“The Chat GPT moment for physical AI is nearly here” – Cars, Robots and Regulation in 2026
On a busy day for news, BBC Radio’s flagship current affairs show the Today programme this morning (6 January 2026) featured two important voices in technology.
Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang addressed the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2026) in Las Vegas, accompanied by two robots cute enough to rival Star Wars’ R2-D2, and placed developments in autonomous driving (including Nvidia’s self-driving training software, Alpamayo) within a future landscape of domestic robots, declaring that “The Chat GPT moment for physical AI is nearly here“.
Dr Nick Reed, founder of Reed Mobility and member of the British Department for Transport’s Science Advisory Council, was interviewed by the Today programme and asked about the UK’s state of preparedness for self-driving vehicles. Citing the trials of automated passenger services due to start in Great Britain in spring 2026, he noted that “we’ve also done a very good job in this country of setting up the regulatory framework and that has imposed a higher bar for the technology companies to surpass in order to deploy in this country. But the certainty over that framework is what I think has enabled them to progress fastest with the UK and why we’re moving ahead with trials this year” (and see Nick’s Linked In article, ‘2026 – the year of accountability for UK road safety?’, also published today).
The need for clear regulation of emerging technology had motivated the British government to establish a dedicated policy unit (the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles) in 2015, and in 2018 to reform insurance law to bring self-driving vehicles within the system of compulsory third party motor insurance (via Part 1 of the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018). Then came the larger regulatory task, which the government gave to the Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission – “a far-reaching review to enable the safe and responsible introduction of automated vehicles on GB roads and public places”. The Law Commissions’ review of AV law was completed in January 2022, providing the rationale and structures of what became the full regulatory statute, the Automated Vehicles Act 2024 (AVA 2024) on 20 May 2024.
AVA 2024 is in the process of implementation, including the consultations that it requires (including of organisations appearing to represent “the interests of businesses involved, or likely to be involved …, the interests of road users and the cause of road safety”: section 2(4). The government has announced its intention to implement AVA 2024 in full by the end of 2027, and in the interim to “help facilitate commercial pilots of services with paying passengers and no safety driver to be deployed from spring 2026”.
Many commentators on Artificial Intelligence have pointed to the need for clear regulation, and that is a strength of the British approach to automated vehicles. For example, the issue of AV equivalence to the abilities of a human driver is often raised. AVA 2024 section 2 applies that as a minimum standard (requiring that authorised automated vehicles “will achieve a level of safety equivalent to, or higher than, that of careful and competent human drivers”) and adds the further requirement that “road safety in Great Britain will be better as a result of the use of authorised automated vehicles on roads than it would otherwise be”.
A few weeks ago, the first commencement order for certain sections of AVA 2024 was made (The Automated Vehicles Act 2024 (Commencement No. 1) Regulations 2025, SI 1339/2025, 15 December 2025). Among the sections of AVA 2024 brought into force by that SI on 1 January 2026 were the power to make regulations relating to the offence under AVA 2024 section 78, a misdescription offence which restricts the business use of certain terms appropriate only to authorised automated vehicles, and likewise relating to the collection, sharing and protection of information relating to automated passenger services under AVA 2024 section 88.
Discussion and media coverage of regulation relating to automated vehicles is useful, for example to dispel the false impression (which occasionally surfaces) that there is no such regulation. A feature of AVA 2024 was its cross-party support, and the longer history of British AV regulation, since 2015, includes not only the Law Commissions but the governments of three political parties (Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition, Conservative and Labour). The reality is over a decade of regulatory work.
The British exploration of AV regulation has been deep and productive. The longer history of regulation of the motor car and of the technologies which it has adopted (discussed in my book ‘Advanced, Automated and Electric Vehicle Law’) shows how fascinating the AV legal journey will become.