Keynote Speaker · September 24 · MIT Museum
Aaron Strout
Author, Wired for Purpose & Location-Based Marketing for Dummies; Founder & Managing Director, Aardwolf LLC; Former CMO, W2O / Real Chemistry; Executive Producer & Host, Reaching Higher Podcast
Speaker profile
About Aaron Strout
Aaron Strout is the author of Wired for Purpose: Why Humanity Is the Biggest Differentiator in a Digital World and co-author of Location-Based Marketing for Dummies (Wiley), one of the earliest mainstream playbooks for mobile and location-driven marketing. He is the founder and managing director of Aardwolf LLC. For nearly 14 years, Aaron helped scale Real Chemistry, formerly W2O Group, from a boutique firm into an industry leader, ultimately serving as CMO. Aaron is also executive producer and host of the Reaching Higher Podcast, a show built around a simple idea: real human connection remains the sharpest tool we have, even in an increasingly digital world.
Earlier in his career, Aaron worked at Fidelity Investments and Mzinga and co-founded the Boston Interactive Media Association (BIMA). A recognized early adopter across three technology cycles—digital, social, and now AI—Aaron has spoken at SXSW, CES, and other major stages, including keynoting at DrivingSales alongside Gary Vaynerchuk. He sits on the board of the Tigerlily Foundation and lives with his wife and two dogs in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Human at the Wheel: What 30 Years of Being First Taught Me About Winning the AI Era
Aaron Strout has been the ‘first to try’ for three decades—early to digital when it was a gamble, early to podcasting before it boomed, and early to social when most executives dismissed it as a fad. He has watched company after company chase the new tool and miss the real lesson: technology never wins the market on its own. The businesses that pull ahead use new capability to deepen relationships, not replace them. Now AI is automating the paperwork, scheduling, and write-ups—the administrative weight that has buried service advisors and technicians for years. That is real time being handed back. Drawing on three decades of pattern recognition and the frameworks from Wired for Purpose, Aaron shows dealership operators how to put that time to work in the service drive, on the sales floor, and inside their teams.
What the audience will take back to the dealership
- A look at what technology has disrupted this century and what those shifts can tell dealers about AI’s likely impact over the next three to five years.
- A pattern-recognition framework for separating real AI advantage from hype, built from three previous technology cycles.
- A concrete answer to what dealership teams should do with the time AI frees up—one that goes beyond headcount cuts.
- The Connector’s Code, adapted for dealership teams: how relationship capital shows up in advisor retention, technician loyalty, and repeat service visits.
- The 3 H’s—Humility, Humanity, and Hope—as a vocabulary for evaluating and presenting AI tools internally without hype or fear.
- A repeatable closing framework for teams: automation buys the time; relationships spend it.
Automotive AI Summit 2026
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