San Francisco, CA, June 16, 2025 — Drival, a technology company working to improve the car ownership experience, today announced a new approach to AI development called “Grounded AI,” which underpins its AI companion, Yuki. This strategy aims to address the limitations of current large reasoning models (LRMs) by embedding AI into the daily lives of users and training it through real-world interactions.
Traditional AI development often trains algorithms in abstract or digital-only environments. Drival’s Grounded AI diverges from this by immersing Yuki in the real-world experiences of users, as captured through their smartphones. This approach is intended to help develop more reliable and context-aware AI systems that reflect human complexity by incorporating continuous feedback from real-world scenarios such as commuting, conversations, and daily routines.
“Our goal is to develop an AI that can operate robustly within the complexity of real human lives,” said Gaurav Mehra, Founder and CEO of Drival. “By grounding Yuki in real contexts, we believe we can address the inconsistency and brittleness often seen in traditional models.”
Yuki’s learning model is structured around three principles: context, continuity, and causality. This framework enables the system to evolve with the user’s environment, habits, and needs, providing adaptable support over time. Rather than mimicking behavior, Yuki is designed to complement the user by offering memory support, emotional regulation, and contextual assistance.
The company emphasized its commitment to ethical design through two foundational principles: “Privacy by Design” and “Total User Agency.”
Yuki prioritizes on-device processing to limit the transmission of raw data.
Any data used for model improvement is anonymized and aggregated.
Users must provide explicit, granular consent for Yuki to learn from their data.
A user-facing dashboard offers transparency and control over permissions and data usage.
Drival’s approach blends technical development with a focus on trust and transparency, presenting Yuki as a system that responds to individual needs while safeguarding privacy and user autonomy.
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