Disney Testing AI-Powered 'Cars'-Themed Parking Assistants

Your next trip to Disneyland may look a little different. The Walt Disney Company has revealed it is testing AI-powered robot assistants that will help drivers find a parking space at the company's crowded resorts. Finding a convenient parking space at a Disneyland resort can be stressful for even the most patient drivers, so these robots could be a godsend. How Disney plans to protect them from rogue drivers remains to be seen.

These robots — inspired by "Cars" and "Wall-E" characters — were previewed during the recent Disney Accelerator Demo Day. They are being tested in partnership with Field AI, a robotics firm founded in 2023 with former staff from Google's DeepMind, NASA, Nvidia, Tesla, and others. While a lot of focus in the robotics field is on advanced humanoid robots similar to those from Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and several Chinese firms, these parking assistants haven't been designed to look like a person.

Instead, one of the small robots previewed is a tiny four-wheeler not dissimilar to some of the self-driving food delivery robots used in the U.S. One of these robots was shown painted bright orange and with bright yellow accents to mimic a fluorescent vest. It then includes a large screen in place of a traditional windshield, complete with eyes that move and active eyelids, just like the beloved characters from "Cars."

Positioned atop of the autonomous robot's roof is a changing sign that points drivers in the direction of a parking space. Additionally, the robot includes two small arms with red lights to also guide drivers, much like an aircraft marshaller. The robots look very cute, but we suspect they're also very expensive. With stressed parents trying to park and excitable kids in the backseat, we suspect more than a few of these parking assistant robots could be hit, either accidentally or intentionally.

Disney hasn't provided any timeline as to when these robotic parking assistants could be deployed, nor has it guaranteed that they will indeed be deployed at Disneyland locations. While they may be less prone to errors than human parking assistants, the initial outlay on them won't come cheap. We'd hate to think how much the cost of these robots will add to the prices of Disney's already-ballooning admission rates — the average cost for a family of four to get into the park costs between $476 and $836.