"With artificial intelligence, we are igniting the next stage on our path to becoming the global automotive tech driver", says Hauke Stars, Member of the Board of Management for IT at the Volkswagen Group. "AI is our key to greater speed, quality, and competitiveness – across the entire value chain, from vehicle development to production. Our ambition is to accelerate our development of attractive, innovative vehicles and bring them to our customers faster than ever before. To achieve this, we deploy AI with purpose: scalable, responsible, and with clear industrial benefits. Our ambition: No process without AI.”
Artificial intelligence is already being used across all key business domains of the Volkswagen Group. Today, more than 1,200 AI applications are already active throughout the Group, with several hundred more in development or nearing implementation. In the long term, the Volkswagen Group expects efficiency gains and cost avoidance opportunities totaling up to four billion euros by 2035 – enabled by the consistent and scalable use of AI across the entire automotive value chain.
Artificial intelligence as a key technology across the entire company
In vehicle development, for example, the Volkswagen Group is building an AI-powered engineering environment together with its partner Dassault Systèmes – for all Group brands and across all regions. It is designed to support engineers through virtual testing and component simulations, significantly accelerating development processes. Alongside other initiatives, this collaboration aims to helping to shorten the product development cycle for Group brands to 36 months – or less – making it at least 25 percent (around 12 months) faster compared to today.
AI integration is also advancing in production: Leveraging the Volkswagen Group’s proprietary Digital Production Platform (DPP) – a “factory cloud” now connecting more than 40 sites – Volkswagen is continuously introducing new AI applications into its manufacturing processes. These help optimize the interaction of complex processes in vehicle assembly, contribute to more efficient use of energy and materials, reduce costs, and lower CO₂ emissions.
Moreover, AI-powered applications also strengthen cybersecurity and foster knowledge sharing across the Group – a key factor for digital transformation and the company’s long-term viability.
AI training from shop floor to boardroom
With the WE & AI initiative, the Volkswagen Group launched one of the largest internal education and qualification programs in spring 2024. The ongoing initiative aims to empower employees across all levels of the organization to engage with AI in a responsible and practical way. To date, more than 130,000 employees worldwide have been reached.
Collaboration with European technology and industry partners for industrial AI
The Volkswagen Group aims to further advance the use of artificial intelligence through closer collaboration with technology and industry partners. In this context, the company is currently exploring the potential of a so-called Large Industry Model (LIM) – an industrial AI model based on real manufacturing, design, and process data from voluntarily participating companies.
Collective industrial process knowledge could be used to train an AI model that helps optimize internal workflows and enables more efficient logistics and process control across industries and for all participants. An organizational blueprint for this initiative could be Catena-X – the first open platform for the entire automotive sector and beyond, enabling secure data exchange between manufacturers, suppliers, and technology providers. Founding members include Volkswagen, BMW, BASF, Mercedes-Benz, SAP, Siemens, ZF, and T-Systems.
Volkswagen advocates for innovation-friendly frameworks in the global AI race
Volkswagen is committed to actively shaping the future of AI in Europe and supporting political and economic frameworks at both national and European levels. In an increasingly challenging environment – marked by high energy prices, elevated location costs, and administrative complexity – the company sees a clear need to advance technological innovation in artificial intelligence in Germany and Europe through political support.
Hauke Stars: “We support the innovation-friendly evolution of European regulation. In addition, targeted incentives are needed: We must make more of what we’re capable of. This includes, above all, funding programs that strengthen spin-offs from universities and research institutions and accelerate the transfer of scientific knowledge into market-ready applications.”
Digital sovereignty requires European infrastructure
Technological independence and resilience begin with maintaining control over data – and that only works if data is stored, processed, and protected within Europe. Against this backdrop, the Volkswagen Group has sharpened its strategic focus: the Group-wide private cloud infrastructure will be significantly expanded in the coming years to enable more internal processing of sensitive information. This move is aimed at strengthening the company’s digital resilience against external risks and influences.