2027 Summer Intern, AI Research, Embodied AI (PhD)

General Motors; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 148,000 - 178,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid U.S. GM holidays

GM Family First Vehicle Discount

Growth opportunities and mentorship

Job summary

General Motors is seeking an Embodied AI Research Intern in Sunnyvale, CA, to conduct applied research at the intersection of machine learning, robotics, and autonomous driving. You will work with senior researchers to develop hypotheses, run experiments, train models, and communicate results.

Focus areas include foundation models for autonomy, vision-language-action models, generative and world models, and planning/control learning.

Qualifications

• Pursuing or in process of obtaining a Ph.D. in ML/AI/CS/Robotics or related field.
• Strong understanding of modern ML/DL methods.
• Proficiency in Python and ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX).
• Demonstrated AI/ML research through coursework, projects, publications, or similar work.
• Ability to design experiments and interpret results.
• Strong communication and teamwork skills.
• Availability for full-time, 40 hours/week internship period.

Responsibilities

• Formulate research problems and develop prototypes for autonomous driving applications.
• Design and run experiments, ablation studies, and quantitative evaluations.
• Train and benchmark models using large-scale datasets and distributed compute.
• Analyze model behavior, failures, generalization, and tradeoffs.
• Collaborate with perception, planning, robotics, controls, and systems teams.
• Contribute to technical discussions, documentation, publications, or open-source work.

Skills

Python

ML/DL fundamentals

Analytical thinking

Team collaboration

Public speaking

Education

Ph.D. in ML/AI/CS/Robotics

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

JAX

Job description

Job Description

Work Arrangement:

Hybrid: This internship is categorized as on-site. The selected intern is expected to report to the office 3 days a week.

Location:

Sunnyvale, CA

About the Team

The Embodied AI Research team advances artificial intelligence methods for autonomous vehicles and embodied systems. We explore how models can combine visual and sensor understanding, language and other modalities, reasoning, prediction, and action to address challenging problems in autonomous driving. Our work includes foundation models, vision-language and vision-language-action architectures, generative and world models, self-supervised learning, imitation learning, reinforcement learning, multimodal learning, and methods for learning from large-scale driving data. We work closely with engineering teams to translate research into reliable systems for real-world autonomy.

About the Role

As an Embodied AI Research Intern, you will conduct applied research on a well-scoped project at the intersection of machine learning, robotics, and autonomous driving. You will work with experienced researchers and engineers to develop hypotheses, design experiments, train and evaluate models, analyze results, and communicate findings.

Potential focus areas include:

• Foundation Models for Autonomy: Develop or adapt large-scale models that learn useful representations and capabilities from diverse driving data.
• Vision-Language-Action Models: Explore architectures that connect multimodal perception and high-level reasoning with autonomous vehicle decisions and actions.
• Generative and World Models: Use generative techniques to model complex driving environments, improve scenario understanding, or support planning and simulation.
• Learning for Planning and Control: Apply imitation learning, reinforcement learning, or other learning methods to improve prediction, decision-making, and vehicle behavior.
• Multimodal and Temporal Learning: Build methods that reason over camera, lidar, radar, map, language, and time-series information.

What You'll Do

• Formulate research problems and develop prototypes for autonomous driving applications.
• Design and run experiments, ablation studies, and quantitative evaluations.
• Train and benchmark models using large-scale datasets and distributed compute infrastructure.
• Analyze model behavior, failure cases, generalization, and performance tradeoffs.
• Collaborate with perception, planning, robotics, controls, and systems engineering teams.
• Contribute to technical discussions, research documentation, publications, patents, or open-source work where appropriate.
• Present findings clearly to technical and cross-functional audiences.

Required Qualifications

• Currently pursuing or in the process of obtaining a Ph.D. in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Robotics, or a related technical field.
• Strong understanding of modern machine learning and deep learning methods.
• Proficiency in Python and experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, or another machine learning framework.
• Demonstrated AI/ML research experience through coursework, academic projects, publications, or comparable work.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with experience designing experiments and interpreting results.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a cross-functional, team-oriented environment.
• Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills.
• Availability to work full-time, 40 hours per week, during the internship period.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with transformers, large language models, vision-language models, vision-language-action models, diffusion models, or other generative architectures.
• Experience with reinforcement learning, imitation learning, self-supervised learning, world models, multimodal learning, or temporal modeling.
• Familiarity with autonomous vehicles, advanced driver assistance systems, robotics, or embodied AI.
• Experience working with large-scale datasets, distributed training, high-performance computing, or model scaling.
• Evidence of significant technical results through first-authored publications, grants, fellowships, patents, or open-source contributions. Relevant venues may include NeurIPS, CVPR, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, ECCV, RSS, ICRA, CoRL, or similar conferences and workshops.
• Experience with C++ or another systems programming language.
• Intent to return to a degree program after completion of the internship or co-op.
• Must be graduating between December 2027 and June 2028

Compensation:

The monthly salary range for this role is $14,600 per month GM will provide a one-time lump sum taxable stipend payment to eligible students selected for the 2027 Student Program.

What You'll Get from Us

• Paid U.S. GM holidays.
• GM Family First Vehicle Discount Program.
• Potential for growth within GM based on performance and business needs.
• Intern events and opportunities to network with company leaders and peers.
• Mentorship and hands-on experience with the data and ML foundations behind autonomy