Coulee Automation Inc. is a small, family-run studio in coulee country, Alberta — building AI-powered tools for the businesses around us, starting with our own.
Focused tools built around one real job in your business — not a bloated platform.
Consult
An honest look at your workflow, then a short list of what's actually worth automating.
Train
Hands-on sessions with your team, working through your real tasks — not a slideshow.
Built and running in our own business, before we ever offered it to anyone else's.
Field Report, our home inspection reporting tool, is the reason this studio exists — we needed it ourselves, so we built it. See how it works →
What we do
Three ways we help.
No package tiers, no bundled hours you don't need — most engagements are one of these three, sized to the actual problem.
Build — custom software, built around how you actually work
We design and build focused tools for a specific job in your business — not a bloated platform, not a dashboard nobody opens. Our own home inspection reporting app started as exactly this kind of project: a tool built to solve one real problem well, from photo capture through to a client-ready report.
Consult — finding where AI actually helps
Most small businesses don't need "an AI strategy" — they need to know which two or three tasks are genuinely worth automating, and which aren't worth the trouble yet. We start with an honest look at your workflow, then hand you a short, realistic list of what's worth building or buying.
Train — getting your team comfortable with the tools you already have
A new tool only pays off if people actually use it. We run hands-on sessions with your team, working through your real day-to-day tasks with the AI tools you've already got or are considering — not a generic slideshow about "the future of AI."
Rough numbers, real value
What could automating some of this actually be worth?
Drag the sliders to match your own week. This is a planning number, not a quote — a real answer needs a real conversation, but it's a fast way to see if that conversation is worth having.
2.8 hrsReclaimed / week
$126Estimated value / week
$546Per month
$6,552Per year
This is a simple, transparent model — hours × what your time is worth × the share you tell it — meant to sanity-check whether it's worth a conversation, not to price a project. Every number above is one you set yourself, and it's an illustration based on your own assumptions, not a guarantee — actual results depend on your specific workflow and what we scope together.
AI is still new territory for a lot of small businesses, and being unsure about it is a completely reasonable place to start. Here's what we tell people who ask.
What does this actually cost?
There's no fixed package price, because the honest answer depends on what you actually need — a two-week automation and a multi-month build cost very differently, and we'd rather scope to the real problem than sell you a bundle of hours you don't need. Pricing is always discussed upfront, in plain numbers, before any work starts, and sized to fit a small-business budget rather than an enterprise one. If something isn't worth the investment yet, we'll tell you that too.
How long does a project take?
Most of what we build runs weeks, not months — a focused tool solving one real problem doesn't need a six-month timeline, and we don't pad estimates to sound more impressive. You'll get a realistic timeline before we start, and an update if anything changes along the way, rather than silence until a deadline slips.
Why a small, family-run studio instead of a bigger firm?
Because you're always talking to the person actually doing the work, not an account manager relaying questions to someone else. We stay small by choice — it means lower overhead, more attention on each project we take on, and no incentive to sell you more than you need. What a bigger firm offers in scale, we make up for in actually being invested in getting it right for you.
We're hesitant about AI — will this really work for a business our size?
That hesitation is fair, and honestly a healthy instinct — AI is genuinely new territory for most small businesses, and a lot of the noise around it oversells what it can do. Our approach is to start small: one real, well-defined task, proven out before anything bigger gets discussed. If a tool doesn't earn its keep, we'll say so. We're not trying to sell you an "AI strategy" — we're trying to find the two or three places it actually saves your business real time.
Do we need to be technical to work with you?
No. Translating what's possible into plain language, and building something your team can actually use without a manual, is part of the job — it's also why training is one of our three core services, not an afterthought. If a tool needs a technical person standing behind it just to keep running, we haven't done our job.
What happens to our data if we work together?
We only collect what you actually share with us to do the work. We don't run analytics, ad trackers, or profiling cookies — that's not a compliance checkbox, it's in our Privacy Policy because we mean it. If you ever want to know exactly what we hold, just ask.
We'd rather show you something real and running than talk in hypotheticals.
