We built this because our own businesses needed it first.
SourceAI was born from six years of building and running our own ecommerce stores. We discovered a passion for building software that actually solves the problems we kept hitting — and realised every SMB hits the same walls.
Six years of running our own stores taught us what actually works.
Long before SourceAI existed, we were running ecommerce businesses — our own stores, our own customers, our own support queues. There weren't good tools for a lot of what we needed: customer service that didn't burn hours every day, systems that talked to each other, a way to keep up as the landscape kept shifting under us. So we learned to build it ourselves.
That's the honest origin of this company. We're not software theorists who picked "AI" as a market to chase — we're operators who hit the same walls every small business hits, built our way through them, and realised other businesses were stuck at the exact same walls.
Everything we build gets tested in our own businesses first. If it doesn't hold up running our stores or a real dealership floor, it doesn't go near a customer.
Lucid DMS
Proof of concept · Join the waitlistAn AI-native dealer management system for New Zealand automotive groups, currently in early development as a co-build with one design-partner dealership. Not a DMS replacement bolted onto old habits — an intelligence layer connecting Xero, CarJam and your listings, with an AI voice agent that answers the phone at 2am and a Kanban board that runs the workshop floor in real time. We're building this in partnership with forward-thinking dealer groups who want a say in how it's built.
Workshop Kanban
Runs the service department from booking to invoice on a real-time drag-and-drop board. Job cards can be created automatically by the AI voice agent — zero manual entry.
AI Voice Agent
Answers inbound service calls 24/7, confirms the vehicle by rego, and drops a populated job card on the board before the workshop opens.
Recon Pipeline
The moment a trade-in is appraised, Lucid auto-generates a full recon task list and cost budget with age/cost traffic-light colour coding.
Sales & Deal Jackets
New, used and demo stock through to delivery, with a live gross-profit calculator that updates instantly as finance, F&I and accessories are added.
Parts & Accessories
Imports and re-prices an entire OEM parts catalogue — 21,000+ line items — in under 60 seconds via chunked server-side import.
Group Dashboard
Live KPIs across every branch in the group on a single screen — something legacy per-branch systems were never built to do.
Grooming
Full-screen iPad PWA with damage-zone condition reports and a 10-point photo-verified quality sign-off before a car can be marked done.
Accounting & AP
Vehicle sales, recon costs and parts purchases push straight to the correct mapped Xero GL account — no manual bookkeeping, staged bills on partial delivery.
Intelligence
Ask "how many jobs are in progress right now" and get a live, accurate answer pulled straight from the database — your AI chief of staff.
Technician & Customer PWA
Mobile-installable apps: job timers and photo capture for technicians, live job-status tracking for customers, no phone tag either way.
Marketing
Type a plain-English segment — "WOF due in 30 days" — and Lucid builds the list and drafts the campaign copy automatically.
+ 8 more modules
QR vehicle hub, yard stocktake, service template library, DVI & approvals, admin controls, and a full customer CRM — all live today.
The receptionist that never misses a call.
A customer calls after hours asking for a WOF booking. The AI voice agent answers, confirms the vehicle by rego, checks NZTA data — and a fully populated job card is sitting on the service manager's board before the workshop even opens. No missed call, no receptionist, no data entry.
Caller: Hi, can I book my Corolla in for a WOF?
Agent: Sure thing — can you confirm the rego, that's Kilo India Lima?
Caller: Yep, that's right.
Agent: Got it — 2019 Toyota Corolla. I can do Thursday 9am at Hastings.
// job card created → Kanban: Booked
| Capability | Magix / Titan | MechanicDesk | CDK / DealerSocket | Lucid DMS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voice → job card automation | — none | — none | — none | ✓ Voice agent |
| Open API / modern stack | 1980s–2000s, no API | Desktop only | US-built, poor NZ fit | ✓ API-first, realtime |
| Mobile technician / groomer apps | — | — | Limited | ✓ Installable PWAs |
| Group-wide live dashboard | Per-branch only | — | Per-branch only | ✓ 8 locations, one screen |
| Native AI (docs, marketing, Q&A) | — | — | — | ✓ Built in |
| NZ pricing fit | Legacy contracts | Moderate | Expensive | ✓ Fraction of the cost |
// Pricing is being finalised alongside our design partner — join the waitlist for early details.
