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There’s an emerging theme in transportation — and really in every 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 employees — in a deliberate skills shift. This will not translate into a one-for-one exchange, meaning there will likely be a net negative job loss. But GM insists it’s hiring, and those layoffs have created room to hire IT people with AI-focused backgrounds.
The most sought-after capabilities are native AI development, data engineering and analytics, cloud-based engineering, agent and model development, direct engineering, and new AI workflows. Practically speaking, GM is looking for people who know how to build with AI from the ground up — designing the systems, training the models and designing the pipelines — not just using AI as a productivity tool.
These AI job losses are increasing in the automotive sector. CNBC is calculated that Ford, GM and Stellantis have collectively cut more than 20,000 salaried U.S. jobs, or 19% of their combined workforce, since recent employment peaks this decade. While there are various reasons for these cuts, they are generally linked to technological changes, including artificial intelligence.
Companies are leaning heavily into AI, though anecdotes from some engineers and founders suggest that not all of these businesses know what they’re doing with it yet.
Samsara is a company that seems to have found a use case that generates revenue. The company has spent the last decade giving customers cameras to put inside millions of trucks to monitor drivers, prevent theft and help with liability claims. The company took this mountain of data and trained its own model that can detect potholes and determine how quickly they deteriorate. The company is launching this product in cities and announced that it has several contracts, including Chicago.
A little bird
Nothing this week, although I’m working on a fun one! Reach out anytime with information, advice or just because. You can contact us via email or Signal.
Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07 or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.
Offers!
You may have noticed that Rivian’s spinoff company Mind Robotics raised another $400 million, just two months after raising $500 million. And that pace got me thinking about founder RJ Scaringe and his innate ability to get VCs and institutional backers to invest in his ideas and projects.
I estimated that investors have poured $12.3 billion into Scaringe’s three startups — also Mind Robotics and Rivian. That figure doesn’t include the nearly $12 billion in gross proceeds raised by Rivian’s IPO, nor did I count the more 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 matter here. But if you don’t feel like clicking, here’s one thing that stood out. I spoke with several experts and investors, and they all mentioned Scaringe’s ability to give whoever he’s talking to—whether it’s an investor, supplier, or executive—undivided attention and make them feel like the most important person in the room.
It’s another element of my longstanding case against multitasking. Talk to me!
Other offers that caught my eye…
Archaeusan Australian startup that developed perception software for autonomous drones and aircraft; 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 Laboratoriesa Redwood City, California startup that has developed a warehouse-in-a-box for charging, cleaning and inspecting autonomous fleets; sneaked out with undisclosed backing from 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 primary and secondary financing of $730 million.
Quantum Systemsa Germany-based startup backed by Peter Thiel, is in talks to raise about 600 million euros ($703 million) with the likes of Airbus and Blackstone as investors; Bloomberg reported.
Notable reads and other items
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 the former chief financial officer of Tesla and most recently held a similar position at drone company Zipline.
Tesla Robotaxis has crashed at least twice since July 2025 while a remote operator was driving the vehicles remotely, according to recently unredacted information filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Uber is expanding in India with two new engineering campuses that can accommodate approximately 9,600 people and a data center partnership aimed at supporting its overall product development and infrastructure operations.
Waymo 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 NHTSA. Important note: The company has not completely solved the problem of how their vehicles behave in these conditions.
One more thing…
Disrupt, our flagship annual tech conference in San Francisco, will be held in October. And while this is a long way off, I wanted to share some news. We will have six stages this year, which you can read more about here. One worth noting about this crowd is ours Artificial intelligence on the real world stageHere we will deal with robotics, autonomous systems, manufacturing, defense and industrial enterprises.
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