Mercedes signs deal to put Wayve AI Driver in cars

Mercedes-Benz has signed a definitive production agreement with British autonomous driving startup Wayve to integrate the company's AI Driver into future vehicles within two years, marking the first such integration in the premium segment. The system will provide urban and motorway point-to-point driving assistance, with the driver remaining responsible for the vehicle. Mercedes-Benz chief technology officer Jörg Burzer said the partnership marks the world's first integration of the Wayve AI Driver in the premium segment. Wayve co-founder and chief executive Alex Kendall said the work reflected a deep technical alignment between the two teams. Wayve's software has been integrated into Mercedes-Benz's production architecture using the automaker's hardware, its MB.OS operating system and its map interfaces. The companies demonstrated the integration in Stuttgart, London and San Francisco. Wayve's system does not rely on high-definition maps or city-specific retraining, and was trained on Nvidia infrastructure hosted on Microsoft Azure, according to the companies. The deal deepens an existing relationship.