By Eric J. Savitz, editor-in-chief, GM News
A few minutes with GM Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson: AI and the future of mobility
2025-10-09
By Eric J. Savitz, editor-in-chief, GM News
Sterling Anderson came to General Motors in June as chief product officer, leading a team of more than 20,000 people with the daunting challenge of driving the next generation of automotive innovation. Anderson comes to GM after more than eight years at Aurora Innovation, an autonomous trucking company he co-founded in 2016. That followed two years at Tesla, where he led development of the Tesla Model X, among other things. Armed with a stellar record as a technologist – and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from M.I.T., where he studied robotics – Anderson now gets to lead GM into the future.
He provided some insights on what he sees down the road in the Q&A below.
Sterling, let’s talk about how technology is changing the future of mobility – and how recent innovations will change the relationship that people have with their cars.
The arc of technological development has accelerated massively as we’ve moved from the physical world of hardware to the virtual world of software. This evolution caused the pace of iteration to massively increase. That was step one.
And step two?
Step two has come as advances in computing and probabilistic methods have allowed us to create virtual systems that learn the structure of the world from data, rather than through the deterministic models we once wrote in software. This allowed the resulting systems to deal with a level of complexity and operate at a scale that would be difficult to match with more classical software development approaches.
For instance?
These models have enabled vehicles to meaningfully start to interpret their surroundings and anticipate the needs of their users. To interact in intelligent, almost human-like ways, with their surroundings and their occupants. Vehicles for a long time have been an intensely personal thing. They're a part of our lives in a way that is different than almost any other inanimate object. We emotionally connect with them. We entrust them with our lives and with the lives of our loved ones. And we come to see them not as simple devices, but as enablers of experiences we could not have had without them. They’re an important part of our lives. This is where the vehicle is such a powerful embodiment of what artificial intelligence can be and do: it can amplify these powerful relationships we already have with the vehicles we drive.
Caption: Sterling Anderson visits GM's Factory Zero, in Detroit.
In other words, we’re building on the already-tight bond we have with our vehicles.
Right. The fact that a trusted relationship, and that emotional connection, already exist, is an extraordinary foundation on which to build. We can use artificial intelligence in vehicles to go beyond what almost any other device could do for their users. I continue to view vehicles as one of the most opportune embodiments of AI today.
Sterling, tell us more about what kind of experiences we might have in this AI-driven world.
It starts with basic stuff. Today, you must tell your car, “I’m hot,” by turning on the air conditioning, or “I’m cold,” by turning on the heater. With navigation systems, you have to tell it, “Here’s where I want to go.” In some cases, you even tell the car what gear to use. You need to tell the car – through the steering wheel – if you want to give you a little more distance to a passing car or the edge of the road. In a way, the changes we need to make will build on the innovation that has marked the vehicle’s evolution almost since its inception. More than a century ago, GM invented the electric starter. Before that, you used a hand crank. The natural evolution, starting with the electric starter and continuing to today’s active safety systems, has been a shift toward the vehicle that knows what you want before you tell it to do anything. AI unlocks a sizeable leap in this direction.
There are already some examples of that.
Yes. For instance, cars can unlock and prepare for your entry as you approach, or they start when it’s apparent you need them to. If you walk this forward, there are many things that humans have to do today that the vehicle should be able to figure out on its own. It knows the temperature. It knows your preferences, whether in music, or lighting, or driving style. We already have presets for specific drivers, like what the seat position should be. Imagine taking that several steps further, to an environment where the car is taking care of things that you never thought were in its purview. Or that you always just imagined there’d be a control for because how else would the car know?
You trust your car with your life. Your phone, not so much.
If you trust your car with your life, it is a very small leap to expect you’d also trust the car to remind you that your kids need to go to soccer practice at a certain time and day. The macro point is that your car can do a lot more for you than it does today, and it is uniquely positioned to do it.
Sterling, you’ve told your team that we need to be producing aspirational products – vehicles that non-owners should envy. Are we there yet?
Great products evoke love and pride in their owners and curiosity, even desire, in those who don’t. There’s a stylistic element to this – they need to be beautiful aesthetically. But as they become more capable, an opportunity emerges to unlock even greater beauty with their simplicity. The best, most technologically forward products don’t have to be busy or cognitively exhausting. As cars become more intelligent, they should become simpler to use. More intuitive. More human-centered and built to anticipate. There is beauty in that simplicity.
Being feature-rich is not exactly the answer.
Just to be clear, the best features are simple, intuitive, and even invisible. You can have powerful technology working for you in the background, but until and unless you can deliver it in a way that makes life easier, simpler, and more intuitive, you’re not done. If you do that, and you do it well, you don’t need the car to be busy. Think about cruise control, which has been available for decades. Today you have to enable it, then you have to set its speed. Then you have to adjust its speed. Then you have a separate button to cancel it. Why are you doing all of those things? The car knows the road on which you’re driving. It knows the speed limit. It knows your apparent preferred driving speed. It knows what’s around you and how you ought to adapt to that. Should you have to go through this archaic and convoluted process that’s a carryover from decades past, or should it just take care of it?
