Meet a Local Business

Argo AI

Tell us about your business. What services or products do you offer, where are you located, etc.?

Argo AI is building self-driving vehicle technology that is designed to scale globally and transform mobility. Headquarted in Pittsburgh, PA, we operate our technology in seven cities and counting, including our hometown (Pittsburgh); Miami, FL; Austin, TX; Washington, D.C.; Palo Alto, CA; Detroit, MI; and Munich, Germany. Through partnerships with leading automakers, Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen Group, our technology will support commercial ride-hail and delivery services around the world. 

How does your business support local communities?

Argo AI exists to make getting around cities safe, easy and enjoyable for all. Our technology is designed to make the roads where we operate safer for everyone who uses them — not only for our passengers, but also other drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

While we are still developing and testing our technology, we are already using it for community good, including utilizing our self-driving maps and routing data to pick up COVID-19 virus testing kits from health centers in Pittsburgh and transport them for analysis at the onset of the 2021 pandemic.

Additionally, we partner with local groups like the Jewish Family and Community Services (JFCS) in Pittsburgh on efforts to bolster STEM employment. With JFCS, we develop employer and employee training programs to support opportunities for neuro-diverse persons in science, technology, engineering and math fields — not only at our company, but others around the area.

Meanwhile, many of our employees across the U.S. and Germany volunteer their time outside of work to support groups in their area, mentoring students participating in extracurricular activities such as the FIRST Robotics Challenge.

By working closely with our partners, local communities and governments, Argo will deliver the benefits of self-driving technology and support local transportation needs around the world.

How does the Choose Local campaign fall in line with your business’ mission or values?

Argo AI is committed to understanding and working with all the communities in which we operate to improve transportation and delivery options, making it possible for more people to get where they need to go and get the goods they need, when they need them.

Our mission is intricately tied to community, as we take a street-by-street, block-by-block, city-by-city approach to testing and deployment, recognizing that every community is unique and has its own specific rules, infrastructure, and culture.

By tackling the most complex urban miles first, we expose our technology to different road infrastructure, traffic patterns, and local driving habits that allow us to build a safe, smart and scalable self-driving system. We consider this the secret to scaling self-driving technology.

What inspires your work?

Argo AI is inspired by our purpose: to make getting around cities safe, easy, and enjoyable for all.

We recognize that self-driving is a complex technical challenge that requires laser focus and a structured process. Our mission is to build technology that everyone can trust, and to create a product that makes reliable autonomous transport helpful to the greatest number of people. For us, that all starts with the highest level commitment to safety.

We believe our technology has the potential to offer incredible safety benefits, not just for vehicle occupants, but for all road users. The consistently high number of road-traffic fatalities globally, coupled with the even higher number of non-fatal injuries and property damage, make a compelling case that the time for this technology is not in some theoretical future: it’s now. Self-driving cars don’t get distracted or tired. Our self-driving system is specifically designed to use multiple overlapping sensors and redundant systems to maintain full awareness of its environment and to make the safest possible driving decisions in any situation it encounters.

Overall, our technology can improve the safety, accessibility and convenience of mobility in cities, and we’re looking forward to working with communities and businesses to deploy it when and where it is safe to do so.

What is the best way for consumers to connect with your business and your services or initiatives?

Follow Argo.AI on social media at @argoai on Twitter, on YouTube and LinkedIn, listen to our No Parking Podcast, and read about the development of self-driving car technology in our digital publication, Ground Truth.

Please provide any other information you want to share that these questions did not cover

Visit argo.ai to learn more about our technology and argo.ai/join-us to learn more about our many job opportunities! No matter your field, there’s a good chance we are looking for someone like you to join our team.