Matt Leone has a vision for what DriveCentric will be — and it’s not just a CRM.

The company’s new CEO announced a shift in its direction during a briefing with industry analysts, from a standalone CRM system to a “flexible platform designed to manage the entire dealership customer lifecycle,” DriveCentric said in a news release.

Leone said DriveCentric will become the hub for “anything that engages with the customer” in dealership’s operations. In addition to its conversational artificial intelligence, chat, marketing automation and desking, the company said it will invest heavily to expand its capabilities beyond the traditional CRM and is actively seeking integration partnerships with what it called “complementary solutions.”

The company cited its new digital retailing, reputation management and service workflow modules as examples.

“Our vision is simple: if it engages the customer, it belongs in DriveCentric,” said Leone, who joined DriveCentric in May after stepping down as CEO of automotiveMastermind. “By connecting sales, F&I, service, marketing and follow-up — leveraging AI at each step — we’re helping dealers deliver the experience today’s customers expect in an open, collaborative way unheard of from legacy providers.

“Dealers today want fewer silos. Our goal is to give dealers one powerful platform that covers the car buyer’s journey end-to-end, while seamlessly integrating with other tools dealers rely on.”

DriveCentric said those integrations will be concentrated in three categories: data providers like lead sources or vehicle data services that feed information into its AI engine, tech integrations that enhance the core platform, and third-party add-ons that fill niche needs for dealers.

“We’re prioritizing partners that help us deliver more value to our dealers,” Leone said. “It’s all about bringing in good data and capabilities that make DriveCentric smarter and our customers more successful.

“There’s been a perception that DriveCentric operates in a closed ecosystem. In reality, we’ve integrated with hundreds of partners over the years. What’s changing now is the speed at which we do that.”

When a specialized add-on is needed, the company said in the release, DriveCentric’s application programming interface will allow approved vendors to connect, backed by a formal developer program and data agreements, an approach it said benefits dealers while protecting data security and performance.

“We want to remove any reason a dealer hesitates to switch to DriveCentric,” Leone said. “Whether that means turning on a data feed from a partner or offering an API alternative for a feature we’ll have in the future, our message is we’ll meet you where you are. And once you’re on DriveCentric, everything just works better together.”