Will.i.am unveils three-wheeled EV with AI assistant
Musician and entrepreneur Will.i.am has entered the micro-mobility space with his new company Trinity, revealing a AI-equipped, single-passenger vehicle designed as "brains on wheels".
Shown as a prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, the Trinity vehicle is electric and designed for urban travel, with a three-wheeled, self-balancing design that, according to the company, combines the agility of a motorbike with the stability of a car.
The microcar integrates artificial intelligence, although not for driving, which is firmly non-autonomous.
Instead, the conversational AI is for everything else a person may want while on the road, from sending messages and setting reminders to finding parking near the destination, answering questions about passing landmarks and even dynamically adjusting the playlist to the speed of the drive.
It is intended to be agentic, meaning it can proactively make decisions and execute tasks over multiple steps, such as the command: "find parking near this meeting, text them my ETA and log the mileage for expenses".
"Trinity is for people who still love driving but want software and AI to handle the mental load around the drive – planning, coordinating, remembering and connecting," said William Adams, better known by his stage name Will.i.am.
In an interview with Dezeen, Adams explained that the company put AI at the heart of the project.
"Most vehicles are designed from the mechanical platform outward – chassis, engine or battery, then software added on top," he said.
"Trinity started from a different question: What if the agent – a smart, conversational operator that understands your goals – was the centre of the whole experience?"
The vehicle's hardware, sensors and user interface were built around giving the agent rich context and clear ways to help.
This includes multiple cameras, allowing the AI to "see" objects such as cars, bikes, pedestrians, traffic lights, storefronts and signs and use that situational awareness for alerts, routing and context‑aware actions.
"This is more useful than a phone or wearable assistant because the agent is embedded in the thing that moves you," Adams said. "It knows your speed, direction, trip state, cabin conditions, and real‑time surroundings through its own sensors."
"Phones are guests in that experience; Trinity's agent is the host that sees, reasons and acts continuously from door‑to‑door."
The biggest improvements over time would come from agent and workflow upgrades rather than changes to the hardware, Adams said.
"That's desirable because the car can keep getting smarter and more personally useful – new tools, new automations, deeper integration into your life – while still preserving the joy of actually driving," he said.
Despite being most well-known as the frontman of the music group Black Eyed Peas, Adams has a long track record of involvement in design and technology, which has included launching several products, founding the tech company i.am+ and teaching an upcoming class on agentic AI at Arizona State University.
For Trinity, he has worked with chip maker Nvidia for the graphics processing unit (GPU) powering the AI, car modification company West Coast Customs for the design and build, and technology company DEKA Research & Development, which provided self-balancing and robotics expertise honed on its work with Segway.
All of the companies are American, and Trinity also intends to manufacture in the US, in the working-class Los Angeles neighbourhood of Boyle Heights, where Will.i.am grew up and which he has often targeted for technology initiatives through his i.am Angel Foundation.
The microcar features a slim body and an arched roofline, with a profile that resembles a covered motorcycle. Its cabin is weatherproof and climate-controlled, and the audio setup will apparently be studio-grade.
Trinity is engineered to have a range of approximately 150 miles, a top speed of 120 miles per hour and acceleration of zero to 60 miles per hour in under two seconds.
The company is planning an initial limited-edition production run of 500 units, with first deliveries targeted for August 2027.
Adams said he encourages people to embrace micromobility as an alternative to the "huge vehicles that clog streets and burn energy".
"Micromobility right‑sizes the vehicle to the trip," he said. "Ten years from now, I see fewer two‑ton SUVs carrying one person a few miles, and more compact, electric, hyper‑connected vehicles like Trinity: smaller footprint, easier to park, faster to charge and networked with each other and the city."
"Streets become more human‑scale, with less congestion and more intelligent coordination between people, vehicles and infrastructure," he added.
Some of Will.i.am's past technology and vehicle designs include the wearables Puls and Dial, the i.am+ Buttons headphones and the Ekocycle recycled folding bicycle.
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