Ford Looks to AI, Biomimicry Solutions to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Two new announcements from Ford highlight how the auto and mobility company is harnessing technology to get ahead. With ambitious plans to launch an autonomous vehicle in 2021, Ford has announced that it is investing $1 billion over the next five years in Argo AI, an artificial intelligence company founded by former Google and Uber leaders, to develop a virtual driver system. Argo AI founders Bryan Salesky, company CEO, and Peter Rander, COO, -- both of whom have worked on self-driving car teams at Google and Uber -- have brought together a team of some of the most experienced roboticists and engineers in the industry to develop the new system for Ford's SAE level 4 self-driving vehicles. "The next decade will be defined by the automation of the automobile, and autonomous vehicles will have as significant an impact on society as Ford's moving assembly line did 100 years ago," said Ford President and CEO Mark Fields. "As Ford expands to be an auto and a mobility company, we believe that investing in Argo AI will create significant value for our shareholders by strengthening Ford's leadership in bringing self-driving vehicles to market in near term and by creating technology that could be licensed to others in the future."