The modern car has a problem. Not with electrification. Not with automation. Not with navigation. Not even with connectivity. It’s deeper than any one feature alone. The modern car has a problem with comparison.

AI is no longer only about assistants, it’s starting to reason, decide, and in some cases, take action. Though it can process enormous amounts of data and create multi-step workflows, its decisions are only as correct as its understanding of the real world. It needs constant, accurate and reliable access to reality, as it happens. This connection to the real world makes or breaks the efficacy of AI for businesses. Context is crucial and TomTom’s location intelligence provides it.

Major events probably bring to mind packed stadiums, flooded fan zones and busy streets. But while all eyes are on the event, transportation professionals are watching the roads. For them, event traffic is the main event — the biggest real-world stress test of the city’s mobility network. Whether it's a World Cup, Olympic Games, music festival or a large cultural event, these moments put extraordinary pressure on a city’s entire mobility system. They concentrate demand in specific places and at specific times, creating conditions that reveal the weak spots where the cascade of dreadlock begins. And in doing so, they often uncover opportunities for improvement that are harder to spot during everyday operations, but can have a lasting positive impact if improved.

The software-defined era is reaching an inflection point. Today’s strategies will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s AI-defined vehicles — meaning that carmakers now face a critical decision: what do you build yourself, and what do you build on top of?

The business of insurance is a business of balance. If insurers price policies too high, they risk losing customers. At the same time, if policies are priced too low, losses pile up and profitability suffers. How do insurers strike the right balance?

Today’s cars are shaped by disruption. They are defined less by what sits under the hood and more by the software that shapes the experience behind the wheel. As AI, electrification, connected services and driver expectations advance, carmakers face a new challenge: how to build vehicles resilient to change and that keep improving long after they leave the factory.

When public agencies or insurance businesses choose traffic data on price alone, the real cost isn’t just what shows up in the procurement line, it’s what shows up in the decisions that follow.

As the Football World Championship 2026 nears its end, its impact extends far beyond the stadium. New TomTom traffic data reveals rising congestion at several key U.S.–Mexico land border crossings, highlighting how a global sporting event can reshape mobility patterns across an entire region. Using proprietary traffic data from six major gateways — Calexico, Otay Mesa, San Ysidro, Santa Teresa, El Paso and Laredo — we compared conditions during the opening weeks of the tournament with the same period in 2025 to identify how cross-border travel behavior changed as fans, teams and tournament-related activity.

It's hard to predict what will happen inside MetLife Stadium on July 19. But with the right data, predicting what happens on the roads outside is a different story. By analyzing traffic conditions during the seven Football World Cup matches played at MetLife Stadium so far, TomTom has identified three patterns likely to shape the day of the Final.

Insurance is a business built on risk, probability and trust. From underwriting policies to validating claims, auto and property insurers rely on accurate information to assess risk exposure and make fair decisions. Yet in an increasingly connected and fast-moving world, traditional data sources alone are no longer enough. As insurers face growing pressure to reduce fraud, improve operational efficiency and deliver more personalized pricing, the industry is turning to richer, real-time data sources to gain deeper insight into risk.

Hosting big events like a soccer world cup or a major music festival is a huge undertaking for any city or state. Thousands arrive, moving between airports, hotels, stadiums and tourist hotspots — changing the typical traffic patterns. Fans, VIPs, officials, and emergency services all have different priorities and need to move between different locations, while making sure residents’ daily lives aren’t disrupted.

The automotive world doesn’t slow down. The technology shaping and driving the industry is ushering evolution after evolution. Vehicle software is levelling up, bringing us cars with machine learning, end-to-end perception models and more intelligent in-cabin technology. This is the dawn of the AI-defined vehicle.

When maps can provide trusted and verified ground truth across entire continents, why wouldn't you use one as part of your automated driving software stack?

Transport networks are the complex circulatory systems of our cities, states and countries. When working well, they enable the economy, social connection and the movement of goods and services. But when a sudden disruption hits, whether it’s a flash flood, major event or infrastructure failure, these same systems can rapidly become a source of difficulty. Congestion escalates as mobility becomes most urgent, freight delays spread across supply chains and emergency vehicles struggle to reach people who need help most.

Transportation gives our cities life, enabling people and goods to flow through increasingly complex urban environments. But in the past decade, congestion has intensified across the United States. It’s getting harder to predict and more expensive to leave unchecked. At the same time, cities, governments and planners now have access to smarter, data-driven tools to manage today’s rising mobility challenges.

For more than 15 years, the TomTom Traffic Index has monitored the health of our roads, capturing its minute-by-minute pulse to assemble a year-long overview of how vehicles have moved through hundreds of our world’s major cities. This year’s edition tells a painfully familiar story. As cities grow and journeys multiply, the challenge of managing city road networks continues to loom over municipalities, town planners and transit authorities. The Traffic Index confirms that keeping traffic moving has never been more difficult. How can we keep tackling such a challenge? With data, lots of data.