Autonomous Vehicle Startup Applied Intuition Raises $600 Million for AI

Autonomous vehicle startup Applied Intuition has reportedly raised $600 million in new funding.

The financing more than doubles the company’s valuation to $15 billion, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday (June 17) ahead of a formal announcement.

Applied Intuition, the report notes, works with 18 of the world’s biggest carmakers — including Toyota and Volkswagen — to integrate its tech into their vehicles and improve safety. The company, founded eight years ago, was an early entrant into the artificial intelligence (AI) space, Bloomberg added.

“It’s not random” that letters A and I are the company’s initials, Qasar Younis, co-founder and chief executive officer, told Bloomberg.

The new funding will help Applied Intuition put its technology “into every moving machine,” including “everything from cars and trucks to drones and factories,” added Younis.

The CEO said that an initial public offering (IPO) is a short-term goal for Applied Intuition, pending market conditions. He said Tuesday’s funding is “probably the last round we’ll raise before we go public.”

PYMNTS wrote earlier this year about the integration of AI into cars following a panel discussion at the CES expo in Las Vegas.

Taking part in that discussion were three leading industry experts on the digital transformation within the automotive sector: Wassym Bensaid, chief software officer, Rivian; Patrick Brady, vice president Android Automotive, Google; and Nakul Duggal, group GM, Automotive, Industrial & Embedded IoT, and Cloud Computing, Qualcomm.

“I feel comfortable saying that AI in the car will happen faster than use cases in the phone, and that only happens if you get an ecosystem working together,” said Duggal.

Brady, meanwhile, noted that AI capabilities will be crucial in framing the future of automotive technology.

“As you bring AI into the vehicle, I think it will completely transform the customer experience,” he said. “It will be truly conversational and natural. It will see what the car sees and help you when you drive. It’s going to be an explosion of innovation in this space.”

As this ecosystem evolves, the digital potential for cars seems without limit, the experts said.

“The end goal should be using AI that can transform the experience and help us unlock having that voice-first experience,” Bensaid said. “Having more powerful hardware will help you get to that level of latency and performance and create greater engagement from customers.

“The best compliment we can get is when customers don’t realize there is software behind what they’re doing.”

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