Alphabet’s robotaxi company has turned autonomous driving into a service people can summon. Its next test is less cinematic and more difficult: making safety, fleet economics and public trust work in city after city.
Zūm is a Redwood City, California company that has reinvented the most analog corner of education: the yellow school bus. It pairs an AI-driven routing and fleet-management platform with apps for parents, drivers and districts, then layers on a fast-growing fleet of electric buses with vehicle-to-grid charging that can sell power back to the grid. Serving roughly 4,500 schools and districts nationwide, Zūm turned a clipboard-and-radio industry into a connected, electrified mobility network.