The partnership expansion represents a seven-figure booking for Zapata AI, and will expand the scope of technological innovation in support of Andretti Global’s worldwide racing operation by leveraging Zapata’s generative AI, machine learning, and optimization solutions.
Zapata AI (Nasdaq: ZPTA), the Industrial Generative AI company, today announced a $1,000,000 commercial expansion, entered into on March 28, 2024, under its existing agreement with Andretti Global that expands the partnership and formally recognizes Zapata AI as Andretti’s official AI Partner. The Andretti expansion will contribute to significant, sequential quarter-over-quarter bookings growth for Zapata AI, and is one of numerous customer growth opportunities Zapata is pursuing in financial services, telecom, manufacturing, defense, logistics and other industries.
The new engagement expands Zapata AI’s work with Andretti’s engineering, operations, and race strategy teams with the goal of delivering significant innovation and operational efficiencies across Andretti’s global presence in multiple racing series, while helping build a foundation for expansion to future series. The announcement also marks an expansion of the companies’ co-branding and marketing relationship to enhance visibility around Andretti’s efforts to remain on the cutting edge of innovation in INDYCAR® racing.
“Zapata AI has been a valuable innovation partner supporting our strategy and engineering teams in pursuit of winning more races, and they have added value on and off the track as we enter our third race season together,” said Michael Andretti, CEO and Chairman at Andretti Global. “Zapata AI’s generative AI and technical expertise has helped us unlock real-time race insights that we didn’t think were possible. We’re looking forward to building on the foundation we’ve laid together, and we’re proud to have them as our official AI and Quantum Partner. The results we’ve seen so far have been impressive and we’re only just getting started.”
The newly announced engagement includes Zapata AI building an AI-ready database application to manage and update dynamic records for all previous Andretti racing configurations for every driver, in every race, across all Andretti racing series from current and prior seasons, including INDYCAR®, INDY NXT, Formula E, Extreme E, IMSA Sportscar, Super Copa, and Supercars racing — in addition to supporting future, planned racing series. The innovative application will also inform Zapata AI models for other use cases the company is currently delivering for Andretti. The solution will provide Andretti race strategy and engineering teams with a detailed view and record of car performance in prior races and historical seasons, enabling the team to more efficiently optimize racing setups for future races.
“Every second counts in INDYCAR® racing,” said Eric Bretzman, Technical Director at Andretti Global. “The insights we’ve seen with Zapata AI’s solutions allow us to make strategic decisions in planning sessions and on race day, and we can adjust that strategy in real time as the data comes in and race conditions change. Not only are they exposing us to the latest techniques in generative AI, machine learning, and optimization, they’re helping us deploy them trackside in our mobile Race Analytics Command Center in a way that works efficiently with our racing team. It’s been powerful to see the Andretti team’s collective decades of racing experience validated and enhanced with the real-time applications we’re building together.”
“We’re proud to expand our long-term commitment in support of our strategic partners at Andretti Global, as they maintain their competitive edge on the track, and as they expand their global footprint into future racing series,” said Christopher Savoie, co-founder and CEO of Zapata AI. “The work we’re doing with Andretti is a clear demonstration of the impact Industrial Generative AI can deliver across industries. The same challenges and dynamics Andretti faces in applying generative AI, machine learning, and optimization to vast amounts of streaming, real-time data, in a dynamic environment, can be found in many other industries — from telecom to advanced manufacturing, to financial services, to transportation, logistics and defense. Our ongoing work with Andretti, whether it’s predicting yellow flags to modeling tire degradation or optimizing car set ups, are perfect analogous use cases in how Zapata AI leverages generative AI to accurately predict the future and enable better decision-making in real-time, even on the edge and in challenging industrial environments.”
Andretti and Zapata AI initially entered into a multi-year partnership in February 2022, including a brand sponsorship and a multi-million-dollar agreement to deploy and leverage Zapata AI’s platform, Orquestra®, in search of race day performance advantage driven by advanced analytics and quantum techniques. Specifically, the teams have built and deployed advanced ML models to better understand tire degradation analysis, identify fuel savings opportunities, lap time prediction, and provide yellow flag predictive modeling.
