The shift from software-defined to AI-defined vehicles is reshaping the automotive industry. While software-defined vehicles have made cars more updateable and dynamic across their lifecycle, AI adds a new layer: the ability to interpret data, support decisions, adapt system behaviour and enable continuous improvement.

This creates major opportunities for automated and AI-based driving functions – but also raises new questions around safety, transparency, cybersecurity, liability and regulatory control. How can AI-based systems remain testable, approvable and accountable over time? And where should learning take place: only within controlled development and validation processes, or also through real-world vehicle experience?

The panel brings together perspectives from industry, academia, engineering and technical inspection. It will explore how innovation, safety and regulation can be aligned across the entire vehicle lifecycle – from simulation and scenario-based testing to real-world evidence – and what it takes to bring AI-defined vehicles safely, scalably and competitively into real-world application.