DriveCentric, the St. Louis‑based provider of AI‑powered customer relationship management tools for car dealers, announced on March 25, 2026 that Michael Affronti will assume the newly created role of Chief Product and Business Officer (CPBO). In this capacity, Affronti will oversee the company’s expanding product suite and its push to embed artificial‑intelligence capabilities deeper into dealership workflows.
Why the hire matters
The automotive retail sector is in the midst of a unified platforms digital transformation, with dealers seeking to replace siloed legacy systems with unified platforms that can handle everything from lead capture to real‑time communications. DriveCentric’s platform already integrates messaging, digital retailing, and AI‑driven engagement, but the company says it needs a seasoned product leader to accelerate the next wave of functionality.
“Michael brings a strong combination of product leadership, platform experience, automotive insight and an AI‑first mindset,” said Matt Leone, chief executive officer of DriveCentric. “As we continue to expand, his ability to translate innovation into practical solutions for dealerships will be critical to delivering long‑term value for our customers.”
Affronti’s mandate includes tightening the roadmap for DriveCentric’s AI modules, expanding the platform’s scalability for larger dealer groups, and ensuring that new features can be deployed with minimal disruption to existing operations.
A résumé built on large‑scale platforms
Affronti arrives with more than 20 years of experience constructing enterprise‑grade platforms across automotive, e‑commerce, fintech, and consumer tech. Most recently, he served as Chief Product Officer at a global consumer‑experience firm, where he led product strategy for marketplace trust, compliance, and integrated payments, all while championing AI‑enabled services.
Prior to that, Affronti held the senior vice‑president and general‑manager slot for Commerce Cloud at Salesforce. There, he oversaw a multibillion‑dollar e‑commerce business that served both B2C and B2B customers, integrating CRM, commerce, AI, and payment processing into a single offering. His tenure at Salesforce gave him direct exposure to automotive manufacturers’ digital retail initiatives, a background that aligns closely with DriveCentric’s dealer‑focused mission.
Personal roots in the dealership world
Beyond his corporate pedigree, Affronti grew up in Queens, New York, where his family ran a Cadillac dealership. He describes that experience as giving him a “firsthand understanding of what it takes to run a dealership day to day,” a perspective he believes will inform product decisions that truly resonate with end users.
Strategic focus on AI and automation
DriveCentric’s roadmap under Affronti is expected to prioritize three areas:
- Deeper AI integration – expanding predictive lead scoring, automated follow‑up messaging, and real‑time sentiment analysis.
- Platform unification – reducing the need for disparate tools by bringing CRM, digital retailing, and communication channels under a single data model.
- Scalable architecture – ensuring the platform can support the growing data volumes and transaction rates of large dealer networks without compromising latency.
“The automotive industry is at an inflection point, and DriveCentric has the team, the technology, and the vision to lead it. I’ve spent my career building platforms that simplify complexity and create real value — and that’s exactly what dealerships need right now. I couldn’t be more excited to be part of what comes next,” Affronti said in a statement.
Market implications
The appointment underscores a broader trend: AI‑centric product leadership is becoming a prerequisite for B2B SaaS firms targeting vertical markets. By bringing an executive with deep experience in both large‑scale commerce platforms and AI strategy, DriveCentric signals its intent to compete not just with niche dealer‑software vendors but also with the broader enterprise CRM ecosystem that is increasingly adding automotive‑specific modules.
Analysts note that the move could accelerate DriveCentric’s push into larger dealer groups that have historically been reluctant to adopt fragmented technology stacks. A more cohesive, AI‑enhanced platform may lower integration costs and speed time‑to‑value, key metrics for dealers evaluating digital transformation investments.
Looking ahead
With Affronti at the helm of product and business strategy, DriveCentric is poised to deepen its AI capabilities while simplifying the dealer experience. If the company can deliver on the promised roadmap, it may set a new benchmark for how AI is embedded in automotive retail software—shifting the conversation from isolated chatbot solutions to fully orchestrated, data‑driven engagement engines.
