Waymo Boosts SF Robotaxi Readiness With DeepMind Genie 3 Simulations

The autonomous driving company is using AI-generated virtual environments to train its vehicles for rare and challenging scenarios.

Published on Feb. 6, 2026

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Waymo has built a new "Waymo World Model" on top of DeepMind's Genie 3 technology that can generate photorealistic 3D simulations of city streets. This allows Waymo to train its self-driving vehicles on a wider range of rare, dangerous, and unusual situations before deploying them on real roads, especially in challenging environments like San Francisco's steep hills, fog, and busy intersections.

Why it matters

Waymo's use of advanced simulation technology aims to accelerate the expansion of its robotaxi service while also improving the safety and performance of its vehicles, especially in complex urban environments like San Francisco. This could help Waymo overcome some of the challenges it has faced with public acceptance and regulatory hurdles as it scales up its autonomous driving operations.

The details

Waymo has integrated DeepMind's Genie 3 world model technology to create its own "Waymo World Model" that can generate photorealistic 3D simulations of city streets. This allows Waymo to run "what-if" experiments, tweaking variables like weather, time of day, and road layout, and then feed the resulting camera and lidar data into its testing systems. The goal is to expose the Waymo Driver software to a wider range of rare and challenging scenarios before deploying the vehicles on real roads.

  • Waymo announced the new Waymo World Model in a blog post on February 7, 2026.

The players

Waymo

An autonomous driving company and subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company.

DeepMind

A British artificial intelligence company that is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. and developed the Genie 3 world model technology used by Waymo.

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What’s next

Waymo plans to use the expanded simulation capabilities to help it move faster into new robotaxi markets as part of a broader growth strategy.

The takeaway

Waymo's use of advanced simulation technology from DeepMind's Genie 3 could help it overcome some of the challenges it has faced in scaling its autonomous driving operations, especially in complex urban environments like San Francisco. This approach aims to improve the safety and performance of Waymo's vehicles before they are deployed on real roads.