The BMW Group continues to follow global developments in terms of both technological innovations and regulatory and ethical issues. Together with other companies and organisations, the BMW Group is involved in shaping and developing a set of rules for working with AI, and the company has taken an active role in the European Commission's ongoing consultation process. Building on the fundamental requirements formulated by the EU for trustworthy AI, the BMW Group has worked out seven basic principles covering the use of AI within the company. These will be continuously refined and adapted as required according to the multi-layered application of AI across all areas of the company. In this way, the BMW Group will pave the way for extending the use of AI and increase awareness among its employees of the need for sensitivity when working with AI technologies.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is a central element of the digital transformation process at the BMW Group. The BMW Group already uses AI throughout the value chain to generate added value for customers, products, employees and processes. Michael Würtenberger, Head of "Project AI": "Artificial intelligence is the key technology in the process of digital transformation. But for us the focus remains on people. AI supports our employees and improves the customer experience. We are proceeding purposefully and with caution in the expansion of AI applications within the company. The seven principles for AI at the BMW Group provide the basis for our approach."

FFREE NOW is the multi-service mobility joint venture backed by BMW Group and Daimler AG. Next to ride hailing, FREE NOW also offers micro-mobility services and car sharing. It consists of the services FREE NOW (10 European markets), Βeat (5 Latin American and 1 European market) and hive (e-scooter and e-bikes in 3 European markets). Summed up, those services currently attract 45 million users in 17 markets and more than 150 cities. FREE NOW is therefore the biggest multi-service mobility provider in Europe and the fastest-growing ride-hailer in Latin America. FREE NOW works with various third party providers to offer their customers an even wider range of options to get from A to B. In total, more than 2,200 employees in around 35 offices work for the services of FREE NOW, which is led by CEO Marc Berg.

The BMW Group is publishing an anonymisation solution based on artificial intelligence (AI) that can anonymise objects in photos and videos. Building on the BMW labelling tool Lite, these algorithms enable targeted protection of relevant information: The user-friendly software tool uses AI to block out or blur objects or people. The granularity and degree of anonymisation can be intuitively adjusted. "AI applications supports us with quality assurance, such as inspection of parts and components, as well as development of our autonomous, smart logistics robots. The AI anonymisation algorithms now published also ensure optimal data privacy and information protection," explains Markus Grüneisl, head of Production System, Digitalisation at the BMW Group.

A team of researchers in Germany have come up with a safety system that could warn drivers of autonomous cars that they will have to take control up to seven seconds in advance. A team of researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a new early warning system for autonomous vehicles that uses artificial intelligence to learn from thousands of real traffic situations. The study of the system was carried out in cooperation with the BMW Group. Researchers behind the study claim that if used in today's self-driving vehicles, it could offer seven seconds advanced warning against potentially critical situations that the cars cannot handle alone – with over 85 per cent accuracy. To make self-driving cars safe in the future, development efforts often rely on sophisticated models aimed at giving cars the ability to analyse the behaviour of other traffic.

Researchers have developed a new early-warning system for self-driving vehicles -- leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) capable of learning from thousands of real traffic scenarios, according to a new study executed with the BMW Group and published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. In other words, you may soon ride in a self-driving car with an AI's figurative finger on the buzzer -- to keep you from dying in transit by giving seven seconds' warning of crucial situations the cars can't handle on their own. And so far, the AI can do it with more than 85% accuracy. The drive to increase safety for self-driving cars feels almost self-explanatory, but efforts typically rely on complicated models designed to enhance vehicles' ability to analyze the traffic behavior of users. But driving on public roads always comes with risk and uncertainty.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is a central element of the digital transformation process at the BMW Group. The BMW Group already uses AI throughout the value chain to generate added value for customers, products, employees and processes. Michael Würtenberger, Head of'Project AI: "Artificial intelligence is the key technology in the process of digital transformation. But for us the focus remains on people. AI supports our employees and improves the customer experience. We are proceeding purposefully and with caution in the expansion of AI applications within the company. The seven principles for AI at the BMW Group provide the basis for our approach."

BMW has formulated seven basic principles for the use of AI in the company. These build on the basic requirements formulated by the EU on trustworthy AI and will be continuously developed across all areas of the company. The company has been working on this since 2018 when it launched "Project AI" to ensure that the AI technologies are applied in an ethical and efficient manner. This project has now grown into a competence centre at Group level for data analytics and machine learning. As a hub for knowledge and technology exchange within the BMW Group, the project plays a key role in the digitisation of the company.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is a central element of the digital transformation process at the BMW Group. The BMW Group already uses AI throughout the value chain to generate added value for customers, products, employees and processes. Michael Würtenberger, Head of "Project AI": "Artificial intelligence is the key technology in the process of digital transformation. But for us the focus remains on people. AI supports our employees and improves the customer experience. We are proceeding purposefully and with caution in the expansion of AI applications within the company. The seven principles for AI at the BMW Group provide the basis for our approach."

Artificial intelligence has been the topic of countless Sci-Fi movies. There have been nearly ten Terminator movies or television shows so far, all using the same theory: AI will mean the demise of our race. While some have been saying that is a possibility, others have been quick to dismiss such claims. What is pretty obvious though, is that the advances made in the field cannot be ignored anymore, there are real concerns and we need to be prepared for whatever the future holds. Thankfully, some companies working with AI are taking the concerns surrounding AI seriously.