AI Everywhere: Balancing Innovation and Safety in the Age of Intelligent Tools | SRES Fireside Chat
As AI-powered engineering tools move deeper into automotive development, teams are asking a new set of questions:
Where do these tools genuinely accelerate engineering workflows? Where do they introduce new risks—errors, hallucinations, or misplaced confidence? And what checks are needed when AI-enabled tools and agents generate artifacts that flow into safety cases?
In our second SRES Fireside Chat, Jody Nelson, Gokul Krithivasan, and Bill Taylor discuss what they’re seeing across OEMs and suppliers as AI is increasingly used throughout the product development lifecycle—what’s working, what isn’t, and how engineering organizations can prepare their processes for the next wave of intelligent tools.
Watch the full discussion below:
Meet the Speakers
Jody Nelson — Co-Founder & Managing Partner, SRES
Jody brings 20+ years of automotive safety experience in development, consulting, and audits. He approaches every project with the passion and care that his own family will ride in that vehicle. He began his career at Daimler AG in high voltage safety, EMC, software, and functional safety. In 2010 he co-founded kVA, and across kVA and now SRES, he has trained and supported hundreds of OEM, supplier, and semiconductor teams.
Gokul Krithivasan — Co-Founder & Managing Partner, SRES
Gokul has 12+ years of experience in functional safety and AV safety, including leading development of robotaxis, commercial vehicles, and delivery robots. A certified expert in ISO 26262, ISO 21448, and ISO 8800, he has trained 1,000+ professionals and executives worldwide. At kVA, where he met Jody and Bill, he built global safety and cybersecurity teams across three continents; today at SRES he helps organizations deliver responsibly safe and secure products.
Bill Taylor — Partner, SRES
Bill brings decades of experience in functional safety, AV safety, and responsible AI. As co-founder of kVA, he helped set industry benchmarks for safety-critical development. At kVA and SRES, he has trained thousands of engineers, published over 20 technical papers, and earned awards from SAE and IEEE. He is dedicated to guiding organizations at the intersection of technology, safety, and responsibility.
About the Series
The idea for a series of Fireside Chats traces back to the very early days of Jody and Bill’s work together. In one of their first training sessions, a tricky FMEDA discussion left participants frustrated. That evening, the two of them stayed up late sketching a new way to explain it — an approach that ultimately found its way into the second edition of ISO 26262.
That moment sparked a tradition of technical discussions that has continued for years, now with the SRES team. These sessions have become a cornerstone of how we work — exploring difficult questions, challenging assumptions, and pushing toward better answers.
With these Fireside Chats, we’re opening that tradition to the broader safety community. Each session will bring the same candid, technical conversations that shape our work to a public forum.
