You step off a train, leave a bus stop or park your car. Your destination is only a few hundred metres away, yet that final stretch often determines how you travel in the first place.

At Nexus Luxembourg 2026, that “last-mile challenge” emerged as a recurring theme in a discussion on autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and the future of mobility. Speakers from Ayvens, Ohmio, Shiftgears and Luxembourg’s Ministry of the Economy argued that solving those final metres could open new opportunities for mobility providers while changing how people move through cities.

A gap between transport and destination

For Director EMEA and Corporate Development at Ohmio, Joost Ortjens, that gap remains largely underserved. While cities have expanded shared bicycle and scooter services, he argued that these solutions do not meet every need.

“The missing link or the gap in the market was a kind of vehicle that can be used for the first mile, last mile, needs to be electric and it needs to be automated,” he said.

Ortjens pointed to older passengers, travellers carrying luggage and people transporting groceries as examples of users who may require alternatives to bikes and scooters. Ohmio develops autonomous electric vehicles designed to cover these short urban journeys.

The company continues to rely heavily on pilot projects before wider deployment. Ortjens said Ohmio offers short-term contracts that allow customers to test the technology while helping the company improve its products through real-world feedback.

Vehicles become software platforms

For Global Director Innovation Products and Consultancy at Ayvens, Amélie de Valroger, electrification and software-defined vehicles are driving changes across the automotive sector.

“We have reached almost 50% of our new deliveries are electric,” she said.

De Valroger described software-defined vehicles as cars that continue to receive updates after delivery, allowing manufacturers to improve features remotely throughout a vehicle’s lifetime.

She also outlined five priorities she believes Europe should address: defining a clear vision, investing to support that ambition, creating a flexible regulatory framework, improving access to mobility data, ensuring interoperability across the ecosystem and scaling solutions more rapidly. “We need to really test, to learn and to do things,” she said.

AI as support rather than replacement

Artificial intelligence is also changing how mobility companies interact with customers. For Founder and CEO of Shiftgears, Anton Abashkin, AI should complement human workers rather than replace them.

“We don’t replace the human,” he said. “It’s more about empowering people.” Abashkin explained how AI-powered assistants can respond to enquiries outside business hours and handle routine requests, allowing employees to focus on customer relationships and more complex interactions.

Preparing autonomous vehicles for public roads

For Director Automotive, Smart Mobility and Drones at Luxembourg’s Ministry of the Economy, Jean Schiltz, the next challenge is creating the conditions for autonomous vehicles to operate commercially.

“There is a national strategy that we published in October, and now a draft Bill of Law to allow for commercial deployments of automated vehicles,” he said.

Schiltz said Luxembourg aims to allow commercial deployments by the end of 2027 or the beginning of 2028. He also highlighted the need for cooperation between companies, researchers and public authorities, as well as compatibility with the wider European market.

Experimentation versus regulation

The discussion ended with a debate about the pace of innovation. When moderator Avanti Sharma asked whether the sector should embrace the mantra of “move fast and break things”, Abashkin drew a clear distinction between experimentation and safety. “Not when it concerns self-driving cars, for sure,” he laughed.

He nevertheless argued that companies need room to test new technologies and accept a degree of failure during the innovation process. “If we’re not willing to fail, we’ve lost it,” he said.

Several speakers called for faster experimentation, broader access to data and greater flexibility when deploying new mobility solutions. De Valroger summarised that message in her closing remarks: “We need to experiment fast and scale.”