INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Josh Pierson has competed in races all around the world, but his goal never changed — he always wanted to be an IndyCar driver.
He will get that chance next season.
A.J. Foyt Racing announced Tuesday it has hired Pierson to drive the team's No. 4 Chevrolet in 2027, teaming up with IndyCar rookie of the year Dennis Hauger. The team had already announced Hauger would drive the team's No. 14 car.
“ Racing in IndyCar has been my dream for as long as I can remember,” Pierson said. “The variety of racing I’ve done has all been in preparation for this incredible opportunity. I’m grateful to everyone who has supported me along the way and am tremendously appreciative of the commitment of a new (sponsor) that will be announced shortly. I’m grateful for their confidence in me and look forward to my first IndyCar green flag."
The 20-year-old from Oregon already has an intriguing resume.
At age 16, he became the youngest driver to ever compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He's a gold-rated FIA driver. He's won races or produced podium finishes — or both — in the World Endurance Championship, the Asisa Le Mans Series and the IMSA Series.
And after competing internationally in karting as well as sports cars, he has focused more recently on steadily climbing the ranks of American open-wheel racing.
He started in the junior formula series then joined IndyCar's feeder program, Indy NXT, where he led the most laps of any driver in 2026. Pierson started on the front row in each of the series' final three races this year, winning two poles, breaking Hauger's qualifying record at Milwaukee and then capturing the pole and winning at Laguna Seca by leading from start to finish.
Larry Foyt, the racing team's president, closely monitored Pierson's progression and figured the time was right to make the move.
“Few drivers at his age have his depth of experience, and his maturity and work ethic are remarkable,” Foyt said in a statement from the team. “Over the past year, he impressed us in multiple tests in a Panoz DP01 Champ Car alongside current IndyCar drivers, and again in our Chevy-powered car on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. I believe in Josh, and we’re excited to be part of his continued development.”
Foyt added: “What stood out at Laguna Seca was his composure. He had the speed, handled the restarts and executed from start to finish. Those are qualities we’re looking to build on as he makes the move to IndyCar.”
The series will open its 17-race 2027 season at St. Petersburg on March 7.
See AP’s full auto racing coverage here
FILE - Josh Pierson prepares for a practice for the Rolex 24 hour auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 28, 2026--
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261028854882/en/
The HTEC AI Value Realization Report 2026: Financial Services & Insurance, found that among FSI respondents currently pursuing AI adoption, 88% report increasing investment over the past 12 months. Forty-two per cent describe the increase as significant, compared with 28% across all industries. Yet 44% of FSI organizations are at the scaling stage or already AI-native, exactly the same proportion as the overall sample.
The findings suggest that high levels of investment alone are not translating into a sector-wide maturity advantage. Seventy-eight per cent of FSI respondents agree that people and processes limit the value organizations derive from AI more than technology does.
“ Financial institutions are investing heavily, but technology alone does not determine whether AI creates value,” said Philip Otley, Global Managing Partner at HTEC. “ Results depend heavily on what happens around the technology: how AI is integrated into workflows, who owns the outcome, and whether employees are equipped to use it consistently.”
Better decisions, not simply lower costs
The research also points to what FSI leaders want AI investment to deliver.
Better decision quality is the most desired outcome of AI investment, cited by 31% of executives, compared with 17% who prioritize cost reduction.
The finding reinforces the importance of being able to demonstrate value beyond traditional efficiency measures. Improvements in decision quality require credible baselines, trustworthy data, and evidence connecting AI-supported decisions to business outcomes.
However, the research shows significant differences in when organizations establish and assess financial returns. Thirty-four per cent require a formal ROI model before an AI initiative is approved, while 29% assess returns only after implementation.
Together, these findings indicate that defining and measuring value throughout the AI investment lifecycle remains an important part of the maturity challenge.
AI risk measurement remains inconsistent
The research identifies a parallel challenge around governance.
Forty-two per cent of FSI respondents consider AI risk informally alongside value, while only 16% measure risk consistently across their portfolios.
As AI becomes more deeply embedded into financial services workflows, HTEC believes appropriate oversight will become increasingly important, particularly where AI supports consequential decisions within regulated operations.
“ Not every AI-assisted decision requires the same level of oversight,” said Lawrence Whittle, Chief Strategy Officer at HTEC. “ The challenge is designing review processes that are proportionate to the risk involved, while ensuring that people have enough context and authority to exercise meaningful judgment when it matters.”
Organizations are also relying more heavily on external expertise
The research suggests that the complexity of moving AI beyond individual initiatives is also affecting how FSI organizations work with external partners.
21.5% of FSI respondents report greater dependence on external partners or consultants than they had anticipated, indicating that moving AI from isolated use cases towards enterprise-wide deployment increasingly requires strategy, data, engineering, and governance to work together. Multidisciplinary teams can work alongside internal stakeholders to connect these capabilities as use cases move from roadmap to production.
Turning investment into value
Taken together, the findings suggest that the next phase of AI adoption in financial services and insurance will depend not simply on deploying more technology, but on strengthening the conditions around it.
The research points towards five areas: clear business outcomes, trustworthy data, defined ownership, consistent measurement, and proportionate governance.
For HTEC, this also changes the role of technology partners. Financial institutions increasingly need strategy and engineering to connect with implementation and organizational change, together with the transparency, safeguards, and traceability required to understand how AI-supported decisions were reached and whether they delivered the intended outcome.
About the Research
The findings are based on responses from 235 financial services and insurance C-suite executives within a global survey of 1,500. The research was commissioned by HTEC and conducted by Censuswide in July 2026.
The full HTEC AI Value Realization Report 2026: Financial Services & Insurance is available at https://htec.com/insights/reports/the-htec-ai-value-realization-report-2026-financial-services-insurance/.
About HTEC
HTEC Group Inc. HTEC is a global technology and engineering company that helps organizations build AI capabilities from silicon to outcomes. HTEC helps its customers build an adaptive, vendor-agnostic AI stack designed to evolve as technologies, models, and platforms change.
Through its forward-deployed model, HTEC works alongside customer’s teams to connect AI to business strategy and create a repeatable capability consistently and faster each time. OneLoopAi is at the heart of this approach and brings greater transparency in measuring progress and continuously improves how AI is developed and deployed. The result is a stronger path from AI investment to measurable business value and AI at scale.
With more than 15 years of experience working with AI and machine learning, HTEC combines deep engineering expertise with strategy, product, design, and data capabilities to turn AI ambition into production.
HTEC, the global AI technology and engineering leader, today released its research on AI Value realization in financial services and Insurance. Organizations in this sector are increasing AI investment more aggressively than the wider market, but the sector has yet to establish a corresponding lead in AI maturity, according to new research from HTEC.
