Ford Establishes Latitude AI Subsidiary to Develop Future Automated Driving Technology

Today, the company announced Latitude AI, a new subsidiary focused on developing a hands-free, eyes-off-the-road automated driving system for use on highways.  With a team of about 550 employees, Ford adds leading robotics, engineering, and operations talent as we grow and expand our efforts in automated driving technology – including advancements in Ford BlueCruise, which has accumulated more than 50-million miles of hands-free driving to date.

The Latitude leadership team will include Sammy Omari, executive director, ADAS Technologies at Ford who will also serve as the CEO of Latitude. Peter Carr is appointed Chief Technology Officer, overseeing Latitude’s product and technical development, and David Gollob is named president, with responsibility for business operations.

Establishing Latitude supports Ford’s strategic shift last year to focus on automated driving technologies for personally owned vehicles. Ford hired about 550 employees formerly of Argo AI across machine learning and robotics, cloud platforms, mapping, sensors and compute systems, test operations, systems and safety engineering. The Latitude team has applied much of their experience in automated driving, including software development tools and infrastructure, in the pivot to work on advanced driver assist systems (ADAS). 

Latitude is headquartered in Pittsburgh with additional engineering hubs in Dearborn, Mich. and Palo Alto, Calif. The company also will operate a highway-speed test track facility in Greenville, S.C.