Less than a week after DriveCentric CEO Matt Leone announced his company was actively seeking integration partnerships to expand its capabilities beyond customer relationship management, the first domino has fallen.

And perhaps not surprisingly, it’s the company Leone left to take the helm of DriveCentric just a few months ago.

In a news release, DriveCentric said it has joined with marketing intelligence provider automotiveMastermind in a strategic partnership to bring its artificial intelligence-powered dealership CRM platform together with Mastermind’s data and predictive consumer insights.

The collaboration, which the companies called “the most advanced CRM-to-data integration in automotive retail,” lets dealers access consumer insights, predictive analytics and private offers directly from DriveCentric.

“When I stepped into the role of CEO at DriveCentric, I set three clear priorities,” said Leone, who joined DriveCentric in May. “Deepen our investment in our core CRM and AI products, expand our ecosystem through strategic partnerships enabled by our new API, and accelerate innovation by launching new products and services that empower our dealer partners. This partnership with Mastermind delivers on all three.

“This is the best of the best coming together. Mastermind brings the industry’s most trusted data and DriveCentric delivers the most powerful CRM engagement and AI platform. Together, we give dealers the intelligence and the tools to act on it in real time.”

automotiveMastermind CEO Aaron Baldwin said the integration marks a major step forward for his company.

“Our priority is to make it easier for dealership sales teams to achieve business success,” he said. “As more dealerships move to DriveCentric for CRM, we can now extend the value of our enriched data-driven behavior prediction scores to more dealers.

“With DriveCentric’s new API capabilities, it is the perfect moment to partner. We can combine our 15 years of consumer insights and predictive data with DriveCentric’s unmatched CRM engagement.”

The companies said Mastermind’s BPS drivers, consumer data consumer and insights make DriveCentric’s Genius AI more powerful with Mastermind’s enriched consumer data. The collaboration also provides two-way application programming interface integration syncing leads, data and actions sync between both systems; OEM-backed private offers from Mastermind that are visible, trackable and actionable inside DriveCentric; and optional data services for joint customers that enrich and cleanse records on both platform, including sold to U.S., vehicles in operation, TCPA and DNC compliance checks, and updated contact details.

In addition, they said, data feedback from DriveCentric strengthens Mastermind’s predictive models, the companies said, making the system smarter the more it’s used.

“This isn’t just about checking the box with an integration,” Baldwin said. “It’s about creating the most advanced strategic integration in automotive retail.”

The integration is currently in beta testing with select dealer groups, DriveCentric said, and expected to become available industrywide during the fourth quarter of this year.

“This partnership speaks to the speed of innovation and investment both companies are making on behalf of dealers,” Leone said. “And this is only the beginning. We’re actively expanding our ecosystem and bringing more strategic partnerships to market this year.”