TechCrunch Mobility: An arms race for AI skills is coming in the automotive sector

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There’s an emerging theme in transportation — and in every industry, really: AI creates jobs for some at the expense of others.

GMFor example, Laying off more than 10% of its IT departmentor about 600 paid employees – in a deliberate exchange of skills. This will not translate into a one-to-one exchange, meaning there will likely be a net negative loss of jobs. But GM insists it is hiring and that these layoffs have given it room to hire IT people with AI-focused backgrounds.

The most popular capabilities are native AI development, data engineering and analytics, cloud-based engineering, agent and model development, agile engineering, and new AI workflows. On the practical side, GM is looking for people who know how to build with AI from the ground up — designing systems, training models, engineering pipelines — and not just using AI as a productivity tool.

Job losses in the field of artificial intelligence in the automotive sector are increasing. CNBC calculated Ford, General Motors and Stellantis have cut more than 20,000 salaried jobs in the United States, or 19% of their combined workforce, from the last employment peak this decade. While there are a variety of reasons for these reductions, they are generally related to technological changes, including artificial intelligence.

Companies are leaning heavily into AI, although anecdotes from some engineers and founders suggest that not all of them quite know what to do with it yet.

Samsara is one company that seems to have discovered a revenue-generating use case. The company has spent the past decade providing its customers with cameras that can be installed inside millions of trucks to monitor drivers, prevent theft and assist with liability claims. The company took this massive amount of data and trained its own model that could Pothole detection And determine how quickly it deteriorates. The company is rolling out the product in cities, and announced it has several contracts under contract, including Chicago.

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Nothing this week, although I’m working on something fun! Contact us anytime for insights, tips, or just because. You can contact us via email or Signal.

Email Kirsten Korosek 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 the subsidiary of Rivian Mind robots It raised another $400 millionafter only two months Raised $500 million. This pace got me thinking about its founder, RJ Scaringe, and his innate ability to get venture investors and institutional backers to invest in his ideas and projects.

It calculates that investors have pumped $12.3 billion into Scaringe’s three startups, which are also Mind Robotics and Rivian. That number doesn’t include the roughly $12 billion in gross proceeds raised in Rivian’s IPO, and I haven’t counted 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 whole rant about it here. But if you don’t want to click, here’s one highlight. I’ve spoken to a number of insiders and investors and they all mentioned Scaringe’s ability to give full attention to whoever he’s talking to — whether it’s an investor, supplier, or executive — and make them feel like they’re the most important person in the room.

It’s another piece of evidence in my long-standing case against multitasking. Discuss with me!

Other deals that caught my attention…

Arceusan Australian startup that has developed conceptual software for drones and autonomous aircraft, It 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.

Asean Laboratoriesa startup in Redwood City, California, has developed a warehouse in a box for charging, cleaning, and inspecting self-driving fleets. He came out of hiding With undisclosed backing by Y Combinator.

fast It raised $240 million In a round led by Prosus, which 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 primary and secondary financing.

Quantum systemsA German-based drone startup backed by Peter Thiel is in talks to raise about 600 million euros ($703 million) with companies such as Airbus and Blackstone as investors. Bloomberg reported.

Notable Readings and Other Stories

Is Redwood Materials ready to go public? Senior Reporter Sean O’Kane interviewed the company’s new CFO, Deepak Ahujawhose name will be familiar to anyone who follows Tesla. Ahuja is the former CFO 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 The remote operator was driving the vehicle remotely vehicles, according to new unredacted information submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Uber He is Expansion into India With two new engineering campuses capable of accommodating around 9,600 people and a data center partnership aimed at supporting end-to-end product development and infrastructure operations.

Waymo It released a software update to its fleet of nearly 4,000 vehicles to help them Avoid flooded roads As part of the recall announced by NHTSA. Important note: The company has not completely solved the problem of how its vehicles behave in these conditions.

Another thing…

Disrupt, our leading annual tech conference, will be held in San Francisco in October. Although this is far-fetched, I wanted to share some news with you. We will have six stages this year, which you can read about More details here. One noteworthy thing about this crowd is our… Artificial intelligence in the real world stageHere we’ll delve into robotics, autonomous systems, manufacturing, defense, and industrial operations.