Rivian lays off hundreds of workers to enhance operational efficiency

Rivian's job cuts highlight the challenges of balancing cost reduction with strategic investment in new product development amid market shifts. The post Rivian cuts hundreds of jobs to reduce costs amid vehicle rollout appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Today, I’m talking with Wassym Bensaid, the chief software officer at Rivian, and the co-CEO of Rivian’s platform joint venture with Volkswagen, which everyone just calls RV Tech. That joint venture kicked off about a year and a half ago with a nearly $6 billion investment from Volkswagen. It effectively puts Wassym in charge of the operating system and electrical architecture for every future EV from Volkswagen and its associated brands, including familiar names like Audi, but also new companies like Scout. There’s a lot of Decoder ideas in there — I really wanted to know how that joint venture works and how it’s structured to preserve Rivian’s unique software culture, which you’ll hear Wassym talk about as the core element of the whole thing. I also wanted to know where the lines were — what parts of Rivian’s software get to be just for Rivian, and which parts of the core technology would be shared across the smaller company and the behemoth that is Volkswagen Group. And, of course,

The vendor will use the funds to scale deployment of Mind’s AI-powered robots in live manufacturing environments.

The Rivian Assistant is available for both Gen1 and Gen2 hardware.

Rivian's AI-powered voice assistant is rolling out today to the company's vehicle fleet. The assistant will be available through a software update to all compatible Rivian Gen 1 and Gen 2 vehicle owners who subscribe to the company's Connect Plus cellular service, which costs $15 a month or $150 a year, or are in an active trial. First announced at last year's AI and Autonomy Day, the Rivian Assistant is powered by the company's Rivian Unified Intelligence, "a shared, multi-modal AI foundation" that is "interwoven" throughout the entire company. The assistant is deeply embedded in the vehicle's operations, but will also pair with third-par … Read the full story at The Verge.

Plus, Meta’s largest data center to date goes up in Louisiana, robots will soon work out at a gym in Germany, and Uber makes a $1.25 billion deal with Rivian.