Waymo with the Bay Bridge in the background in San Francisco, California (Smith Collection/Getty Images)

Mapped: Where Google’s Waymo is, will be, and might go

Waymo is operating more than 2,000 autonomous vehicles and testing in many markets. Meanwhile, Tesla’s autonomous operations are tiny, but its ambitions are huge.

Rani Molla

9/15/25 8:25AM

As Tesla stakes its future on autonomous cars and as self-driving competitors like Amazon’s Zoox start popping up, Google’s Waymo remains the elephant in the room.

Currently, Waymo is publicly operating more than 2,000 autonomous vehicles in five markets — Los Angeles, Atlanta, Austin, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area — and the company already intends to launch in five more: Dallas, Denver, Miami, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

It has also tested, or is currently testing, the service in a dozen other markets. We’ve comprehensively mapped Waymo’s operations for the first time, showing that the service has quietly made inroads across the country:

Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is pushing to surpass Waymo with the flip of a switch, as he theorizes that once the technology is tested sufficiently, many Teslas can drive themselves autonomously with the parts and software they already have.

“I think we’ll probably have autonomous ride-hailing in probably half of the population of the US by the end of the year,” Musk said on the company’s earnings call in July.

Tesla currently operates approximately 30 autonomous ride-hailing vehicles in Austin with safety monitors sitting in the passenger seat. The company is also operating a more traditional ride-hailing service in the Bay Area, where people can pay to be driven around by a person in the driver’s seat using the company’s supervised full self-driving tech.

While the public can download the app and join the waitlist for both, the company hasn’t stated how many people it’s allowing to use the program. (I’m still on the waitlist.)

Musk has repeatedly said Tesla will be able to scale its autonomous driving service far faster than Waymo, as Tesla owners will be able to add their personal vehicles to the robotaxi network for extra income. On the last earnings call, he pegged that milestone for “next year.”

But for now at least, Waymo is far in the lead.

Jon Keegan10h

OpenAI shares how it will charge for ChatGPT ads

Last week, OpenAI announced that ads were going to be rolling out in ChatGPT in the coming weeks.

Now we have more details about what OpenAI is telling advertisers. According to a report from The Information, the company has reached out to “dozens” of advertisers, and will charge based on ad views.

Advertisers are still waiting for further details, but OpenAI is asking for less than $1 million each in ad spending while it tests out the new system, per the report.

Ads are supposed to begin in February, and will only appear for free ChatGPT and ChatGPT Go users.

OpenAI Lines Up Advertisers, Reveals Key Details Ahead of Ads Launch

Advertisers are still waiting for further details, but OpenAI is asking for less than $1 million each in ad spending while it tests out the new system, per the report.

Ads are supposed to begin in February, and will only appear for free ChatGPT and ChatGPT Go users.

Rani Molla10h

Apple is reportedly working on a wearable AI pin

Move over OpenAI, Apple is reportedly also developing a mysterious AI-powered wearable device: a pin that looks like a “thin, flat, circular disc with an aluminum-and-glass shell.”

The Information reports that the device is the size of an Apple AirTag and has two cameras, a speaker, three microphones, and wireless charging. It could be available by early 2027.

Apple, which has lagged its peers in AI and recently teamed up with Google to support its upcoming Siri revamp, is hoping to keep up with ChatGPT and Google, which, like Apple, has an AI smartphone. Meta and Google are both also pushing into smart AI glasses.

It’s not to be mistaken with OpenAI’s secretive wearable AI device, which is being made in conjunction with former Apple designer Jony Ive and expected to debut in late 2026. The latest rumors suggest the unnamed device, meant to eventually compete with smartphones, might be earbuds.

Apple Developing AI Wearable Pin

Jon Keegan

14h

As public pushback against data centers grows, AI companies promise they’ll be good neighbors

Communities concerned with energy prices, pollution, and water usage are starting to push back on Big Tech’s AI data center building spree. The companies are trying to assure the public that they will pay their way.

Rani Molla15h

Morgan Stanley expects Tesla to have 1,000 Robotaxis by the end of 2026. Musk had predicted 1,500 by the end of 2025

Ahead of Tesla’s earnings report next week, Morgan Stanley has released a note estimating that the company will scale its Robotaxi fleet much more slowly than CEO Elon Musk has said. The firm thinks the automaker will have 1,000 vehicles in its Robotaxi service by the end of 2026 — 500 fewer than Musk estimated a few months ago Tesla would have by the end of 2025.

More key to Tesla’s success, however, will be removing the safety monitors from those rides, which Morgan Stanley says will be a “precursor to personal unsupervised FSD [Full Self-Driving] rollout.” Musk, of course, had also promised to remove safety drivers in Austin by the end of 2025, but driverless rides are still in the testing stage.

Rani Molla17h

Meta says it’s delivered new AI models internally this month and they’re “very good”

Meta’s last AI model release, Llama 4, was marred by delays and accusations of rigged benchmarks, but the company says the latest models built by its Superintelligence Labs team look promising. CTO Andrew Bosworth told reporters at the World Economic Forum that the team delivered new models internally in January and they’re “very good.”

Bosworth didn’t specify what the models are, though The Wall Street Journal has reported that Meta is working on a large language model and an AI image and video model code-named Avocado and Mango, respectively.