In a presentation that earned spontaneous applause on the second day of the 2025 Australasian Fleet Education & Leadership Summit — Eden Shirley, Founder and MD of AutoGuru, delivered a compelling breakfast keynote that left the audience energised and inspired.
More than just a glimpse into what’s next, Shirley laid out the reality of an innovation that the industry has been promised for over 30 years: fully digitised maintenance authorisations. And unlike so many who came before, AutoGuru is delivering.
The Authorisation Bottleneck: A 30-Year Problem
Fleet Managers and service providers have long struggled with the inefficiencies of authorising maintenance. Traditionally, service centres needing approvals would flood Fleet Management Companies (FMCs) with phone calls each morning, leading to delays, miscommunications, and wasted time.
“I’m sympathetic to the FMCs,” Shirley said. “Thousands of vehicles go for service every morning, and thousands of workshops want to call FMCs… It’s an incredibly busy time.”
The legacy model was inefficient by design — creating friction for workshops, fleet controllers, and ultimately drivers.
The Breakthrough: AutoGuru’s Digitised Authorisation Platform
What AutoGuru has accomplished is a breakthrough in streamlining this process — digitising the relationship between service providers and fleet controllers. Today, AutoGuru’s platform is used by 8 service management companies actively trading, with two onboarding and five more under assessment.
At the core of this system is “Mic,” a machine intelligence engine that draws from:
- OEM and aftermarket repair data
- Behavioural data for every FMC’s business rules
- Access to over 20,000 unique tyre SKUs
- 36,000+ model-specific historical codes
Over 12,000 repairers generate quotes through AutoGuru’s portal, which automatically calculates costs based on the workshop’s relationship with each FMC. The quote is then processed through each FMC’s business rules — enabling automation or escalation as needed.
“We don’t dictate pricing,” Shirley clarified. “The relationship is still between the FMC and the workshop — we just automate the process.”
The result? A consistent, transparent quoting mechanism that reduces average authorisation time to under three minutes — a stark contrast to the 20+ minutes of back-and-forth common under the old phone-based model.
More Than Just Automation: Full Portfolio Oversight
But Shirley wasn’t content to stop at digitising the workshop-FMC link. He outlined a more ambitious vision: extending that same tech-driven visibility to the end customer — the fleet manager and driver.
AutoGuru is now building features that can be embedded into FMC client portals. These enable:
- Full fleet portfolio visibility
- Integration of telematics and odometer data
- Digital logbooks
- Factory recall alerts
- Predictive maintenance prompts
For drivers, the next step is AI-powered service booking — a capability Shirley boldly demonstrated live on stage.
A Live AI Demo – And It Worked
In one of the most engaging moments of the summit, Shirley walked the audience through a live demo of an AI-driven service call. The voice assistant knew the vehicle, suggested the previous service centre, adapted to driver preferences for drop-off time, and even offered to arrange transport.
“This isn’t a concept video — we actually built this,” Shirley said proudly.
The AI adjusted seamlessly to new inputs like school run timing or a broken side mirror, demonstrating that the platform was ready for real-world deployment. “That was not an unpleasant experience if you were the recipient of that call,” Shirley added — and judging by the applause, the room agreed.
The Horizon: Robots, Drones, and Autonomous Assets
Shirley’s closing pivot was unexpected but powerful. While others focused on EVs or AI, he turned attention to autonomous vehicles and robotic assets — specifically robots that will operate without human drivers.
“Who’s going to look after them?” he asked. “They’ll need to be acquired, financed, maintained, and supported — everything fleet professionals already do.”
He cited real examples of autonomous robots already deployed in agriculture, warehousing, and delivery. “This is not sci-fi — it’s happening now,” he stressed. “And they’ll enter your fleet portfolios before autonomous cars.”
AutoGuru is already preparing by working with CR Kennedy, distributor of robotic and drone technology, to build a national service network. It’s a clear signal that Shirley sees the future not just in cars — but in every moving asset a business owns.
Why This Matters for Fleet Professionals
What made Shirley’s keynote resonate wasn’t just the tech — it was the clear relevance to the daily pain points of fleet operations. By digitising authorisations and enabling AI-driven servicing, AutoGuru is giving time back to fleet controllers, clarity to managers, and convenience to drivers.
Even more importantly, Shirley made a case that the future of fleet isn’t just about electrification or sustainability. It’s about managing complex, intelligent assets that move and work — with or without a driver.
As Shirley put it, “We believe we’re stronger together. It’s only through collaboration with fleets that we’ll get the data and insight needed to keep these future assets running.”
For an industry long promised change, AutoGuru’s work is the rare case where innovation not only lives up to the hype — it’s already in the workshop.
