Rivian is building its own AI assistant

Summary

Rivian has spent nearly two years building its own AI assistant, an effort that remains separate from its multi-billion dollar technology joint venture with Volkswagen, TechCrunch has learned. Rivian hasn’t revealed when it will put the AI assistant in consumers hands. However, in an interview earlier this year, Rivian’s software chief Wassym Bensaid told TechCrunch it was targeting the end of the year. The company will likely share more during its upcoming AI and Autonomy day, which will be live streamed starting at 9 am PT December 11. Rivian’s plans are reflective of the moment as the pace of development from foundational AI companies– the tech giants and startups like Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI that are building the core models and infrastructure — accelerates and industries scramble to keep up. But as Bensaid noted to TechCrunch earlier this year, this isn’t some slapdash effort to stay on trend. Nor is it simply a chatbot thrown into the infotainment system. The company has put considerable thought, resources, and time into the product, Bensaid said, noting that its designed to be integrated with all vehicle controls. The company started with an underlying philosophy to build an overall architecture that is model and platform agnostic, according to Bensaid. The Rivian AI assistant team, which is based out the company’s Palo Alto office, soon realized effort and attention should also be directed towards developing the software layers that help coordinate various workflows as well as the control logic that resolves conflicts. “And that’s the in-vehicle platform we have built,” Bensaid said. “We use what the industry loves to now call an agentic framework; but we thought about that architecture since very early so that we can interface with different models.” The in-house AI assistant program is consistent with Rivian’s push to become more vertically integrated. In 2024, Rivian overhauled its flagship R1T truck and R1S SUV, changing everything fro...