So, cars should do more but make things easier.
That's right. We want to create products that you come to view as an extension of yourself. Not just as a statement piece – which it is – but as an extension and enabler of your life.
Are we there yet?
No, not yet. Our design team has done a phenomenal job with many of the vehicles in our current portfolio. We’ve got aesthetically beautiful products. But there is a lot more we can do when it comes to designing the experience one has in and around our products.
Sterling, when we talk about technology in cars, we tend to talk in silos – electrification, autonomy, software defined vehicles, hardware design, and so on. But should we really be thinking about them more holistically – as systems rather than individual elements?
There’s value in designing products holistically, then managing iteration independently. Software can iterate more quickly than hardware. By decoupling the two and creating a hardware canvas on which we can work software magic well beyond the day of purchase, we can create products that grow with you.
The car is one of the most advanced pieces of technology you will ever own. Every capability we add builds on established layers of trust and reliability. That requires a foundation of manufacturing and engineering acumen, power systems that brings the vehicles to life, and an intelligence layer that perceives the environment, understands the occupants and adapts to conditions. And then there’s the experience layer at the top of the stack. We’re pushing ahead on every one of those layers.
Are we at a point now where you drive the car off the lot, and a few years later, your car is doing more for you than it was when you bought it – where it improves over time?
We’re getting there. That’s what I'm referring to when I say we must enable and future-proof for that evolution. Your car should be getting better, smarter, more useful to you over time. And it can only do that if the evolution on the virtual layer is independent from evolution on the physical. There are several things we can do virtually that will make your vehicle better in ways that might surprise you.
Coming back around to this idea of your car being a trusted assistant – and that we can do more things for customers over time. Does that open new business opportunities, to expand our relationship with car buyers?
For sure. GM has built a tremendous foundation for this in OnStar, with subscription services that have now led the industry for almost thirty years. The utility people derive from the services we offer is huge. And it’s a great foundation to build on. Both from the trust it’s engendered and from the infrastructure it’s established for telematics, data processing, and fleet management at scale.
Fascinating stuff, Sterling. Thanks very much.
Eric J. Savitz, a former reporter and columnist with Barron’s, Forbes, and other publications, is editor-in-chief at GM News. Reach him at news@gm.com.
Sterling Anderson came to General Motors in June as chief product officer, leading a team of more than 20,000 people with the daunting challenge of driving the next generation of automotive innovation. Anderson comes to GM after more than eight years at Aurora Innovation, an autonomous trucking company he co-founded in 2016. That followed two years at Tesla, where he led development of the Tesla Model X, among other things. Armed with a stellar record as a technologist – and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from M.I.T., where he studied robotics – Anderson now gets to lead GM into the future.
He provided some insights on what he sees down the road in the Q&A below.
Sterling, let’s talk about how technology is changing the future of mobility – and how recent innovations will change the relationship that people have with their cars.
The arc of technological development has accelerated massively as we’ve moved from the physical world of hardware to the virtual world of software. This evolution caused the pace of iteration to massively increase. That was step one.
And step two?
Step two has come as advances in computing and probabilistic methods have allowed us to create virtual systems that learn the structure of the world from data, rather than through the deterministic models we once wrote in software. This allowed the resulting systems to deal with a level of complexity and operate at a scale that would be difficult to match with more classical software development approaches.
For instance?
These models have enabled vehicles to meaningfully start to interpret their surroundings and anticipate the needs of their users. To interact in intelligent, almost human-like ways, with their surroundings and their occupants. Vehicles for a long time have been an intensely personal thing. They're a part of our lives in a way that is different than almost any other inanimate object. We emotionally connect with them. We entrust them with our lives and with the lives of our loved ones. And we come to see them not as simple devices, but as enablers of experiences we could not have had without them. They’re an important part of our lives. This is where the vehicle is such a powerful embodiment of what artificial intelligence can be and do: it can amplify these powerful relationships we already have with the vehicles we drive.
In other words, we’re building on the already-tight bond we have with our vehicles.
Right. The fact that a trusted relationship, and that emotional connection, already exist, is an extraordinary foundation on which to build. We can use artificial intelligence in vehicles to go beyond what almost any other device could do for their users. I continue to view vehicles as one of the most opportune embodiments of AI today.
Sterling, tell us more about what kind of experiences we might have in this AI-driven world.
