Michael Sonderby is bringing real autonomy to the field with SteerAI
Inside a research lab in Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute, engineers had developed advanced autonomous driving capabilities over several years. The technology was sophisticated. The algorithms were proven. The AI stack was capable. But capability alone does not define a company. Direction does.
“I had the privilege of working with VentureOne and the TII leadership on the very first instances where this was a technology in a research lab, to understand what’s possible to do with it,” says Michael Sonderby, Acting CEO of SteerAI.
That early phase was less about product and more about positioning. Where could this autonomy stack create genuine industrial value? Which sectors would move fastest? And how could it be commercialised without diluting its technical strength? Nearly two years later, the answers are far clearer.
A commercial venture in the making
SteerAI was founded by VentureOne, the Advanced Technology Research Council’s venture builder, offers off-road autonomous technology solutions. The transition from research to revenue is rarely straightforward. Deep tech often struggles at the point where prototypes must meet procurement frameworks, operational constraints, and industrial scale.
For Sonderby, the turning point came when the company narrowed its focus. “Over the last year and a half, we’ve got a lot clearer what we want to focus on. What we’re good at, what we’re not,” he explains.
Rather than compete in crowded urban mobility or consumer-facing autonomy markets, SteerAI chose a more deliberate path. It chose unmapped terrain. It chose industrial and defence. And it chose to be software first. “We don’t want to and never want to be an OEM,” Sonderby says. “We wanted to focus on the software.” That decision would define everything that followed.
A sharpened strategic focus
In its early roadmap, SteerAI considered both on-road and off-road capabilities. But market engagement revealed a powerful opportunity in environments that traditional autonomy players often overlook.
“We’re looking at off-road logistics, unmapped terrain. Industrial, of course, but defence is going to be a key focus for us,” Sonderby says.
The Gulf region presents unique conditions. Expansive industrial zones. Energy infrastructure spread across desert corridors. Defence applications that demand reliability beyond paved roads. And environments where GPS signals, terrain mapping, and environmental conditions can shift rapidly.
These are not environments optimised for Silicon Valley mobility models. They require ruggedised autonomy built for sand, heat, rock and unpredictability. That is where SteerAI’s CoreX autonomy stack comes in.
CoreX and the industrialisation of autonomy
CoreX is SteerAI’s AI-powered autonomous driving system. It integrates navigation, perception, localisation, and decision-making technologies specifically designed for complex off-road conditions. Over the past year, the company has completed multiple proof-of-concept projects .
“Our CoreX software is very close to full industrialisation standard,” Sonderby says. Industrialisation is a critical distinction. Many autonomy solutions demonstrate capability in controlled environments. Few reach the level of robustness required for sustained fleet deployment in defence and heavy industry.
SteerAI’s approach addresses this through two commercial pathways. The first is retrofit. Existing fleets with remaining operational lifespans can be upgraded to autonomy. “If you are looking to extend the lifetime of your vehicles and improve your ROI, you can invest in retrofitting them with our CoreX technology,” Sonderby explains. The second pathway is production level integration. “We’re now being asked to also participate as a technology provider for the OEMs. Essentially integrating at the production level,” he says.
This means autonomy can be embedded at the manufacturing stage, eliminating the need for future retrofitting and accelerating scale. For fleet operators in construction, energy, mining and defence, that flexibility is strategically valuable.
Solving real operational constraints
Autonomy is often framed as a future technology. In heavy industry, it is increasingly a response to present challenges. “What they’re looking for particularly in this region is the ability to operate much more efficiently at scale,” Sonderby says.
One of the most overlooked issues in industrial mobility is driver scarcity, particularly for specialised vehicles operating in remote or hazardous environments. “You can have one driver to ten, fifteen, twenty vehicles,” he explains. By shifting from one-to-one vehicle operation to supervisory fleet models, operators can dramatically increase utilisation rates and reduce bottlenecks.