In use · in-house
Field Report
An AI-assisted home inspection reporting tool, built first for our own inspection business. A walkthrough — photos, dictated notes, room by room — becomes a structured, reviewed finding, then a polished, client-ready report and repair checklist. Every AI-drafted finding is reviewed and approved by the inspector before it ever reaches a client; nothing goes out unchecked.
We're now looking at whether it makes sense for other independent inspectors, too.
Interested in something similar for your own business? That's exactly the kind of project we like taking on. Get in touch →
Who we are
A family business, built the way we'd want to hire one.
Coulee Automation Inc. started the way most useful tools do: out of a problem we had ourselves. Founder Ashton Zintel kept running into the same frustration with off-the-shelf software — built for everyone, and so built for no one in particular — so we started building our own instead. It worked well enough that we figured other small businesses in southern Alberta might want the same thing.
We're run out of Lethbridge, in the coulee country along the Oldman River, and it's genuinely a family operation — Ashton alongside his parents, each bringing a different part of getting a small business right.
We're small on purpose. No account managers, no handoffs between "sales" and "the people who actually build it" — the person who builds your tool is the person you talk to, from the first conversation to the last bug fix.
2026Founded
Lethbridge, ABBased in
Field notes
Notes from building small-business AI tools in the real world.
Short, occasional write-ups — no hype, just what we're actually learning.
August 2026
Why we built our own tool instead of buying one
We looked at existing home inspection software before writing a line of code, and most of it does a lot — more than a two-person crew doing walkthroughs actually needs. The features we wanted (a fast way to capture a finding, an AI draft we could review and correct, a report that looked like it came from a real business) kept getting buried under features we didn't.
So we built the smaller version instead. It's not trying to be everything — it's trying to be exactly enough, and nothing gets into a client's hands without a person checking it first.
August 2026
AI isn't magic — a practical starting point for small business owners
The most useful question we've found for a small business isn't "how do we use AI?" It's much narrower: what's one task, this week, that eats real time and follows a pattern? Writing up the same kind of report over and over. Drafting the same kind of email. Sorting through the same kind of note.
Start there, with something small enough to actually finish and check by hand. The bigger ideas can wait until the small one is working and you trust it.
Get in touch
Tell us what you're trying to solve.
A couple of sentences about the actual problem gets us further than a formal proposal ever does.
How Coulee Automation Inc. handles your information.
Written in our own words, for the people we actually talk to — not copied from anyone else's site.
Effective dateAugust 30, 2026
Last updatedAugust 30, 2026
1Scope
This policy covers personal information collected through couleeautomation.com and when you contact us about consulting or software work.
2What we collect
Name, email, and whatever project details you share when you contact us
Standard technical logs generated by visiting the site (IP address, browser type) — handled by our hosting providers, not separately analyzed by us
No analytics, ad trackers, or profiling cookies.
3How we use it
To respond to you and scope or deliver consulting/software work
To meet our legal and tax obligations as an Alberta business
Contacting us is how you consent to this; withdraw consent anytime by telling us, though that may limit our ability to help with an active request.
4Who we share it with
Never sold. Used only through the providers that run our business — Microsoft (email), Cloudflare (domain/DNS), GitHub (hosting), Google Fonts (typefaces) — each handling information only as needed to provide that service.
5Where it's processed
Those providers operate outside Canada, mainly the United States — some information may be stored or processed there and subject to that country's laws. Disclosed here as Alberta PIPA requires.
6Retention and security
Kept only as long as a project or conversation needs it, plus any legally required record-keeping period. Site runs entirely over HTTPS; access to our systems is limited to the people who run this business.
7AI tools we use
We use AI tools, including Anthropic's Claude, in building software and drafting consulting work. Only what's needed for the specific task is shared with those tools, governed by that provider's own terms — we don't feed client-identifying information into third-party AI systems without good reason and your knowledge.
We'll update this page and the date above whenever how we handle information changes.
Now field testing · Canada
Inspection reports that draft themselves while you walk the property.
