Hi there, I'm Eve Stevens, editor of movement.net and I'm here at Move 2026 speaking to some of the inspiring voices leading conversations in automotive and technology. And I had the pleasure of being joined today by James Pang, co-founder and CEO of Pony AI. Firstly, thanks so much for joining us today, James. How has your move experience been so far?
Yeah, thanks for having me. The experience at Move so far so good. It's actually my third time in a row. Every year I come here it's always very exciting. A lot of people in the mobility industry congregate here together. It's always great.
Absolutely. Yes, a familiar face. In terms of industry events like these, what do you see as the importance of these kind of collaborative events? Why speak at Move?
I think it's a very convenient place because a lot of our partners, potential partners, the people in the mobility industry all come here together. So it's very easy to organize one-on-one meetings, group chats and all that. And also having all this display and exhibitions, it's a way for us to actually see what's happening right now in the mobility industry. So it's great.
Absolutely. And having some of the vehicles on show as well, it's really great to see the sort of tangible auto tech. So, I want to talk now about Pony AI. Obviously, AI is in the title itself. I had the pleasure of catching your keynote appearance where you spoke about robo taxi services now in Zagreb, in the Middle East and also in Singapore. You have over 2,000 vehicles as I believe. Can you tell us a little bit about how advances in AI have really allowed you to kind of expand and scale up your robo taxi services?
I think AI is preeminent in many parts of our system, right? For example, we use world model for the training and the simulation of our technology which is advanced AI technology for the physical AI. We use advanced language model for the perception and also language model for interacting with the riders. And of course we use AI coding for development and all that. So I think AI is really a secret weapon, but AI becomes a general tool for all the high-tech developments.
Yes, absolutely. And when it comes to scaling up robo taxi fleets, whether it be here in Europe or further afield, what do you see as maybe the most or the biggest challenge? What's the kind of biggest headwind when it comes to scaling up this technology?
I think the biggest, well, I wouldn't say it's one factor. The biggest challenge is the complexity, right? There's hardware, software, technology, safety, regulation, user acceptance, cost reduction and all this. So it's really how we manage the complexity of the system and constantly find the weak link and improve it. So that's really the main job of me lately, to have a systematic view of all the moving pieces and make sure they're moving along.
Absolutely. And what about the fact that you're operating across so many different localities? You're obviously dealing with a patchwork of regulation. How do you find dealing with the regulatory differences between these different geographies?
I think I see more similarities than the differences, right? Generally, regulators care about similar things: safety, the impact to the existing mobility system, what happens to the local taxi and ride-hailing platforms, potential job impact and all that. Of course data security, data privacy and all that. So those are the similarities but depending on different cities, the emphasis on which factor will be different. For example, in a much bigger city they probably care more about the impact on the local existing mobility systems. Whereas in Europe, probably data privacy and data security are more important on their minds. So slightly different but I see more similarities.
Brilliant. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to kind of dwell on that a little bit more. When we think about robo taxis, it kind of seems part of a much bigger ecosystem of mobility. Where do you see robo taxis falling into that ecosystem? Do you see this as a hybrid network or do you see this as a full transition?
I think it will be a hybrid network for many years to come. Because customers demand is very diverse. People use robo taxis. I think the advantages are several fold. One is much safer. It's consistent. All the drivers are exactly consistent. I mean our virtual driver is much cleaner. It's reliable. But some people still prefer human drivers because if you want a driver to help you with the luggage, we don't have a robot yet. Maybe we're developing it soon. But for the time being, I think it's going to be coexisting.