There is also a safety imperative. “If you’re moving dangerous goods, doing it with autonomy is much, much cheaper and much more effective,” Sonderby says. In defence logistics or high-risk industrial scenarios, removing personnel from exposure zones is not simply a cost optimisation. It is a strategic risk mitigation measure.
The power of orchestration
Beyond vehicle-level autonomy, SteerAI has built CoreConnect, a fleet management system designed as an orchestration layer. “Think of it as an orchestration layer,” Sonderby explains.
CoreConnect enables advanced mission planning, deployment and real-time monitoring across multiple autonomous assets. Ground vehicles, aerial drones and other robotic platforms can be integrated into a single command architecture.
Importantly, SteerAI does not build drone autonomy stacks. Instead, it provides the fleet-level control layer that integrates third-party systems. For large-scale industrial or defence operators, this platform-agnostic flexibility reduces vendor lock-in and enables mixed-fleet optimisation. Autonomy, in this model, is not about replacing one vehicle. It is about redesigning how fleets are coordinated.
The UAE advantage
While autonomy is a global race, Sonderby believes the UAE offers unique structural advantages. “The technology development is at par with what goes on anywhere else in the world,” he says. “What really allows us to move very quickly is how quickly we can test it, the access we get to customers, and the ability to quickly ensure that we get funding to support that growth.”
Within the ATRC ecosystem, SteerAI benefits from adjacent expertise in secure communications, advanced sensors and defence-grade technologies. “If we need a tethered drone, if we need secure comms, if we want to work with directed energy payloads, we have colleagues who we can literally just tap on the shoulder,” Sonderby explains.
That proximity accelerates development cycles that might otherwise take years in fragmented ecosystems. For those operating across the Gulf’s infrastructure and heavy industrial sectors, that ecosystem alignment is significant. It means autonomy solutions are being designed locally for local terrain and operational realities.
Autonomy made physical
All of this strategic refinement culminated at UMEX 2026 with the unveiling of xRift. Unlike conventional off-road vehicles, xRift replaces the passenger cab with a flat utility deck capable of carrying up to 500 kg of payload. The platform can be configured for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, weapons systems, or supply transport.
“xRift represents a new generation of high-performance autonomous off-road solution that is reliable, scalable, and customizable to end users’ exact operational needs,” Sonderby said at launch. Technically, it is engineered for endurance. Measuring 4,200 by 1,880 by 1,400 mm, weighing 1,350 kg, delivering 225 horsepower and a maximum unmanned speed of 50 km per hour, it is built for desert resilience.
More importantly, it embodies SteerAI’s philosophy. “It’s a payload agnostic platform,” Sonderby explains. The vehicle is not the business model. It demonstrates what CoreX can enable when hardware and software are integrated effectively. Production units are expected to be ready for deployment by the end of 2026
Focused growth, not distraction
Despite its technological breadth, SteerAI remains disciplined. “We don’t want to go and do forklifts. We don’t want to do new on-road capabilities in the short term because that would just deter us from focusing on what we have as a strength,” Sonderby says.
The company’s immediate objective is scale within off-road logistics and defence, targeting large fleet deployments measured in the hundreds rather than experimental pilots. Looking three to five years ahead, road expansion may follow. But only once the off-road domain is fully industrialised.
For Sonderby, the appeal of leading SteerAI lies in building through stages. “Very often, it’s in the beginning, making sure you’re focusing on the right space, getting the right strategy in place. And seldomly, you get to actually be part of a team that then builds the product, scales with the customers, and you start to see the revenues coming in,” he says.
That inflexion point is approaching. “It’s still probably another six to nine months before we begin to see the real big steps taken, but I think we’ve built the right foundations for it to happen,” he says. Those foundations now include industrial-grade autonomy software, OEM production pathways, a rugged autonomous platform, and an ecosystem that can accelerate deployment.
In heavy industry and defence, autonomy is becoming a procurement decision. The question is no longer whether autonomy will arrive, but how quickly it will integrate into fleet operations. SteerAI is betting that the first true scaling opportunity lies not on highways, but off them. In sand, rock and remote corridors where human risk is high and operational efficiency matters most.