Chinese automaker Geely is pioneering the integration of AI agents across every stage of new vehicle development, significantly boosting engineering efficiency and enabling smarter, more capable cars.
Inside Geely's Automobile Research Institute in Ningbo City of east China's Zhejiang Province, engineering teams are now collaborating with a special new colleague, an AI-powered "digital employee".
This intelligent assistant supports developers from code writing to system debugging, dramatically accelerating software development cycles.
To date, Geely has developed 64 key AI agents, with projected value creation exceeding 160 million yuan (about 23 million U.S. dollars).
"A single vehicle contains thousands of software modules, and developing such a complex system traditionally requires the coordinated efforts of thousands of engineers. With AI's assistance, the overall efficiency of software development has improved by about 30 percent compared to the traditional method. For coding tasks specifically, we're seeing efficiency gains of up to 50 percent," said Kang Zhixi, senior chief engineer at the AI center of Geely's Automobile Research Institute .
Hundreds of researchers at the institute have already adapted to this new collaborative paradigm. Rather than simply replacing human tools, the AI agent represents a fundamentally new approach to automotive research and development.
Beyond accelerating research and development, AI is making the vehicles more intelligent. In the institute's futuristic smart cockpit, visitors can interact with EVA, a "super AI agent" capable of understanding complex, ambiguous requests.
When prompted to design a road trip itinerary, EVA can generate a complete route within seconds, enriched with details on key attractions along the way.
"Its greatest advantage is that the AI agent has 'its own brain'. You only need to provide a vague instruction, and it can independently understand the intent, formulate a plan, and even execute the task on its own. The core characteristics of this generation of AI agents can be captured in three words: super interaction, super brain, and super skills," said Ye Sai'er, senior product manager at the AI center.
AI is also enabling vehicles to "think" independently. During a live demonstration, a test vehicle successfully performed unmanned pick-up and drop-off functions. With a simple tap on a smartphone app, users can summon the car, which then autonomously navigates traffic, yields to pedestrians, and pulls up precisely to meet them -- all without human intervention.
This capability is underpinned by the robust simulation and testing power of large AI models.
"The use of AI has significantly enhanced our development efficiency. In fact, we have already trained our driving assistance system on as many as 25 million scenario fragments. Our computing infrastructure allows these models to run and undergo continuous training around the clock," said Liang Yi, driving assistance expert at the institute.
Geely's AI advancements extend beyond its own labs. The company is sharing these cutting-edge technologies with hundreds of local auto parts suppliers, helping to elevate intelligence and efficiency across the entire automotive supply chain.
"AI has entered a new phase. Our core technical framework is what we call the 'world behavior model', an enhanced AI model that integrates the vehicle's powertrain, chassis, and smart cockpit systems into a unified, cross-domain whole. This holistic integration enables far more efficient coordination and response. With this model in place, we expect our future product iteration cycles to accelerate significantly," said Li Chuanhai, president of the institute.
Chinese carmaker Geely uses AI agent to enhance efficiency, vehicle intelligence