It starts with basic stuff. Today, you must tell your car, “I’m hot,” by turning on the air conditioning, or “I’m cold,” by turning on the heater. With navigation systems, you have to tell it, “Here’s where I want to go.” In some cases, you even tell the car what gear to use. You need to tell the car – through the steering wheel – if you want to give you a little more distance to a passing car or the edge of the road. In a way, the changes we need to make will build on the innovation that has marked the vehicle’s evolution almost since its inception. More than a century ago, GM invented the electric starter. Before that, you used a hand crank. The natural evolution, starting with the electric starter and continuing to today’s active safety systems, has been a shift toward the vehicle that knows what you want before you tell it to do anything. AI unlocks a sizeable leap in this direction.
There are already some examples of that.
Yes. For instance, cars can unlock and prepare for your entry as you approach, or they start when it’s apparent you need them to. If you walk this forward, there are many things that humans have to do today that the vehicle should be able to figure out on its own. It knows the temperature. It knows your preferences, whether in music, or lighting, or driving style. We already have presets for specific drivers, like what the seat position should be. Imagine taking that several steps further, to an environment where the car is taking care of things that you never thought were in its purview. Or that you always just imagined there’d be a control for because how else would the car know?
You trust your car with your life. Your phone, not so much.
If you trust your car with your life, it is a very small leap to expect you’d also trust the car to remind you that your kids need to go to soccer practice at a certain time and day. The macro point is that your car can do a lot more for you than it does today, and it is uniquely positioned to do it.
Sterling, you’ve told your team that we need to be producing aspirational products – vehicles that non-owners should envy. Are we there yet?
Great products evoke love and pride in their owners and curiosity, even desire, in those who don’t. There’s a stylistic element to this – they need to be beautiful aesthetically. But as they become more capable, an opportunity emerges to unlock even greater beauty with their simplicity. The best, most technologically forward products don’t have to be busy or cognitively exhausting. As cars become more intelligent, they should become simpler to use. More intuitive. More human-centered and built to anticipate. There is beauty in that simplicity.
Being feature-rich is not exactly the answer.
Just to be clear, the best features are simple, intuitive, and even invisible. You can have powerful technology working for you in the background, but until and unless you can deliver it in a way that makes life easier, simpler, and more intuitive, you’re not done. If you do that, and you do it well, you don’t need the car to be busy. Think about cruise control, which has been available for decades. Today you have to enable it, then you have to set its speed. Then you have to adjust its speed. Then you have a separate button to cancel it. Why are you doing all of those things? The car knows the road on which you’re driving. It knows the speed limit. It knows your apparent preferred driving speed. It knows what’s around you and how you ought to adapt to that. Should you have to go through this archaic and convoluted process that’s a carryover from decades past, or should it just take care of it?
So, cars should do more but make things easier.
That's right. We want to create products that you come to view as an extension of yourself. Not just as a statement piece – which it is – but as an extension and enabler of your life.
Are we there yet?
No, not yet. Our design team has done a phenomenal job with many of the vehicles in our current portfolio. We’ve got aesthetically beautiful products. But there is a lot more we can do when it comes to designing the experience one has in and around our products.
Sterling, when we talk about technology in cars, we tend to talk in silos – electrification, autonomy, software defined vehicles, hardware design, and so on. But should we really be thinking about them more holistically – as systems rather than individual elements?
There’s value in designing products holistically, then managing iteration independently. Software can iterate more quickly than hardware. By decoupling the two and creating a hardware canvas on which we can work software magic well beyond the day of purchase, we can create products that grow with you.
The car is one of the most advanced pieces of technology you will ever own. Every capability we add builds on established layers of trust and reliability. That requires a foundation of manufacturing and engineering acumen, power systems that brings the vehicles to life, and an intelligence layer that perceives the environment, understands the occupants and adapts to conditions. And then there’s the experience layer at the top of the stack. We’re pushing ahead on every one of those layers.
Are we at a point now where you drive the car off the lot, and a few years later, your car is doing more for you than it was when you bought it – where it improves over time?
We’re getting there. That’s what I'm referring to when I say we must enable and future-proof for that evolution. Your car should be getting better, smarter, more useful to you over time. And it can only do that if the evolution on the virtual layer is independent from evolution on the physical. There are several things we can do virtually that will make your vehicle better in ways that might surprise you.
Coming back around to this idea of your car being a trusted assistant – and that we can do more things for customers over time. Does that open new business opportunities, to expand our relationship with car buyers?
For sure. GM has built a tremendous foundation for this in OnStar, with subscription services that have now led the industry for almost thirty years. The utility people derive from the services we offer is huge. And it’s a great foundation to build on. Both from the trust it’s engendered and from the infrastructure it’s established for telematics, data processing, and fleet management at scale.
Fascinating stuff, Sterling. Thanks very much.
Eric J. Savitz, a former reporter and columnist with Barron’s, Forbes, and other publications, is editor-in-chief at GM News. Reach him at news@gm.com.