IMDEX consolidates geological data platforms in months with Cursor
IMDEX used Cursor to consolidate two flagship geological mapping tools into one platform in eight months, at 10x the pace of its pre-AI development model.
IMDEX is a global mining technology company based in Australia. Its portfolio spans 600+ technologies, including core scanners, survey tools, IoT-connected drilling devices, and field instruments that geologists and drillers rely on every day.
Mining exploration drilling programs can cost anywhere from $300k to $2 million per day. Efficiency gains from data to decision are measured in those terms, which is why companies are cautious about adopting new technologies that affect critical operational decisions.
With Cursor, IMDEX's software team consolidated two flagship geological mapping tools into one platform in eight months. Without Cursor, the data-platform work alone would have taken 20 additional engineers, two to three years, and millions of dollars. The Angular-to-React migration would have taken another three to five years.
Two flagship platforms in eight months
When IMDEX's tools are supported by separate applications, they create disparate data models and limit integration. For customers moving from raw drilling data to analysis, that means data loses fidelity at the handoff rather than compounding in value.
With Cursor, IMDEX is consolidating fragmented data systems and rebuilding legacy applications in months instead of years.
Without Cursor, building these workflows might have taken 20 new people, millions of dollars, and two to three years. With Cursor, we're increasing the leverage of people we already have. That's a huge technical and financial win for the organization.
One IMDEX platform for fragmented mining data
IMDEX used Cursor to consolidate two flagship products into a single platform. The first product consolidates fragmented and siloed data products. Without Cursor, this would have required 20 additional engineers, millions of dollars, and two to three years.
The second product migrates a legacy Angular application to a React micro frontend so the team can maintain the product and ship new features more easily. That work previously would have taken three to five years. With Cursor, it will be complete in eight months.
The old ecosystem was not coherent for the customer and presented difficult challenges for us when it came to building new features and maintaining old ones.
The platform IMDEX built with Cursor synchronizes core sample data to the cloud, connects IMDEX's IoT devices and analytics systems, and gives geologists and drillers one place to interpret data and plan exploration. Field applications and the web platform share a data layer across every supported tool in the ecosystem.
The platform supports two closely connected personas. For drillers, it provides live guidance so they can compare real-time drilling data against the planned hole path and stay within the defined cone of tolerance. For geologists, it protects the quality and reliability of the data they depend on to interpret the subsurface, validate the drilling program, and make confident exploration decisions.
Developers kept landing back on Cursor
Cursor helps IMDEX developers understand the existing codebase, generate migration plans, and implement changes. IMDEX evaluated coding tools from multiple providers before standardizing on Cursor. A few capabilities mattered most:
- Context management on large codebases: Cursor's agent harness managed context more effectively than other tools the team tested, helping agents recall relevant parts of the codebase and develop better implementation strategies for ambiguous tasks.
- Model flexibility: Developers can pick the model that fits the task. Some rely on Auto, which selects the model based on speed and cost. Others choose higher-thinking models for ambiguous design decisions and simpler models for contained implementation work.
- A familiar workspace for AI-assisted development: Cursor gave IMDEX developers a practical way to bring AI into their existing development workflow. Engineers could use agents to plan, generate, refactor, and review code while still working in a familiar environment with access to files, debugging tools, browser context, and design resources.
That combination made adoption easier. Developers did not have to choose between hands-on engineering and agentic workflows. They could move between both as needed. This helped the team use AI for real product work sooner, from understanding legacy codebases to accelerating implementation and improving the quality of changes before review.
We've tried tools from multiple providers, but we have always landed back on Cursor because the user experience is so much better.
Scaling adoption with AI July
To accelerate adoption of coding agents, IMDEX dedicated a full month to hands-on Cursor training and experimentation. Internally referred to as "AI July," this program combined structured learning with applied product work so developers could build agentic workflows into their day-to-day practice.
The core curriculum included:
- 101-level trainings on agent basics like context windows, model selection, and token consumption
- 201-level sessions on advanced tools like MCPs, skills, hooks, and agent parallelization
- Dedicated hackathons to try Cursor on real product problems
Building an enterprise AI-ready company with Cursor
IMDEX is taking a deliberate, company-wide approach to AI adoption. As Head of Software Development and Solutions, Rob van Selm is driving the investment in AI-assisted development, setting the direction for how teams use tools like Cursor, and creating the conditions for engineers to experiment, learn, and move faster with confidence.
This strategy is not limited to improving individual developer productivity. IMDEX is focused on building an AI-ready organization: one where teams understand how to apply AI responsibly, where engineering workflows can scale with agentic tools, and where the wider business can keep pace with faster software delivery.
As adoption grows, IMDEX is also using data from the Cursor Dashboard and Analytics API to understand usage patterns, track adoption, and measure how AI is changing delivery across teams. This gives leadership the visibility needed to keep investing in the right areas and to support teams as their workflows evolve.
The Cursor Dashboard and Analytics API provide easy insights into usage patterns across our team so we can understand adoption. Those insights make it easy to justify our investment.
For IMDEX, becoming AI-ready means more than using AI inside software engineering. It means preparing the whole company, from product and design to security, legal, marketing, and finance, to operate at the speed that AI-enabled engineering makes possible.
Expanding Cursor's impact beyond engineering
The platform play is part of a broader IMDEX strategy to use Cursor to modernize legacy applications, improve the user experience, and rebuild the underlying product architecture so new data sources, workflows, and analytics capabilities can be added faster.
IMDEX is using Cursor across the software development lifecycle, from design and implementation to review, onboarding, debugging, and documentation. As adoption has scaled, the team is using the Cursor Analytics API to understand usage, track PR volume per developer, and measure output and delivery time more precisely.
We are using Cursor to accelerate every part of the software lifecycle, ultimately making product releases much faster.
The platform is just the beginning
As engineering work moves faster, Richard Zampieri is focused on helping the rest of the company keep up, from product decision-making to legal, security, marketing, and finance. Early signs are promising: the company built a new customer insight app in less than 30 days using Cursor and a sales training tool in just under two weeks. Both are projects that would previously have required outside vendors or quarters of internal work.
Our limitation now is decision-making and priorities, not technology. We need to oil the entire company engine, not just software engineering, to be able to build and deliver products faster.
If you're consolidating fragmented data systems or modernizing legacy apps, reach out to start a Cursor trial.