Keep pulling the thread on Dmitri Dolgov.
Waymo's AI ecosystem is centered around a core model called the Waymo Foundation model.
The Waymo Foundation model powers the three main pillars of the company's technology: the driver, the simulator, and the critic.
Waymo's architecture augments its end-to-end model with structured, materialized, intermediate representations rather than relying on a purely "vanilla" end-to-end approach.
Waymo began fully autonomous operations with its Ojai vehicle platform in early 2026 for employees, with plans to open it to all riders later in the year.
In a single day in 2026, Waymo launched its service in four new cities.
Waymo has provided over 20 million fully autonomous rides to date.
Waymo provided 10 million of its fully autonomous rides in the last seven months.
Waymo is currently driving more than 4 million fully autonomous miles per week.
Based on over 170 million miles of data, the Waymo driver is more than 13 times safer than a human driver regarding serious injury-causing collisions.
At its current operational scale, Waymo's safety performance prevents a serious injury every eight days.
In one instance, Waymo's AI detected a pedestrian hidden behind a bus by interpreting sparse LiDAR returns bouncing off the person's feet from under the bus.
Waymo plans to launch its service internationally in London and Tokyo in 2026.