Numa Launches Operator, an AI Receptionist with the First Precision Routing System That Puts Every Caller in the Right Hands

Operator's patent pending technology answers first on every line, understands why each customer is calling, and carries that reason through the transfer, so no one starts over and no one lands in a dead end

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Numa, the AI Operating System for dealerships, today launched Operator, the first Precision Routing system for dealerships and a game changer to how a store manages inbound customer calls essentially replacing the receptionist.

Operator does the oldest and one of the most important jobs in the store: it puts every caller in the right hands, with the full reason for their call, every time. Numa's Operator has shown to route 95% of calls to the correct destination. Operator is always making these Precise (Call) Routing decisions, 24/7, 7 days a week delivering positive impressions for the dealership. Every dealership once had a person who knew the store: who fixed what, who sold what, who to grab when a customer was upset. The phone tree replaced that person and never replaced the job. For thirty years, customers have been asked to understand how the dealership is organized before anyone asks what they need. A customer calling about a check-engine light should not have to know who to ask for.

The latest wave of AI receptionists has not fixed this. They answer the phone without knowing the store. They automate the greeting and leave the job undone. The call still lands in the wrong place, still bounces between departments, and still starts over at every transfer. A friendlier voice on the phone tree is still the phone tree.

Numa's Operator retires or augments the phone tree, all while being customized to the needs of the dealership. It is the first system since the human operator to actually do the job, and it answers first on every line. Where phone systems route by the name a customer guessed, Precision Routing sends each call based on what the customer needs. It questions and queries the caller efficiently and quickly to route them to the right destination, eliminating one common outcome experienced by customers calling dealerships today, which is the dead end. And it knows the whole store, every department and who handles what, on every line at once.

This is the part most AI gets backwards. Numa's Operator was not built to keep customers away from the dealership's staff. It was built to get them there and enhance the human-to-human connection.. When the phone rings at a Numa dealership, everyone knows the call is for them. Employees pick up already knowing why the customer called, spend less time fielding misdirected calls, and spend more time with the customers they are best equipped to help.

"Walk into a dealership running Numa's Operator and you can feel the difference when the phone rings," said Tasso Roumeliotis, co-founder and CEO of Numa. "Nobody is guessing. Nobody is apologizing for the third transfer. The customer with a check-engine light lands with the person who can fix it, and that person picks up (with context) already knowing why they called. Answering the phone was never the hard part; rather it is knowing exactly who in the store can help this customer, right now, and getting them there without making anyone repeat themselves. That is the job Numa's Operator with Precision Routing does on every call, on every line. And then it shows you the numbers. The phone tree had its run. This is what comes after."

Operator is not a bolt-on answering product. It is the front door of the Numa AI Operating System, running on the same system that has handled more than 1B calls and texts and booked more than 4 million appointments across service lanes at more than 1,300 dealerships in the U.S. and Canada. That depth is why Operator can do the job: it runs on a system that already knows how a dealership works.

Numa will demonstrate Operator and Precision Routing live at the Digital Dealer Conference & Expo, September 22–23 at Huntington Place in Detroit. Attendees can visit the Numa team at booth #503.

About Numa

Numa was founded by the same innovative team that built GPS on mobile phones. Their AI Operating System is deployed across  leading dealerships to modernize customer operations across voice, text, service, sales, fixed operations, and customer intelligence. Built on the foundation of  LiveCSI™,Numa combines AI agents, human-in-the-loop collaboration, and operational intelligence, to help dealerships respond quickly and intelligently, delivering on the promise to never miss a customer.

Numa is one operating system that answers every call, books appointments, and protects CSI in real time. Trusted by more than 1,300 dealerships across the U.S. and Canada, Numa is based in Silicon Valley and was founded by the team behind Location Labs. The company has raised $52 million from Google, DFJ (early investor in Space X) Threshold Ventures (founding investor of Tesla), Mitsui, Costanoa Ventures, and Touring Capital. Inc. 5000 recognized Numa for the 4th year in a row as the #443 fastest-growing company overall and the #1 fastest-growing dealership software company.

SOURCE Numa