Wayve Hires Ex-Apple and Google AI Leader Alex Toshev to Head New General Robotics Team
Former Apple and Google research leader Alex Toshev will build Wayve Labs' new team for general robotics intelligence beyond cars.
- 35,000+
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What Happened
Wayve has hired Alex Toshev, a former research leader at Apple and Google, to lead a new general robotics team within Wayve Labs. The team will build a 'foundation intelligence layer' for physical systems beyond automotive, including robot manipulation and mobility. It starts with a founding team in Wayve's Sunnyvale office, combining research freedom with Wayve's existing foundation-model platform, infrastructure, and a decade of experience deploying AI in physical environments. The work will span robotics hardware, software, data, model development, training, evaluation, and deployment.
Wayve Labs launched as frontier research unit.
Alex Toshev joins to lead the new general robotics team.
- Spent more than a decade at Google, including six years at Google Robotics.
- Co-led SayCan, which brought large language models into robotic planning and won Best Innovation Paper at CoRL 2022.
- At Apple, co-led development of MM1, an early family of multimodal large language models.
- Received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and a Diplom in Informatik from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
- His research has more than 35,000 citations.
“Alex brings an exceptional depth of expertise across computer vision, machine learning, and robotics, shaped by a distinguished research career at Google and Apple. He joins Wayve Labs to build a new effort at the intersection of robotics and foundation models, beginning with robot manipulation.”
“Although Wayve's primary product today is autonomous driving, it is fundamentally a foundation-model company, and we have the opportunity to invest in general capabilities rather than optimize for one application.”
Wayve Labs was launched in June as Wayve's frontier research unit focused on advancing intelligence that can safely perceive, reason, and act in the physical world. The new robotics team is part of that effort, and Wayve is hiring researchers and engineers across machine learning and robotics.
Previously from Wayve Technologies Ltd.
Wayve has already made several 2026 moves: it and Uber received Transport for London licences for autonomous rides, it partnered with Stellantis and Uber on Level 4 robotaxis globally, it received a $60M investment from chip giants, and it hired 3D vision pioneer Andrea Tagliasacchi into Wayve Labs.
- Alex Toshev joins Wayve to lead robotics as London licences, robotaxi and OEM deals land
- Wayve and Uber get TfL licences for London autonomous rides
- Stellantis, Wayve, and Uber Partner to Scale Robotaxis Globally
- 3D Vision Pioneer Andrea Tagliasacchi joins Wayve Labs as Principal Scientist
Background drawn from MotorClaw's earlier coverage of Wayve Technologies Ltd.'s official releases.
Why this matters
Wayve's AI has been designed to work beyond self-driving cars since the start. This new team will extend that technology to general robots, starting in Sunnyvale. It builds on Wayve's experience deploying AI with manufacturers and fleets such as Nissan, Stellantis, and Uber.
Terms in This Story
- foundation model
- A large AI model trained on vast data that can be adapted to many different tasks.
- embodied intelligence
- AI that interacts with the physical world through a body, like a robot or vehicle.
- multimodal large language model
- An AI model that processes and generates multiple types of data, such as text, images, and audio.
- robot manipulation
- The ability of a robot to physically handle objects using arms, grippers, or other end effectors.
Summarised from the linked release; details can be imperfect — always verify against the original source.