At Disrupt 2024, Helm.ai’s CEO and founder, Vladislav Voroninski, joined the StrictlyVC session to share valuable insights on the latest advancements in autonomous driving technology and the role of AI-driven simulation in accelerating development timelines. Moderated by Connie Loizos, general manager/editor-in-chief of TechCrunch, the discussion drew an audience of investors and startup founders, exploring the innovative AI-based approach to overcome the challenges in autonomous vehicle development.
Key takeaways from the session
- Level 4 consumer vehicles vs. robotaxis: While significant progress has been made with robotaxis, bringing Level 4 capabilities to consumer vehicles requires addressing deployment scalability and cost. For example, current robotaxis often utilize strategies involving HD maps, reliance on expensive sensor stacks, and teleoperation support, which doesn’t align with the practical and cost considerations of the consumer vehicle market.
- Potential of AI-based simulation: VidGen-2, Helm.ai’s generative AI video model powered by its proprietary Deep Teaching technology, generates highly realistic driving videos. This AI-based approach allows automakers to reduce development and validation costs and rely less on real fleets. Unlike traditional fleet-based data collection, which can take years to gather sufficient data, AI-based simulation accelerates this process by focusing on relevant scenarios and generating multi-modal data, including video, lidar, and perception data. By simulating only “interesting cases,” this approach enables faster, more cost-effective, and safer autonomous driving development.
- OEM partnership and volume production deployment: Honda Motor recently announced plans to integrate Helm.ai’s Deep Teaching technology in its 2026 Zero Series Electric Vehicles, enabling partial automation (Level 3) capabilities. Collaboration between OEMs and software providers is essential for advancing high-end autonomous systems, as these partnerships provide both capital and shared expertise needed for sustainable progress.
- Looking ahead: Helm.ai is continuing to focus on advancing its foundation models to further narrow the gap between simulated and real-world data and enable safe, scalable autonomous driving solutions.
About Helm.ai
Founded in 2016, Helm.ai is a Series C stage software company specializing in AI solutions for autonomous driving and robotics automation. The company has raised $102 million to date and partners with leading global automakers to advance ADAS and autonomous vehicle capabilities.
