Who is Spotless Brands?
Spotless Brands is a super-regional car wash company founded in 2020 and headquartered near Chicago. It owns and operates more than 220 car washes across 13 states and Washington, D.C., under brands including Flagship Carwash, Cobblestone Auto Spa, Ultimate Shine Car Wash and Okie Express Auto Wash. Spotless Brands keeps growing by acquiring car wash businesses and developing new sites.
Spotless Brands is a portfolio company of Access Holdings, a private equity firm General Purpose has also worked with.
What was the challenge for Spotless Brands?
Spotless Brands runs a light corporate centre that supports a widely distributed network of car wash sites. Its AI plan works on three levels: individual enablement for employees, the AI features built into its existing business platforms, and enterprise AI that works across systems, such as video analytics at car wash sites.
After Microsoft Copilot fell short of the generative AI capability the team needed, Spotless Brands rolled out Claude Enterprise to a cross-functional AI team of just under 30 people, most of whom were new to Claude. The team meets monthly to find the best use cases within the company's acceptable use policy and security standards, and Spotless Brands plans to grow it into a strong internal AI function within six to 12 months.
Which different Spotless teams attended?
The 29 attendees were members of Spotless Brands' cross-functional AI team, drawn from head office and from the Cobblestone and Flagship Carwash brands. They covered almost every part of the business:
- Development and real estate: the VP of Development, corporate development, real estate and market analysis, design and architecture, and construction
- Finance: financial reporting and real estate finance
- Legal: in-house real estate counsel
- People and operations: HR, HRIS, field operations, training, integration and procurement
- Technology and marketing: IT, technology operations, data and analytics, and marketing
The most valuable part was a mixed function group coming away able to see where AI genuinely helps in their own roles. That is exactly what we were looking for.
What we delivered
General Purpose delivered a one-day Mastering Claude workshop on 10 August 2026, in person at Spotless Brands' headquarters near Chicago. Two General Purpose instructors ran the day, and every exercise was co-built with Spotless Brands beforehand, using real work from across the business.
- Claude fundamentals: setting Claude up with Spotless Brands' company facts and getting reliable, checked output
- Repeatable workflows: car wash site selection analysis, an acquisition deal pack in a Claude Project, and a monthly report turned into a deck in the Spotless Brands template
- Building agents: an introduction to agents, then a hackathon where each attendee built an agent of their own
- Show and tell: attendees shared what they built with the rest of the team
The workshop was the first step in an ongoing programme. Spotless Brands has continued with 1:1 AI Coaching from General Purpose, so team members can apply what they learned to their own projects.
I thought the class was well structured, hit all of the main pieces, and provided enough breaks to help get through the day.
What results did Spotless Brands' AI team see?
- Every attendee who completed General Purpose's feedback survey enjoyed the workshop, would recommend it to a colleague, and said what they learned will help them get more value from Claude at work.
- All of them said they feel more confident reducing bias and hallucinations in Claude's output.
- After the workshop, attendees expect to save an average of 8 hours each per week using Claude.
- 94% of the team now feel positive about the impact of AI on their career, up from 83% before the workshop.
The most requested next step was more time on building agents, which Spotless Brands is taking forward through 1:1 AI Coaching and group follow-up sessions with General Purpose.
It was a great introductory course and I wish I could have taken it sooner. It was very thorough and a really good use of time. Personally, I think that one day of training will save me days of work in the long run.
AI use cases built in the workshop
- Site selection analyser: ranks candidate car wash locations on market, traffic and competitor data
- Site performance dashboard: tracks churn, car count and member conversion across sites
- Committee memo builder: drafts and checks memos for site and real estate committees
- Acquisition deal analyser: reviews financials and site data for car wash acquisitions
- Monthly reporting deck builder: turns month-end figures into slides in the Spotless Brands template
- KPI storyline summary: analyses current KPIs and writes the story for leadership teams
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