GM makes new tech hire, launches AI website

General Motors Co. has hired Anantha Kancherla from Meta Platforms Inc. as its new vice president of advanced driver-assistance systems, Mike Abbott, the automaker's executive vice president of software, said Tuesday in a LinkedIn post.

Kancherla worked at Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, for three years, according to his LinkedIn profile. While there, Kancherla worked as an engineer of reality labs, helping to launch the first mixed reality headset, called Quest 3. Kancherla also was the head of Meta's artificial intelligence platform. Prior to working at Meta, Kancherla worked at Lyft Inc., a ride-hail company, where he was vice president of engineering in the company's autonomous vehicle division.

Kancherla's position is new at GM and his hiring is part of a string of recent tech hires that Abbott's made since he joined GM in May of this year. Abbott is a former vice president of engineering for Apple Inc.’s Cloud Services division.

In his LinkedIn post, Abbott also said GM launched a website to highlight its AI initiatives. For example, GM data scientists are implementing AI solutions for motorsports, manufacturing processes and autonomous vehicle development.

Abbott writes in his post he's "long been captivated by ‘real’ applications" of both AI and machine learning.

"This has become particularly interesting to me in many areas at GM, across design, engineering, supply chain and the customer experience," he added.

khall@detroitnews.com

@bykaleahall