quotes are still waiting on customers?"
- "What's on the schedule tomorrow?"
About any customer or vehicle
- "What have we done for Sarah Chen?"
- "When was the Hendersons' Odyssey last in?"
- "Does anyone owe us money?" (admins)
Answers link straight to the record, so the vehicle, invoice, or customer it mentions is one click away.
About your text threads
- "Did John reply to our text?"
- "Any new messages today?"
- "Show me the thread with Sarah"
How-to questions
- "How do I set up texting?"
- "How do quotes and approvals work?"
It answers from these help docs and links the page, so you get the current, accurate steps.
It shows you what it built
On the Shop Brain page the car you are working on lives in a preview panel on the right, as a compact read of its workspace: the vehicle with its plate or VIN, customer and visit status; every job on the visit with its parts (quantity and price) and labor (hours and price) and the job total; and the visit's money as the vehicle page shows it, the quote with its status and total, the invoice with what is paid and the balance due, tax and shop supplies when they apply. While the estimate agent prices a job the panel shows a quiet Pricing placeholder and fills in the lines as they land. It updates after every turn and every confirmed action, and follows changes made elsewhere in the app, so you never open the vehicle to see what happened; one Open link in the header takes you there when you want the full page. Actions stay in the chat: ask Shop Brain to build or send the quote. In the Cmd+K drawer and on narrow screens the same card appears in the chat the first time a car or job comes up and after each confirmed action, not under every reply.
It can take you there
Ask to go somewhere and it opens the page for you: "take me to outreach", "open the schedule", "show me that M3". If you're lost ("where do I change my labor rate?"), it gives quick directions and can jump you straight to the right screen. The chat stays open through the jump, so you can keep talking while it drives.
A short line under the message box reminds you that Shop Brain can make mistakes and that book times, specs and prices should be checked before quoting; answers built on MOTOR data also carry the MOTOR copyright line.
It also keeps track of the cars and jobs a conversation has touched, so a follow-up like "add brakes too" lands on the right job without a new search. If someone else changes one of those in the meantime (a tech deletes the job, approves it, or edits its lines), the next message notices and re-reads before answering or acting, and tells you when a job it was working on is gone.
Shop settings are the one place it only drives. Ask it to turn on the receptionist or change your labor rate and it opens Settings on that exact control, then you make the change. It never flips a setting for you.
It does the work too
Tell it what you need, in your own words:
- "Add a 2023 BMW M5" (year, make, and model is all it needs; a customer or VIN can be attached later)
- "Create a job for the 2017 4Runner" (it names whose 4Runner it found and offers to add a new car if it is a different customer's; the job type comes from the title, so "brake noise" is a complaint and "oil change" is maintenance, no follow-up quiz)
- "Create a vehicle for plate 8ABC123" (it decodes the plate or a VIN into full specs, same as the Add Vehicle form)
- "Add 3 days storage at $150 a day on the Prius" (charges are money, not repairs — flat or per-unit, with the note the customer sees)
- "Check in the Silverado, 84,210 miles"
- "Start repair on the Camry's brakes" / "The Honda's done"
- "What's the book time for front pads on the Silverado?" or "How long is a water pump on a 2016 C300?" (MOTOR's exact book hours and operation names, for a car on the board or one you just name)
- "What oil does the 340i take?" / "Coolant capacity on the Jetta?" / "What ATF does the Silverado use?" (MOTOR's specification, manufacturer approval, OEM part number and fill, for every fluid MOTOR publishes; it says plainly when a brand has no MOTOR fluid data). For Toyota, Lexus and Scion the manufacturer does not allow AI to read its service data, so Shop Brain points you to the labor picker and the Fluids tab instead.
- "Price the oil change" (the estimate agent builds it with real fitment parts and book labor; Shop Brain waits for it to finish and hands you the priced total with a link to review). Creating a job does not price it, and pricing does not build a quote: Shop Brain suggests each next step and runs it only when you say yes. If the car has no customer attached, it offers to attach one instead of offering to send.
- "Quote the brake job to the customer" then "send it"
- "What's on that quote?" then "take 10% off" or "make the oil change $89" (draft quotes only; once a quote is sent the numbers are frozen). "Waive the shop supplies" or "give him 10% off" works even before a quote exists: the same confirmed edit builds the draft from the priced jobs and applies the change, nothing sent.
- "He approved it over the phone" (approves the quote in shop)
- "Move Tuesday's 9am to Thursday at 2"
- "Mark the M3 picked up"
- "Text Sarah that her parts came in" (you approve the exact wording first)
- "Request a $200 deposit on the Tahoe" (the customer gets a pay link preset to that exact amount, on the same invoice)
- "Start an inspection on the M3" / "what did the Civic's inspection find?" / "make me a summer road-trip inspection checklist" (it can start and read inspections and author checklist templates; filling out items and sending to the customer stay with your team)
- "Who should we follow up with?" then "draft it" and "send it" (the follow-up queue, drafts in your shop's voice, sent only on your approval; opt-outs always respected)
- "Any new leads from the receptionist?"
- "What else does this car usually need?" (what similar vehicles across CarSignal, or your own history, had done alongside the open work, with the counts behind every number; when there is not enough data it says so instead of guessing)
- "Make Acme Fleet tax exempt" (their quotes and invoices calculate zero tax from then on)
- "Delete the Civic" (the preview spells out exactly what gets removed; paid history always stays)
- "Make me a front-brakes template, 2 hours plus pads and rotors" or "make the oil change package $89" (admins; same templates as the Templates page, parts auto-sourced per vehicle on apply)
Booking checks the schedule before it asks: a closed day, the vehicle's tech being off or double-booked, or a day with nobody on duty comes back as a heads-up (with who is free) instead of a booking, and it only books over a conflict if you say so.
Ask for several things in one message ("new customer John Smith, 2016 Audi A5, estimate for front brakes and a water pump") and Shop Brain bundles the whole setup into one card listing every step — a single Confirm runs them all in order. As the plan runs, each step lights up in turn: a spinner on the step in progress, a check with an Open link when it lands, and the reason under any step that fails, so you watch the work happen instead of waiting on one spinner. When a plan prices jobs, the preview shows each job turning from Pricing into its parts and labor lines with a total; when the numbers look right, say "send the quote" and Shop Brain builds and sends it (with its own confirmation). Anything that reaches a customer (sending a quote, invoice, or text) always gets its own separate confirmation.
Once a chat has found a vehicle or customer, it stays in focus: follow-ups like "send it", "add brakes too", or "how much" keep working on that same car without looking it up again. Name a different vehicle and the focus switches.
Every action shows a preview card first — nothing happens until you press Confirm. The same rules that protect you in the app protect you here: work can't start before check-in, unapproved work can't start at all, and cancelling an appointment sends the customer the same notice the Schedule page would.
Chat history
Conversations are saved automatically. The clock icon shows your past chats; pick one to continue it, or start fresh with the plus. Chats are private to you, not shared with the team.
Who sees what
Shop Brain has exactly your permissions, nothing more. Technicians can look up vehicles, run their work, and create jobs, but financial answers, team management, and shop settings stay admin-only — and if your shop restricts techs from customer sends, Shop Brain honors that too.