Guides · AI agents
Connect your own AI assistant to your dealership
By the Lead Friendly team · Published September 10, 2026 · Updated September 12, 2026
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Short answer: Lead Friendly runs a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, so the AI assistant you already pay for can work inside your dealership account. You create a key, paste it into Claude or ChatGPT, and choose what the assistant may do. It reads contacts, deals, appointments and call transcripts; with a setup key it builds your voice agent from your website, writes its script, routes a number to it and stages your campaigns and workflows; and with a write key it sends texts, places AI voice calls and books appointments — all through exactly the same 10DLC, TCPA, consent and wallet checks your staff go through. Everything it builds arrives switched OFF — the agent in review, campaigns as drafts — because turning it on, buying a number, and accepting the terms are acts only a signed-in human can make. It cannot be talked out of any of that.
Why this matters now
Any modern AI assistant can already click around a web app. What it cannot do is own a phone number, hold your 10DLC registration with the carriers, record a call lawfully in a two-party-consent state, prove three years later that a customer agreed to be contacted, or stop itself when the wallet runs dry.
That is the layer an AI has to act through, and it is the part that takes months and a compliance review to build. Connecting your assistant to Lead Friendly gives it hands without giving it the ability to break rules on your behalf.
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What your assistant can do once connected
Three groups of tools, matched to three key scopes, so you allow exactly as much as you mean to. A read key can only look. A setup ("configure") key can also build and configure — everything it makes is created switched off. A write key can also text, call and book. Each scope is a superset of read; a write key can do the setup work too.
| Read — look at the account | Set up — build, all switched OFF | Act — reach a customer |
|---|---|---|
| Search contacts, read one in full | Build a voice agent from your website (in review) | Create and update a contact |
| List and read deals, with missing paperwork | Read and rewrite an agent's script, greeting and voice | Log a note, task or outcome |
| List upcoming appointments and call transcripts | Route one of your numbers to an agent | Send a text message |
| List your voice agents, numbers, campaigns, workflows | Set business hours | Have an AI voice agent place a call |
| Browse the agent templates to build from | Create a calling campaign as a draft | Book an appointment |
| Check the account's readiness to text or dial | Create an automation, paused; pause a running one | Move a deal to a new stage |
Building your agent on day one
This is what makes a brand-new account useful the hour you connect it. Hand the assistant your website and a starting template and it crawls the site, drafts a voice agent, writes the script and knowledge from what it read, routes one of your numbers to it, sets your hours, and stages your first campaign and follow-up automation — all in one conversation, all created OFF.
The agent lands in review: it will not answer a single call until you have read the script and turned it on yourself. Campaigns arrive as drafts and workflows paused, so nothing dials or fires until you activate it. The assistant sets the table; a person decides to serve.
Setting it up
Ten minutes, once, and nothing is needed from us — no integration project, no IT ticket, no waiting on a vendor.
- In Lead Friendly: Settings → API keys → New key. Pick the scope: read to only look, configure to also build and set up the account, write to also text and call. A configure key lets an assistant build your agent without ever being able to message a customer. The key is shown once, so copy it.
- In Claude: Customize → Connectors → Add. Name it, and use the server address https://www.leadfriendly.com/api/mcp/v1
- Choose “No sign-in”, then add a request header: pick “authorization” from the list, with the value “Bearer ” followed by your key.
- Set the read-only tools to “Always allow” and leave the write tools on “Needs approval”.
- Ask it: “Is my account clear to text customers right now?”
Which assistants work
The key decides which dealership the assistant can see, and it can only ever see that one. There is no key that opens two accounts.
| Assistant | Who sets it up | Plan needed |
|---|---|---|
| Claude | each person, themselves | any, including free |
| ChatGPT | each person, themselves, via Developer Mode | any paid plan |
| Gemini | an admin, once for the whole team | Business or Enterprise |
| Anything else speaking MCP | you | — |
What it will refuse, and why that is the feature
Before any message leaves, the assistant runs the chain a salesperson runs: 10DLC registration, do-not-call, STOP replies, consent records, quiet hours in the customer's own time zone, and your wallet balance.
On top of that there is one rule that exists only for AI agents. Marketing outreach requires an affirmative consent record on the contact, and an AI cannot decide a message is exempt — if it claims a text is transactional, that claim is checked against a real appointment, deal or previous conversation before it is believed. A self-declared exemption an AI can type is not an exemption.
When it is refused it is told why, in a sentence you can act on, and it relays that to you instead of retrying. An AI can never override a compliance warning: that takes a human, signed in, on the record.
Some things are off the assistant's surface at every scope, no toggle for them, because each is a legal act by a person or spends money: turning an agent live, buying or releasing a phone number, accepting the terms or AI addendum, passing identity verification, and changing billing or your plan. Those stay yours. An acceptance signed by an AI is exactly the record that collapses the day a carrier or the FCC asks who agreed — so the assistant builds right up to the line and hands it back to you to cross.
Seeing what it did
Settings → AI agents shows every action any connected assistant took, and every action it was refused, with the reason. The refusals are usually the more interesting half.
Per-account ceilings cap how many texts and calls all connected assistants can make in a day, counted across every connector — so adding a second AI cannot double how many strangers your store's AI can dial. Revoking a key takes effect on the assistant's next request.
Frequently asked questions
Can my assistant build my voice agent, or only read?
It can build it, if you give it a setup ("configure") key. Hand it your website and it drafts the agent, writes the script, routes a number and stages your campaigns — all created switched off. The agent stays in review until you read it and turn it on; a configure key can never text or call a customer.
Do I need a developer to set this up?
No. You create a key in your own settings and paste it into your assistant. There is no code to write, no server to run, and nothing to configure on our side.
Can the AI text my customers without asking me?
Only if you give it a key with write access and also set the texting tool to run without approval. A read-only key makes it impossible regardless of what you or the AI ask for. Even with a write key every send runs the full compliance chain, and marketing outreach is refused outright unless the customer has a consent record on file.
Can it see other dealerships' data?
No. The key resolves to exactly one organization and every query is filtered to it. A record belonging to another dealership does not come back empty — it does not come back at all.
What does it cost?
Connecting is free. Texts and AI calls the assistant places are metered from your wallet at the same rates as anything else you send, and the assistant can read your balance before it acts.
What happens if I revoke the key?
The assistant stops on its next request. Nothing it already did is undone — the contacts, notes and appointments it created stay, and so does the record of what it did.
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