Will.i.am's AI on wheels
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Will.i.am standing beside the Trinity prototype at Nvidia's GTC in San Jose, Calif. Photo: Trinity
Pioneering a whole new class of car is hard enough, but musician will.i.am tells Axios he also wants his Trinity three-wheeled electric vehicle to be an AI agent, helping its driver plow through e-mails or plot out strategy.
Why it matters: Trinity is the epitome of the kind of ambition sweeping Silicon Valley: that AI can turn even a single-seat vehicle into a platform — and that building it can revive left-behind communities.
Catch-up quick: Unveiled at CES in January, Trinity's single-person vehicle looks a bit like something out of the movie Tron.
- The vehicle is designed to be self-balancing, but not self-driving. It has an onboard computer that a driver can use via a conversational agent rather than a series of apps.
- Though tiny, will.i.am says Trinity should be able to go from zero to 60 miles per hour in under two seconds.
- He aims to get a plant up and running this year and churn out several hundred of the vehicles next year, with a price tag around $30,000.
Yes, but: History suggests that bold vision alone won't be enough: building a new class of hardware and scaling manufacturing are hard enough, even before trying to make it affordable and integrate AI.
What they're saying: "It's not just taking me to work," the Black Eyed Peas frontman said in an interview at Nvidia's GTC conference last month. "It's a part of my workforce."
The big picture: Trinity may have been one of the most ambitious projects on display at Nvidia's GTC developer conference last week, but it's emblematic of how founders see the rise of artificial intelligence helping revamp entrenched industries and usher in a new era of American prosperity.
- Will.i.am envisions Trinity helping revitalize inner cities. Manufacturing the vehicle in urban areas is just the start, he says, outlining a world in which nearby community colleges teach related robotics skills.
- He even imagines that residents could contribute their own ideas that get turned into skills that the onboard agent can perform.
- "How do we have our inner cities transform like Shenzhen was transformed during the mobile internet," he said in an interview last month, where his Trinity prototype was parked prominently at the entrance to the San Jose Convention Center. "In the agentic internet, how does Watts change forever? How does Oakland change forever?"
Zoom out: Trinity is the latest in a series of high-tech ideas that will.iam has backed.
- In 2024, he was touting a conversational AI radio effort and at the end of that year he showed off MBUX Sound Drive, a system for Mercedes cars that created customized music based on a driver's input, such as the way they steer and brake.
- And in 2021, in the wake of the COVID pandemic, will.i.am debuted a high-tech $299 face mask.
What we're watching: Whether Trinity makes it beyond the starting line.
