Kodiak AI, Inc. (“Kodiak”) (Nasdaq: KDK), a leading provider of AI-powered autonomous vehicle technology, announced today that the U.S. Marine Corps has awarded the company a contract to help create autonomous military ground vehicles. The company will integrate the Kodiak Driver, Kodiak’s dual-use, AI-powered autonomous driving system, into the U.S. Marine Corps’ Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary Fires (ROGUE-Fires) carrier ground vehicle. ROGUE-Fires enables distributed maritime operations, sea denial, and expeditionary force projection, particularly across the vast distances and contested terrain of the Indo-Pacific. By integrating the Kodiak Driver into the ROGUE-Fires platform, Kodiak is enabling the U.S. Marine Corps to understand how autonomous operations can extend reach, improve operational tempo, and reduce risk to Marines while executing high-end expeditionary missions. Kodiak will demonstrate the maturity and modularity of its autonomous system by leveraging its existing software stack and hardware interfaces.
“The Kodiak Driver is a powerful dual-use capability that leverages physical AI to strengthen defense readiness through scalable and adaptive applications in order to keep Marines out of harm’s way,” said Don Burnette, Founder and CEO of Kodiak AI. “We have extensively tested our autonomous system in our prior efforts with the military and believe this work with the Marine Corps allows us to further showcase how Kodiak’s technology performs in unstructured and unmapped environments.”
This work with the U.S. Marine Corps is the latest that underscores Kodiak’s role as a trusted autonomy partner for the defense sector. In 2022, Kodiak was selected for a three-year contract with the United States Army to deliver an end-to-end autonomous solution for the U.S. Army Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) program, under which it received approximately $30 million. Through this engagement, the company completed real-world testing in off-road and combat-relevant environments, including California mountainous grassland, Texas desert, and Michigan snow.
Kodiak AI was founded in 2018 and is a leading provider of AI-powered autonomous vehicle technology that is designed to help tackle some of the toughest driving jobs. Kodiak’s driverless solution can help address the critical problem of safely transporting goods in the face of unprecedented supply chain challenges. Kodiak’s vision is to become the trusted world leader in autonomous ground transportation. Kodiak is committed to a safer and more efficient future for all through the commercialization of driverless trucking at scale. To that end, Kodiak developed the Kodiak Driver, a virtual driver that combines advanced AI-powered software with modular and vehicle-agnostic hardware designed to help address Kodiak’s customers’ needs. The Kodiak Driver is not just an idea—it is operating without a human driver today. Kodiak serves customers in both commercial trucking and the public sector. In 2024, Kodiak believes it achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first company to deploy customer-owned and -operated driverless trucks in commercial service. The Kodiak Driver is also being utilized in the public sector, where Kodiak believes it can support national security initiatives and critical government applications.
