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What we've announced.What we've announced.

Press releases, announcements and coverage of IgniteUps.ai, the automotive AI workforce for car dealerships.

2026
Press release
Markets Insider (Business Insider)

IgniteUps AI Reaches 50 Dealer Partners as Dealerships Deploy Fullscale AI Workforce Across Sales and Service

The automotive AI platform now works leads, calls and service conversations across 50 dealership rooftops, logging every exchange back to the store's CRM. Across its dealer network IgniteUps reports more than 1.8 million AI-powered customer conversations and more than 960,000 dealership customer records under management.

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Announcement
IgniteUps.ai Dealer Results

Fowler Toyota of Tulsa Named on IgniteUps.ai Dealer Results

Fowler Toyota of Tulsa is the newest dealership named, with the store's permission, on the IgniteUps.ai Dealer Results page. The AI workforce took over the store's customer database in July 2026 across text, email and voice, working replies in real time and handing every conversation to the team in context.

At publication the page showed 7,972 outreach conversations, 2,758 customers worked, 913 customers who wrote back and 142 hand-raisers surfaced. The figures refresh nightly from live platform data.

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In the news
Dealer Software Success

Dealer Software Success Profiles IgniteUps.ai in Its Dealer News Roundup

Dealer Software Success led its September 14 Dealer News roundup with IgniteUps.ai, describing how the platform deploys AI-driven outreach across voice, SMS and email to engage leads and manage customer communications across the entire lifecycle, and profiling co-founder and CEO Chris Martinez's background running dealership operations.

The piece's line on persistence: "traditional BDC personnel typically give up on leads long before IgniteUps.ai does."

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Announcement
IgniteUps.ai

IgniteUps.ai Introduces Lead Shop: A Graded Test of How a Dealership Answers Its Own Website Leads

Lead Shop submits a real inquiry through a dealership's own website and grades everything that comes back: who responded, on which channels, how fast, and whether anyone actually answered the question the customer asked. It gives dealers the same view of their internet lead handling that AI Mystery Shop gives them of their phones.

Announcement
IgniteUps.ai

IgniteUps.ai Adds AI Mystery Shop and Phone Line Health

Two new tools for checking the customer experience a store actually delivers. AI Mystery Shop places a call to the dealership posing as a customer; the call comes back recorded, transcribed and graded against an editable rubric, including whether anyone asked for the appointment. Phone Line Health dials the numbers a store publishes and forwards to, from that store's own IgniteUps number, and reports which ones a customer cannot get through on: disconnected, always busy, or rejecting calls.

Announcement
IgniteUps.ai Dealer Results

The Kelly Automotive Group Named on IgniteUps.ai Dealer Results

With the group's permission, IgniteUps.ai now names The Kelly Automotive Group on its Dealer Results page: seven rooftops and six brands across eastern Pennsylvania and Melbourne, Florida, running the full AI workforce since November 2025, including speed-to-lead, lease-end and equity outreach, and after-hours voice.

At publication the page showed more than 240,000 outreach conversations and more than 58,000 customers worked, with every conversation handed to the group's BDC in context. The figures refresh nightly from live platform data.

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Announcement
IgniteUps.ai

IgniteUps.ai Launches Direct CDK DMS Integration

IgniteUps.ai now connects directly to the CDK dealer management system, bringing repair orders, service appointments, parts and F&I data into the platform so service-due, declined-service and equity outreach can run from the store's own DMS records. The first CDK store went live in August 2026.

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Announcement
IgniteUps.ai

IgniteUps.ai Launches the AI Calling Workspace

The AI Calling Workspace is where a dealership's phone calls happen. Each rep gets a dedicated number, the call rings their own phone so it works from the lot with no headset, and every connected call is recorded, transcribed and graded the same way IgniteUps grades the store's other calls.

A "call next" queue keeps callbacks the rep promised and recent hand-raisers in front of them, unknown callers are shown by number until the rep saves the contact, and dispositions and notes push to the store's CRM.

Announcement
IgniteUps.ai

IgniteUps.ai Adds DriveCentric CRM Integration

Dealerships on DriveCentric can now run the IgniteUps AI workforce inside their CRM: leads flow in, AI conversations and activity are written back to the customer record, and human takeover hands the conversation to a salesperson with the full history. The first DriveCentric stores went live in July 2026.

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Announcement
IgniteUps.ai

IgniteUps.ai Adds DealerSocket Integration

DealerSocket dealerships can now connect their CRM to IgniteUps.ai for AI texting, lead follow-up and customer database outreach, with conversations logged back to the customer record and handed to the store's team when a person is needed.

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Announcement
IgniteUps.ai

IgniteUps.ai Introduces F&I Coach

F&I Coach records a finance manager's customer session, transcribes it, and grades the menu presentation, objection handling and compliance against the products the store actually sells. Each session becomes a Deal Film Room the manager can replay, with the areas of opportunity linked to the exact moment in the conversation.

A Performance Command Center rolls sessions up by finance manager and by store so managers can see attach rates and coaching needs across rooftops. The first stores went live in May 2026.

Announcement
IgniteUps.ai

IgniteUps.ai Connects to Hundreds of Dealer Management Systems Through DealerVault

Through DealerVault, IgniteUps.ai now reads sales and service data from dealer management systems including CDK Global, Reynolds & Reynolds, Dealertrack, DealerBuilt, Autosoft, Dominion, PBS Systems and Quorum. Sold and serviced customers feed the workforce's retention, equity and service-due outreach, and AI-influenced sales are matched back to real deals.

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2025
In the news
CBT News

CBT News: Drive Sales Growth via Accountability and Strong Processes, with Chris Martinez

CBT News featured IgniteUps.ai co-founder Chris Martinez, then General Manager of Mercedes-Benz of San Antonio, on why consistent execution of a structured process and team accountability drive dealership sales, how to enforce accountability without confrontation, and why cutting transaction time matters to the customer.

"A big part of it is just training, the discipline, making sure that we're sticking to a process. When you have that type of accountability, there's no way not to win."

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2018
In the news
Auto Remarketing

IgniteUps.ai Founder Chris J. Martinez Named to Auto Remarketing's 40 Under 40

Before founding IgniteUps.ai, Chris J. Martinez was named to Auto Remarketing's 40 Under 40 class of 2018 as General Sales Manager of Charles Maund Toyota, the Austin store he helped take from roughly 150 vehicles a month to more than 1,000. He documented the operating principles behind that growth in Driving Sales: What It Takes to Sell 1000+ Cars Per Month (J. Joseph Group, 2017).

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Media contact

Writing about automotive AI, dealership BDCs, or IgniteUps.ai? We answer the phone and the email.

Press inquiries
Tabbatha Simmons

Head of Business Affairs
tabbatha@igniteups.ai

Company
IgniteUps AI

Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas
Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma

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