Abrupt Exit of GM’s AI Chief Latest in Tough Times for Automakers

Artificial intelligence has been a buzzword in the auto industry, not only as a solution to the rising costs in developing new electric vehicles, but also as a way to speed up development time, reduce the number of prototypes developed, and make system updates more quickly. However, some companies are still finding it difficult to fit AI and software-developed products into their existing corporate structures.

Former GM Chief AI Officer Barack Turowski announced on November 21 in a linkedin post that he has resigned from his post eight monthsThis was confirmed by General Motors the following Monday cio drive, detroit newsand other outlets.

“Physical AI is just as exciting as the LLM,” Turowski, formerly an AI executive at Google and most recently at Cisco, wrote in his post, adding that he would be “taking a short sabbatical to work on some exciting new ideas.”

His profile also reflects his previous experience at IBM and PayPal, while he remains on the advisory committee at VentureBeat and is now an operating advisor at Bessemer Venture Partners.

Turowski’s departure after less than a year is another blow to GM’s technology expertise as it returns to vehicles with internal combustion engines, hastily adds hybrids, and puts years of electric vehicle development on hold after the Trump administration’s tariff actions and shifting more production to the United States later this year. Federal EV Tax Credit on September. While GM is likely to remain the second-ranked EV seller in the US behind Tesla, declining sales in China and a steep decline in sales forecast in the US in the fourth quarter of 2025 spell trouble for the largest of the Big 2.5 automakers.

GM’s frequent employee restructuring following domestic policy changes is exacerbating the problem. Its Software and Services team got a new leader in former Aurora Innovation co-founder and ex-Tesla Autopilot executive Sterling Anderson earlier this month after former chief Dave Richardson, himself a former Apple executive, stepped down in late October. wardsauto,

While GM is rolling out a new ai assistant and its more sophisticated version supercruise Advanced driver assistance systems, which were developed under previous teams, were introduced in the coming years. The automaker is still bracing for more difficult times, with a round of layoffs in recent months that have included hundreds of thousands of positions being shed at both EV battery and vehicle manufacturing lines, as well as hundreds of thousands of white-collar workers.

And it’s unclear where software-developed vehicles will land with automakers going forward, as EVs struggle to achieve projected levels of adoption in many major markets, and consumers become more price-conscious amid economic uncertainty. Some companies like GM are pursuing AI and AV technology development, even if cost cutting is even higher on the priority list.