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There’s a small theme emerging from transportation — and indeed the entire industry: AI is creating jobs for some at the expense of others.
General Motorsfor example, it laid off more than 10% of its IT department, or about 600 salaried employees – in a deliberate skills shift. This will not translate into individual trading, which means that there may be a loss of negative activity. But GM insists it’s hiring and those layoffs have opened up space for it to hire IT people with AI-focused backgrounds.
The most sought-after skills are native AI development, data engineering and analytics, cloud-based engineering, agent and model development, agile engineering, and new AI workflows. In practical terms, GM is looking for people who know how to build with AI from the ground up — designing systems, training models, and engineering pipelines — not just using AI as a manufacturing tool.
Those AI job losses are increasing in the automotive sector. CNBC calculated that Ford, GM, and Stellantis have cut the combined number of US payroll jobs by more than 20,000, or 19% of their combined workforce, since recent employment peaks this decade. While there are various reasons for these cuts, they are often linked to technological changes, including AI.
Companies are heavily reliant on AI, although anecdotes from some developers and inventors suggest that not all of these businesses know exactly what to do with it yet.
Samsara one company that seems to have found a case for using it to generate revenue. The company has spent the past decade providing its customers with cameras to mount inside millions of trucks to monitor drivers, prevent theft, and help with credit claims. The company took that mountain of data and trained its own model that can detect potholes and determine how quickly they’re deteriorating. The company ships the product to cities and announced that it has several contracts, including Chicago.
A small bird
Nothing this week, although I’m working on something fun! Reach out anytime for information, tips, or just because. You can reach us by email or by Signal.
Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected] or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at [email protected].
Deals!
You may have noticed that the company is Rivian’s spinoff Mental robots raised another $400 million, just two months after raising $500 million. And that speed made me think about its founder RJ Scaringe and his innate ability to get VC and institutional backers to invest in his ideas and projects.
I calculated that investors poured 12.3 billion dollars into the first three Scaringe – Again, Mind Robotics, and Rivian. That figure doesn’t include the nearly $12 billion in cash raised from Rivian’s IPO, and I didn’t count recent strategic deals with Volkswagen Group and Uber — which together could add nearly $7 billion to Rivian’s coffers.
You can read my entire riff on the topic here. But if you don’t like clicking, here’s one highlight. I spoke to a number of insiders and investors and they all mentioned Scaringe’s ability to give complete attention to whoever he’s talking to – whether it’s an investor, supplier, or manager – and make them feel like the most important person in the room.
It’s another piece of evidence in my long-standing case against multitasking. Why argue with me!
Some deals caught my attention…
Arkeusan Australian startup that develops vision software for drones and autonomous aircraft, has raised $18 million in a Series A round led by QIC Ventures. Other investors include R+VC, Folklore Ventures, DYNE Ventures, Main Sequence Ventures, Salus Ventures, and Beaten Zone.
Aseon LabsRedwood City, California, a startup that has built a depot to charge, clean, and test autonomous planes, has emerged with the backing of an undisclosed Y Combinator.
Rapido raised $240 million in a round led by Prosus, and that values the Indian ride-hailing company at $3 billion. Existing investors, including WestBridge Capital and Accel, participated. The round was part of a larger $730 million funding round.
Quantum systemsa German-based drone startup backed by Peter Thiel, is in talks to raise around €600 million ($703 million) with companies such as Airbus and Blackstone as investors, Bloomberg reports.
Notable readings and other stories
Is Redwood Materials ready for an IPO? Senior reporter Sean O’Kane interviewed the company’s new CFO, Deepak Ahujawhose name will be familiar to anyone who follows Tesla. Ahuja was Tesla’s chief financial officer and most recently held the same position at drone company Zipline.
Tesla Robotaxis has crashed at least twice since July 2025 while a teleoperator was driving the cars remotely, according to new unredacted information submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Uber is expanding in India with two new engineering campuses that can accommodate up to 9,600 people and a data center partnership aimed at supporting product development and infrastructure operations.
Waymo has issued a software update to its fleet of nearly 4,000 vehicles to help them avoid flooded roads as part of a recall announced by the NHTSA. Important notice: The company has not fully resolved the issue of how its vehicles behave in these conditions.
One thing…
Disrupt, our premier annual technology conference in San Francisco, will be held in October. And while that’s a bit of a break, I wanted to share a few stories. We will have six categories this year, which you can read more about here. Another thing we should be aware of in this crowd of ours AI in the Real World Phase.It will be here that we will consider robotics, autonomous systems, manufacturing, defense, and industrial operations.
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