Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo upgraded its purpose-built Ojai robotaxi with Google's Gemini AI cabin assistant, enabling voice or touch controls for cabin settings, journey details, local recommendations, and general knowledge, while the Waymo Driver handles autonomous navigation. The assistant remains inactive until engaged, operates independently of driving systems with no access to real-time vehicle data, and prioritizes privacy, with the rollout currently in beta phase. This mirrors Tesla's integration of the Grok chatbot into its vehicles, where Tesla's 2026 Summer Update expanded Grok's capabilities for voice commands for climate control, phone calls, music, glovebox access, and vehicle queries, separate from Full Self-Driving software. Waymo now offers fully driverless rides in 10 U.S. cities, operating around 3,000 vehicles and targeting one million weekly paid rides by year-end. Tesla's unsupervised robotaxi service, primarily using Model Ys, remains more limited in scale and cities such as Austin. In Alphabet's earnings call earlier this month, CEO Sundar Pichai sidestepped questions on a possible spinout for Waymo, stating Alphabet is focused on "executing and scaling up Waymo."