Who Is Behind This
Most standards come from boardrooms. This one came from a showroom.
I’m Chris Hudson. The ARM standard and everything documented on this site, the reference implementation, Hound, Jennifer, GEO, and the open dmc-12 protocol, came out of a two-person build: Ben Reuling and me. That is the whole team.
My day job is General Manager of Mark Miller Subaru, an independent dealer group in Salt Lake City. That store is where the reference implementation is deployed and where the ideas got pressure-tested against real inventory and a real sales floor. The dealership is the proving ground. The standard, and everything built to it, is the work of the two names above.
Chris Hudson · Salt Lake City
The Pattern
The front of the pack is a habit.
This project is not a departure. It is the same pattern that started in childhood: a kid building databases, then a small business helping people and local companies with their networking issues and computer problems. Then one of the first websites a car dealership ever had. One of the first internet departments. One of the first business development centers. Early into social media while the industry was still calling it a fad. Decades of testing new technology, implementing outside-of-the-box ideas, and pushing against the status quo, while holding one thing constant: every interaction with every individual matters.
The philosophy underneath it all is simple: help enough others achieve their goals and you will achieve your own. That is why the rubric is public, the protocol is MIT-licensed, and the playbook is free.
And the pattern has never had a moment like this one. Every individual now has the most brilliant co-founder in the history of mankind at their fingertips. The models keep climbing through levels of intelligence that are hard to believe, and they are nowhere near full. We are just at the beginning. This is the starting line, and the plan is to stay somewhere up in the front of the pack as we run into the new frontier. The run is documented in The Starting Line on LinkedIn.
The Origin
How it started.
Here is how it started. I hired an AI buying agent to shop the store I run. I paid for the seat and watched a machine transact with a live sales floor. It did not get tired. It did not get emotional. It worked its parameters, and the people on the other end never knew what they were talking to.
The CRM had no answer for it. Nothing did. So Ben and I built the answer, published the standard, and opened the protocol.
Standards for retail keep getting written by people who have never worked a Saturday on a sales floor. This one was written by someone who has. The rubric came from watching real agents hit a real store. The first agent-to-agent deal in U.S. history closed through this system on May 4, 2026, at that store, and the audit trail exists to prove it.
Straight Answers
Questions people actually ask.
What is an ARM?
The Agent Relationship Manager: the software layer that manages a business’s relationships with AI agents the way a CRM manages relationships with customers. Full definition at /rubric.
Is this for sale?
No. This site exists so the category is defined in the open, by the people doing the work. The dmc-12 protocol is MIT-licensed. The rubric is public. The reference implementation is documented.
Is this a product pitch?
It is a standard with a working proof. If you want to build against it, adopt it, or beat it, everything you need is public.
What are MCP, A2A, and UCP?
Three open protocols. MCP lets an agent use a business’s tools. A2A lets two agents speak directly and verify each other. UCP lets a merchant publish what it sells and how an agent can transact. The first dealership to speak all three is Mark Miller Subaru, the reference deployment: dmc-12.ai.
Why “dmc-12”?
The DMC-12 was a car built by people who were told it could not be done, that ended up carrying the future. We are shipping a time-sensitive protocol from inside the car business. The name picked itself.
Can I talk to the dealership as an AI agent right now?
Yes. Copy the MCP endpoint from dmc-12.ai into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own agent, and shop live inventory at the reference deployment. No account. No key to manage.
Chris Hudson · chris@thearm.ai
Salt Lake City, Utah
Roads optional.