On January 7, 2026, Mobileye, an Israeli company specializing in autonomous driving technology, made a big splash by announcing a definitive agreement to acquire the AI startup Mentee Robotics. The total deal value clocks in at around $900 million. This hefty sum is a combination of $612 million in cold, hard cash and up to 26.2 million shares of Mobileye's Class A common stock. This move didn't just happen out of the blue. It was proposed by a strategic transaction committee. This committee was made up of independent directors and Mobileye's largest shareholder, Intel. And it didn't stop there; the acquisition also got the green light from Mobileye's board of directors. Mark your calendars because the transaction is expected to wrap up in the first quarter of 2026. Once the deal is done, Mentee won't just disappear into the abyss. Instead, it'll operate as an independent business unit under the Mobileye umbrella. Its main focus? Developing physical artificial intelligence. The grand vision here is to bring together the core technologies of both companies. By doing so, they aim to create the next generation of humanoid robots. These robots will have superior environmental perception and better human - interaction capabilities. Mobileye's founder and CEO, Amnon Shashua, didn't mince words. He said that this acquisition is the starting point of the Mobileye 3.0 era. It's set to propel joint progress in the realms of robotics and automotive AI.