Rivian elects Cohere’s CEO to its board in latest signal the EV maker is bullish on AI
Aidan Gomez, the co-founder and CEO of Generative AI Startup Cochere, has become a member of the Board of EV Maker Rivian, According to a legal submission. The appointment is the newest sign that Rivian sees promises in applying AI to his own company, while positioning himself as a software leader – and even provider – within the car industry.
Riviaan increased the size of the board and elected Gomez, whose term will expire in 2026, according to the submission.
Gomez has had a long career as a data scientist and AI expert. In 2019 he launched Cochere with co-founders Nick Frosst and Ivan Zhang with a focus on training AI Foundation models for companies. The generative AI startup sells its services to companies such as Oracle and Notion.
Before Gomez started, Gomez was a researcher at Google Brain, the Deep Learning Division at Google led by Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton. Gomez is also known for ‘Attention is everything you need’, a technical paper from 2017 that he was co-author of the basis for many of the most capable generative AI models today.
Gomez’s skills can be useful for Rivian, because the EV -Maker navigates a new joint venture of $ 5.8 billion with Volkswagen Group to develop software. Under the Joint Venture, Rivian shares his expertise in the field of electrical architecture with Volkswagen Group – including the many brands – and it is expected that existing intellectual property rights on the Joint Venture will licensed.
It is possible that the joint venture will sell its technology to other companies in the future.
Rivian is also working on an AI assistant for his EVs since 2023, Rivian’s Chief Software Officer, Wassym Bensaid, WAN told during an interview in March. The AI work, which is specifically on the orchestration layer or the framework for an AI assistant, is called outside the joint vw, then called VW.
Gomez’s expertise in AI and as a data scientist is clearly attractive for Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe, who
Noted in a statement that “thinking and expertise Rivian will support while we integrate new, advanced technologies into our products, services and production.”
