GM CEO Mary Barra Reveals how GM Is Quietly Using AI to Build the Future of Cars

In 2030, I think, you know, people are going to see that their vehicle allows them to lead a much more integrated life, that the vehicle makes their life easier, makes them more efficient, gives them back some time. And when it comes to technology, so I asked one of my friends who's also working on like self-driving, I'm like, when will be the year when I can just put my kids in the car and the car will take them to school? When do you think this is coming? And is it available right now from the technology perspective? Because he said from technology perspective, now it's just a regulation. Well, I think right now we do have a patchwork of regulation. We're hoping for one federal regulation, because I think that will unlock autonomous technology. I think a lot of it, being a mother myself, although my children are adults now, is looking at, you know, when is the right time to do that? So I think, you know, from a technology perspective, we'll get there. And then it's going to have to be a judgment piece of how old is your child? Where are they going? All of that. And so, you know, we're on our way to get there. And, you know, I think that we'll get to a point, I think we need to get to full, you know, as we start with L4 highway, obviously, you know, you're still in the urban area is going to need to take responsibility for driving. So I think that'll happen over time. Okay, what's, do you have any estimates? You know, like I said, I'm not predicting anymore. You know, after being in this role for over a decade, I've learned, let the technology, keep advancing the technology, keep surprising and delighting and don't make predictions. So we talked about AI transforming the driving experience. How is it transforming the production? Well, I think we're, we're leveraging, I mean, I think it's such an interesting time right now, when you look at the power of artificial intelligence, and we're focusing on the main areas in the business of how do we use it to improve manufacturing. Sterling Anderson talked about one of the things that General Motors has that is unique is all of this information and data of, of how, how, how things are manufactured. And I think when you look at that and the power of data to really help advance AI, we're in a unique position to make our, our manufacturing processes more efficient, serve our operators better. When we think about designing the vehicle, you know, looking at the areas that we can, that right now people are doing, how do we make it more efficient and allow our engineers to really focus on optimizing technology, you know, safety. It allows us to do more validation. There's so much from that perspective. And then from a, how we go to market, imagine leveraging artificial intelligence to really understand the customer better and reach that customer in a more focused way. So they get the information they want. There's been so much advancement in that space as well. And then lastly, what I would say is also putting the tools in the hands of our employees. One of the things I've encouraged everyone at the company to do is become familiar with it, because it's easy to kind of be a little bit wary of it if you don't understand it. Once you use it, I think it really, and I make sure I'm constantly using it even in my daily life, unrelated to work to just see the power of it. Because once you use it, you use it for this and you're like, Oh, I can use it for this. It's you know, one of the things my daughter does that I think is so interesting. She's going to college to get her master's degree. And she'll be like, I'd like a shopping list with I'm gluten free with I needed to be healthy. I want it to be this level of calories. And I don't want it to have too many different things that I have to buy. So give me the recipes for a week. Yeah. And boom. And she's like, Mom, it's really good. And it really works. What's your favorite use case? I just the other day, I've been having some shoulder pain. And so I got the test results. And of course, I get it now on the portal before you have anything from back from your doctor. I put it into this time I use GPT and it came back and it's like, Yeah, you've got a tendon that's inflamed. And of course, it's my mother who passed away many years ago, but she always used to tell me to sit up straight. And some of it is some of my soreness is because of posture. I'm like, Okay, my mom, I've got to listen to you. I've got to sit up straight. But I mean, I think I never before I would have waited, you know, to hear from the doctor. And I was able to go in and understand what it is and understand what I need to do to alleviate it. So I mean, just a couple of years ago, you know, you would have had to wait for the doctor. So and then, you know, there's the easy one of I look in the fridge, what do we have? Okay, give me something interesting to make. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a really good point. Take a picture even more. So they say I have this, this and this. Yeah, I'll do that. I do that all the time. What about work processes? What have you optimized with AI for you personally? For me, I think it's it's how do I, you know, write much more quickly, when I'm writing an email, or how do I get information if I want to learn something about a new technology? Just asking the question. So boom, I get that information, I can read it as opposed to having to send some send it to someone else say, Hey, can you give me a, you know, a summary of this. So I mean, just so much more information is digestible, or is given back to you in a very digestible format. I'm using it several times a day. And then also, again, how I do my work. What's your favorite app? Well, I use multiple I, you know, we have relationships with a lot of companies. So I literally do there's two two engine search or two AI engines that I use on a regular basis.