CEO MONTHLY / SEPTEMBER 2026 10 LLA Digital was recently awarded the title of Automotive AI Solutions Provider, for 2026 in the UK, and it’s CEO Monthly’s honour to delve deeper into the company’s dedication to elevating the automotive industry with transformative AI solutions. 80% of customers need contacting five times before they commit to a purchase, yet 44% of sales executives drop the lead after just one attempt. ELLA Digital helps put an end to this, working with automotive businesses to help them turn AI into a competitive edge. Its intelligent, scalable, agentic AI agents offer real-world results across written, chat, and voice, accelerating customer engagement, generating higherquality leads, and driving measurable sales impact with effortless deployment. Working across both inbound and outbound lead engagement for sales, parts, and services, ELLA Digital fixes legacy issues in the automotive lead management process and significantly enhances the customer experience. The company is practical and puts people first, and is set apart by the fact that it is automotive through and through. Its team come from across the industry, highlighting that ELLA Digital is not a generic AI vendor targeting the automotive sector, but rather an expert solving a problem identified through its own experiences. This insight is seen through optimAIze®, its AI agent suite, which it designed from the ground up to cover real workflows, compliance requirements, and customer expectations in the unique world of 21st century automotive retail. Barny explained: “In an AI market crowded with horizontal platforms trying to be everything to everyone, that specialism is what lets us deliver results fast – and it is what keeps our clients loyal. Our retention and repeat-business numbers speak for themselves.” As the CEO of ELLA Digital, Barny is an integral part of its success. His role is to deliver the commercial and strategic oversight of its agentic AI SaaS, from product direction and go-to-market strategy to the legal, fiscal, and operational foundations. Day to day, this puts him with ELLA Digital’s commercial, technical, and customer teams. Barny’s leadership philosophy aligns with the wider company’s core values: integrity, honesty, trust, and a people-first approach. For Barny, these things are never at odds with commercial ambition. The Automotive AI Suite from the Automotive AI Company Award-winning ELLA Digital is the automotive AI company. It exists to help OEMs and both franchised and independent dealers harness the power of AI to sell more – be it vehicles, parts, or services – simply, securely, and effectively. Spearheading its mission to transform how the industry connects with customers is Barny Francis, recognised here as the Most Influential CEO 2026: Digital Transformation Leadership – UK. We caught up with him for more following the dual recognition as he and ELLA Digital are awarded for their excellence. Building a career within some of the biggest names in the industry, from Hyundai and Citroën to SEAT, Škoda, and Volkswagen, Barny picked up all of the leadership and management experience he needed, all whilst noticing that the digital sphere and AI were reshaping the industry faster than manufacturers and retailers could keep up. Roles at Carwow and Keyloop followed, before Barny accepted the role as CEO of ELLA Digital. In what has been one of the best decisions of his career, Barny has supported the company in a variety of crucial ways, from doubling down on its people-first culture to helping it overcome the challenge of getting the value of its AI solutions for car dealerships understood in a sea of AI noise. His goal is supported by his team who all contribute to helping the industry move from AI as a bolt-on tool to AI as genuinely embedded infrastructure across sales and service. As this shift accelerates significantly, ELLA Digital is already there waiting, having been expertly built for it. With optimAIze® covering more of the customer journey and ELLA Digital itself deepening its footprint with OEMs and larger UK dealer groups, Barny remains wholly focused on building the company and its AI suite, positioning it as the definitive AI partner for the automotive industry. Backed by a team of experienced specialists, ELLA Digital is set to make further improvements and impact on new and returning partners. The company is also exploring expansion across the globe, with the backing of its investment partners, and is expecting to accelerate both its product development and its team’s size. More on this automotive AI company and its agentic AI software can be found below. E Contact: Barny Francis Company: ELLA Digital Web Address: https://elladigital.com/
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