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 Cohere, has joined the board of EV maker Rivian, according to a regulatory filing. The appointment is the latest sign that Rivian sees promises in applying AI to its own venture while positioning itself as a software leader — and even provider — within the automotive industry.

Rivian increased the size of the board and elected Gomez, whose term will expire in 2026, according to the filing.

Gomez has had a long career as a data scientist and AI expert. He launched Cohere in 2019 with co-founders Nick Frosst and Ivan Zhang with a focus on training AI foundation models for enterprises. The generative AI startup sells its services to companies such as Oracle and Notion.

Prior to starting Cohere, 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 All You Need,” a 2017 technical paper he co-authored that laid the foundation for many of the most capable generative AI models today.

Gomez’s skill set could be particularly useful for Rivian as the EV maker navigates a new $5.8 billion joint venture with Volkswagen Group to develop software. Under the joint venture, Rivian will share its electrical architecture expertise with Volkswagen Group — including its many brands — and is expected to license existing intellectual property rights to the joint venture.

It’s possible the joint venture will sell its tech to other companies in the future.

Rivian has also been working on an AI assistant for its EVs since 2023, Rivian’s chief software officer, Wassym Bensaid, told TechCrunch during an interview in March. The AI work, which is specifically on the orchestration layer or framework for an AI assistant, sits outside the joint venture with VW, Bensaid mentioned at the time.

Gomez’s expertise in AI and as a data scientist is clearly attractive to Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe, who
noted in a statement that his “thinking and expertise will support Rivian as we integrate new, cutting-edge technologies into our products, services, and manufacturing.”