Arrive Ready. Leave Wanting More Space.

NADA (The National Automobile Dealers Association’s yearly trade show) is not an event you can ease into. The moment those doors open, you are competing against decades of brand equity, towering exhibits, and the relentless noise of an industry in motion. For a startup making its debut, the stakes are simple and severe: look credible or get forgotten. Toma — an AI operating system built exclusively for automotive dealerships — understood this completely. And they came prepared.

"NADA is a show you have to be at," says Chris Vazquez, who led Toma’s NADA strategy. "We wanted to build a sense of urgency to come visit us. NADA is active, noisy, and a bit overwhelming. We wanted to create a place where attendees could relax and talk through their challenges. A space where they could have dedicated time with us."

That philosophy shaped everything about how Toma showed up at NADA 2025. Partnering with Skyline Exhibits, they built a 20x20 custom island booth that not only represents their brand but also embodies their entire approach to AI.

THE REAL CHALLENGE OF INTRODUCING AI ON THE SHOW FLOOR

Toma’s technology is deceptively straightforward to explain and exceedingly powerful to experience. Their platform handles inbound service calls, manages recall campaigns, schedules appointments, and runs BDC workflows — all through an AI voice agent that learns and self-improves with every interaction. As the only self-improving dealership AI on the market, Toma had a story worth telling.

But telling it, Vazquez knew, was only half the battle.

"We know we needed to get people comfortable with the idea of AI," he says. "AI can feel risky. Our booth at NADA helped us alleviate some of that risky feeling, that fear. We needed this conversation and experience to be a super low-friction AI experience."

The solution to this problem was elegant in its simplicity: phone kiosks positioned on the exterior of the booth, where any passerby could walk up, pick up a handset, and have a live conversation with Toma’s AI. As they spoke, a screen displayed the AI’s responses in real time, making the technology visible, tangible, and — critically — demystified.

"We demoed the voice application where they could use an AI voice, and the text appeared on a screen right there," Vazquez explains. "So, they could see it. This experience allowed us to, in essence, qualify in real time."

QUALIFYING IN REAL TIME

That phrase — qualify in real time — gets at something important about Toma’s market position and why their NADA strategy was so deliberate. Dealership AI is not yet a universal proposition. The technology is proven, the ROI is documented, and the early adopters are already realizing meaningful gains — Harvey Auto Group generated $3 million in service revenue through Toma; Boulder Nissan recaptured 180 additional appointments in a single month. But not every dealership is at the same stage of readiness.

"People are ready, or they are not," Vazquez says plainly. "We needed to reach the early adopters who were ready. They may be in the middle of Oklahoma or New York. They are of varying ages. The booth allowed us to qualify interest in real time and have real conversations face to face."

The phone kiosk experience created a natural filter. Dealers who were curious stepped up, experienced the AI, and either lit up with recognition of Toma’s value or politely moved on. Either outcome was valuable. The ones who lit up were exactly who Toma was there to meet.

"Every dealership has pain points we can address," he notes, "but this solution is not for everyone, yet. The booth helped us determine which ones were ready."

BEFORE THE SHOW EVEN OPENED

The physical exhibit — a striking cylindrical structure with wrap-around Toma graphics, an overhead hanging sign visible from across the convention floor, and an interior meeting room lined with customer testimonials — was built to stop people in their tracks. But Vazquez knew that foot traffic alone would not fill their meeting room.

"To make a show successful, you have to be loud before and after," he says. Toma took full advantage of NADA’s new exhibitor promotional programs, running in-app promotions and ads that drove early awareness. They conducted outbound phone outreach to everyone they thought might be attending. They talked about their NADA presence on industry podcasts. By the time show day arrived, the meeting room was already booked."

"I started to feel relieved about a month out," Vazquez recalls. "The booth was coming together, and we were having success with our initial outreach. This is the largest line in the marketing budget — it can be stressful, no doubt. But things were clicking."

THE TEAM ON THE FLOOR

A beautiful booth and a full calendar both mean nothing without the right people executing on the day of the event. Toma’s head of sales set clear expectations before the show, and every team member arrived knowing their role and what it meant to represent the brand.

"Our head of sales did a great job setting expectations for our booth staff," Vazquez says.

"Everyone understood they were representing the brand the entire time. We were professional about every interaction and respectful to everyone — even competitors. We had a lot of people at the show, and they represented the brand well."

One moment that stood out: CEO and co-founder Monik Pamecha met current customers in person — some for the very first time. "It was great to see our current customers in person, in the booth," says Pamecha. "To shake their hand and have real conversations. That’s something you simply can’t replicate digitally."

A DEBUT THAT RESET EXPECTATIONS

When the show closed, Toma’s assessment was straightforward: the booth worked, the strategy worked, and the conversations that mattered happened. Demos ran continuously. The meeting room remained occupied from opening to closing. The team performed like veterans.

For a company that had just closed a significant funding round, NADA  was proof of something beyond lead generation. It was proof of operational maturity. That a young company could take its largest marketing investment, deploy it with precision, and walk away having exceeded its own expectations is the kind of signal that speaks for itself.

The post-show verdict from the Toma team? Next time, we need a bigger booth.

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