Stellantis Engineers Cite AI Speedups as Firm Pursues 24-Month Vehicle-Development Goal

Stellantis engineers say AI tools have shortened timelines for selected software and vehicle-system tasks, offering examples of faster work as the automaker pursues a separate 24-month vehicle-development goal.

Joydip Saha, Stellantis’ hands-free driving project manager, said AI tools helped his team build a hands-free system for the Cherokee in six weeks. Comparable work previously took one year to 18 months, he said.

Software engineering manager Ben Zawodni said his team completed a proof of concept for a global software-monitoring platform in one week using agentic coding tools. Before those tools, the work was estimated to take six months. Some defect fixes that once took two to three weeks now take two to three days, Zawodni said.

The accounts involve selected tasks and do not establish a companywide productivity result. Saha said engineers still need to understand and debug AI-generated output. Zawodni said AI cannot decide which vehicle platforms Stellantis should develop.

The 24-month goal is a broader benchmark than an individual software fix or hands-free system. Stellantis set its target in May 2026, aiming to shorten vehicle-development cycles from as long as 40 months to 24 months. AI is an enabler of Stellantis’ broader execution strategy. The employee examples do not establish that the broader cycle has been reached.

Stellantis’ wider AI effort also includes a partnership with Microsoft. In April, Stellantis and Microsoft announced plans to co-develop more than 100 AI initiatives across product development, validation, maintenance and testing. All employees had access to Copilot Chat, and an initial 20,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses would support selected roles.

Ned Curic, Stellantis’ chief engineering and technology officer, urged engineers to prepare colleagues to take over their work before moving to new assignments. “The best thing that you can do for your career is to make yourself redundant,” Curic said.

The FaSTLAne 2030 strategy also lists STLA Brain, STLA SmartCockpit and STLA AutoDrive as technologies planned to launch in 2027.