Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and his team are gearing up to host the company’s second AI Day.
What Happened: The AI Day 2022 is due to be held in Palo Alto, California, on Friday. Musk shared on Twitter a teaser image for the event in early August, which showed two hands of a robot connecting to form the shape of a heart in the center, with the date mentioned on it.
Earlier this week, Musk tweeted another teaser with the same image, but this time the venue was added as well.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2022
Tesla had to postpone the event from the initially planned schedule of Aug.19. In May, when Musk announced the original schedule, he promised so many cool updates.
The event is expected to begin at 8 p.m. ET and be likely live-streamed by Tesla’s official YouTube channel. It will also be covered in a live blog by Benzinga, alongside follow-up updates and reactions that can be found on the home page starting at 07:45 p.m ET.
Andrej Karpathy, who was heading Tesla’s AI team until mid-July, can't keep calm. “Super excited for Tesla, AI Day later this week,” he tweeted.
Super excited for Tesla AI Day later this week!!
— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) September 28, 2022
(cool event art by @DennisHongRobot that I stumbled by on reddit, tried to beat it with stable diffusion but it's not quite there yet :D) pic.twitter.com/DrwAtk53ZD
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Tesla’s first-ever AI Day was held on Aug. 19, 2021. Including about 45 minutes of pre-event streaming, the event went on for about three hours. This included a 45-minute Q&A session with Musk and his tech lieutenants. The highlight of the event was the unveiling of the Tesla bot, aka Optimus, which Musk said would come in handy for dangerous and repetitive tasks.
The company also shared updates on Tesla Vision and the Dojo supercomputer, among other things.
Why It's Important: Tesla’s stock rose about 1% in the session after the 2021 AI Day and saw a nice run-up until early November, which is not solely attributable to the event. The stock is coming into the 2022 AI Day with a 24% loss for the year-to-date period due to the market-wide weakness on the back of economic and geopolitical worries. It remains to be seen if the event could give a lift to the sagging stock.
Expectations From The Event: Tesla said in invites sent out earlier this week that it would share the latest developments in artificial intelligence, including full self-driving, Tesla bot, Dojo and more, according to reports.
In a note previewing the event, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said, "The theme of the event is around building out deeper AI activity on the hardware/software front which will play a key role in expanding the Tesla ecosystem and an opportunity for Musk to walk through the next evolution of technology at Tesla."
Optimus To Show Up: Tesla is widely expected to unveil a prototype of its humanoid robot at the event. Proper implementation of this project is all the more important, as the company is eyeing the deployment of thousands of robots at its factories, Reuters reported recently, citing job postings.
Wedbush's Ives sees an opportunity to sell its product to other manufacturers, creating another opportunity for Tesla.
At the 2021 AI Day, Musk said the Tesla bot would be friendly, have autopilot cameras for eyes and an FSD computer for the brain and that it would be able to carry 45 pounds of weight in its human-level hands.
Dojo Update: Tesla announced at the 2021 AI Day that its Dojo supercomputer will be powered by its in-house D1 chips. Dojo is a neural network training computer that can analyze a sizable quantity of camera imaging data at a speed that’s four times quicker than other computing systems. Incremental updates on Dojo could be expected at the event.
When D1 is scaled, it will increase bandwidth and decrease latencies for better AI performance as Tesla gains more control over its hardware and software operations down the road, according to Ives.
FSD: Tesla enthusiasts may want to hear the timeline for the broader rollout of its FSD software suite, which is still in beta testing. Musk had said earlier this year that FSD could be released for qualified vehicles by the end of 2022. Martin Viecha, Tesla’s Senior Director, Investor Relations, reportedly said at an invite-only Goldman Sachs Tech conference that “supervised FSD” will likely drop in by the end of 2022.
The company may also be required to address concerns raised by beta testers.
Ives said Tesla recognizes that deficiencies could be significantly improved through real-time AI to reach the eventual aspirational goal of true FSD over the coming years.
"FSD is a key part of the Tesla growth story over the next decade and this is a pivotal event tomorrow for Musk to lay out technology enhancements and improvements over the next year," he added.
Robotaxis: Musk said at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting held in early August the company’s robotaxi service will be a combination of Uber Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:UBER) and Airbnb Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB). He also said the service would incorporate FSD capabilities.
Recruitment Drive: Musk affirmed a Tesla influencer’s comment that AI Day 2’s sole purpose is to recruit the best and brightest to work on a really hard, important AI/robotics project.
“Pretty much. AI/robotics engineers who understand what problems need to be solved will like what they see,” he said in reply.
Price Action: Tesla shares closed Thursday's session down 6.81% at $268.21, according to Benzinga Pro data.