CarTrader
In build · Join the waitlistA wholesale marketplace for the trade-in every dealer doesn't want to keep. List an off-brand vehicle once, get offers from matching dealers across the country, and pick the best price without a single phone call.
// Founding dealer programme — early access on preferential terms for the first 20 dealers.
LucidOS
Flagship · Join the waitlistThe platform SourceAI is named after. A multi-tenant AI operating system — chat, CRM, voice and inventory intelligence — running as a fully isolated workspace for every business it serves. Built Shopify-first, now reaching into automotive as well.
AI chat widget
A ~15KB Shadow DOM widget embedded on the storefront — answers from the real catalogue and knowledge base, never invents products or prices.
CRM & lead capture
Every conversation becomes a lead with pipeline stage, source and activity timeline — synced to Klaviyo, Mailchimp, HubSpot, Omnisend and ActiveCampaign.
Chat-to-sale tracking
An HMAC-verified Shopify order webhook matches purchases back to the conversation that started them — real revenue attribution, not a vanity metric.
AI voice agent
A live voice receptionist for automotive dealers — structured booking flow, streaming transcript, deterministic extraction straight into the CRM.
Inventory intelligence
Claude-parsed supplier invoices, FEFO batch allocation and multi-currency landed cost — Lucid as the source of truth Shopify and Xero both read from.
AI Advisors
Marketing, HR & Legal, Operations and Health & Safety personas on tap, plus a general sandbox — configurable per workspace.
One engine. Three products. Built by someone who's worked the floor.
SourceAI is the studio behind three products. LucidOS is the flagship — the AI operating system the company is named after, running as an isolated workspace for 21 client businesses. Lucid DMS and CarTrader are separate, purpose-built systems for the dealership floor and the wholesale trade — each its own codebase, built by the same person.
Every product was built by someone who spent years inside a dealership before writing a line of code for one. That's not a marketing line — Lucid DMS and CarTrader were both built in the hours around six days a week on a dealership floor, which is why they solve the problems staff actually have instead of the ones a spreadsheet suggests.
The roadmap doesn't stop at automotive or ecommerce: LucidOS's chat, CRM and voice layer generalises to any SMB running on phone calls and spreadsheets instead of software — independent workshops, plumbing, electrical, building.
Two ways in: ready-to-deploy software, or help getting started with AI.
Not every business needs a bespoke platform on day one. We work with businesses in whichever way actually moves the needle for them.
Deploy our software
LucidOS, Lucid DMS and CarTrader — built for specific industries, tested in our own businesses first, deployed as a working system rather than a generic template.
AI adoption audit & implementation
Not sure where AI actually helps your business? We assess your workflows, identify where AI creates real savings or better customer experience, then implement and train your team.
NZ AI Fund
We're a participant in New Zealand's AI Fund, helping eligible small businesses access grants and subsidies toward AI adoption.
"While you were closed, our AI voice agent answered the phone, looked up the car, and put the job on your board — before your workshop manager even had his coffee."— Lucid DMS, in development with our design partner
An operating system for how NZ's vehicle economy actually works.
Deep domain expertise, working software already live for real customers, and a design partner co-building the next product — not a pitch deck looking for validation.
Built from inside the industry
Every product decision is informed by years running dealership operations — not a generic SaaS playbook applied to automotive.
Not an idea, not an MVP
Three products, two of them live in production today, generating real usage data across real dealer and ecommerce customers.
Automotive first, not automotive only
The same AI engine that runs a workshop and answers a phone extends cleanly into wholesale marketplaces and adjacent trade verticals.
Ready to see it running on real data?
Get in touch about a LucidOS deployment, an AI adoption audit for your business, or founding-partner spots on Lucid DMS and CarTrader.