Coulee reads the photo and note you capture on site and drafts a structured finding in seconds — category, severity, likely cause, recommended action, typical cost. You review, edit, and approve every word before a client ever sees it.
A full walkthrough of the app, start to finish — from photographing a defect on site to a finished, client-ready report.
Full walkthrough — coming soon
Inspections
coulee.app
12
TOTAL
3
IN PROGRESS
9
COMPLETED
142 Maple Ridge Lane
J. Whitfield
COMPLETED
87 Foothills Crescent
S. Marchand
IN PROGRESS
215 Bow River Trail
T. Okafor
DRAFT
SAFETY CONCERN
Roof & Exterior
Flashing pulled away from chimney base — gap allows water intrusion.
Reseal flashing before next freeze–thaw cycle.
$300–$600
Sample data shown — not a real client
Our story
Built by two Mounties who got tired of paperwork.
Robert spent nearly 20 years with the RCMP, a good chunk of it buried in the kind of repetitive documentation that eats a whole shift without ever feeling like progress. He always figured there had to be a better way — and eventually brought the idea to his son Ashton, seven years into his own RCMP career. Frequent postings meant frequent moves, and frequent moves meant sitting through more home inspections than either of them could count — they'd seen this process from the client's side of the clipboard again and again, and knew exactly where the time went. So they built the tool they wished someone had handed their own inspector: one that handles the repetitive part of the job, so inspectors can spend their time on the property, not at a desk.
20 yrs
Robert — RCMP career
7 yrs
Ashton — RCMP career
Lethbridge, AB
Where we build
How it works
01
Capture
Photograph the issue and dictate a quick note, right on site.
02
AI drafts
Coulee reads the photo and note, and drafts a structured finding.
03
You review
Every draft is exactly that. Edit the wording, or reject it.
04
Report, ready
Approved findings become a polished, client-ready report.
A closer look at those same moments in the app:
→
Draft finding
Flashing pulled away from chimney base.
From photo to finding
Snap a photo and speak a note. Coulee drafts the finding for you.
Roof & Exterior✓ APPROVED
Plumbing✓ APPROVED
A portal your client can open
A clean, shareable view of the approved report — no email PDF hunting.
DOWNLOAD PDF
One click to a finished report
Approved findings become a polished, branded PDF on the spot.
+ Add inspection
Scheduling that syncs with you
Add it to the dashboard calendar — it syncs straight to your phone's.
Why Coulee
Compared to what's typical in inspection software today.
Reads the photo, not just your typing — most inspection software has no real AI, or just cleans up text you already wrote.
You approve everything — every finding is a draft until you say otherwise.
Finish the report in the field — built mobile-first, no drive back to a desktop.
A record of the walkthrough — capture order, timestamps, and location per finding.
Your data stays yours — no ad trackers, no reselling what's in your inspections.
Yes. Photos and notes are captured and queued on your device as you work, and sync automatically once you're back in range.
What if the AI gets a finding wrong?
Nothing reaches a client until you approve it. Every AI-drafted finding is exactly that — a draft you can edit, change, or reject.
Does it run on iPhone and Android?
Yes, it's built mobile-first for both, and also runs on desktop for finishing a report back at the office.
What happens to my inspection data?
It stays yours. No ad trackers, no reselling what's in your inspections — see our Privacy Policy.
What's expected of me as a beta tester?
Use it on real inspections and tell us what's broken, missing, or should change — and lock in founding pricing for life as a thank-you.
Is there a cost to join the beta?
No. Beta testing is free. Final pricing is announced at launch, and testers keep a locked-in founding rate below that price, permanently.
Pricing
Under $100 CAD/mo
No per-inspection limits. Better rates the longer you commit. Beta testers lock in this founding price for life — even as pricing changes for everyone else.
Proudly Canadian
Designed and built in Lethbridge, Alberta.
Now recruiting beta testers across Canada
Help us build the best inspection tool on the market. Tell us what's broken, what's missing, what should change — and lock in founding pricing for life.
COULEE