OTA, API, KMP, The Alphabet Of Innovation With Automotive Technologist Ronak Kosamia

Vehicles are no longer static machines. They’re evolving digital platforms that demand agility, personalization, and real-time responsiveness. Key to this improvement is the increasing demand for over-the-air (OTA) updates, cross-platform development, and seamless integration between cloud, mobile, and embedded systems. Ronak Kosamia has played a significant role in this evolving landscape, whose work has accelerated innovation across global automotive companies like General Motors and Volkswagen CARIAD.

Over the last several years, Ronak Kosamia has gained recognition as a key architect and technical strategist, contributing to the development of major software systems that support today’s connected vehicles. “I’ve always believed modularity is the future,” he notes. “If we can decouple logic from hardware and design from brand identity, we can deliver experiences that evolve with the driver.” That belief has led to substantial engineering achievements. At General Motors, he introduced a dynamic subscription and OTA personalization system that helped open a significant revenue channel. At CARIAD, he led the adoption of Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) in production environments, reducing feature development time by 40% across brands like Audi and Škoda.

Kosamia’s work has gained recognition for its technical depth and cross-platform vision. From developing composable UI toolkits with real-time OTA injection to integrating gRPC and REST-based APIs for telemetry, his systems now support millions of vehicle-to-cloud interactions. The OTA Runtime Config Layer, deployed at both GM and CARIAD, allowed for dynamic updates of in-vehicle behavior, toggling features based on VIN-specific configurations without needing a full rebuild. “This alone cut our feature rollout time by 60%,” he explains, “and gave us the confidence to treat software like a service, even in safety-critical environments.”

One of the key achievements is the development of cross-platform SDKs for navigation, climate control, and personalization, each shared across Android Automotive OS and mobile apps using KMP. This unified codebase slashed redundant development efforts and enabled consistent user experiences regardless of screen size or hardware constraints. His architecture for event-driven API systems, featuring traceable tokenized sessions, has increased diagnostic accuracy by 50%, enabling engineers to debug complex vehicle states through deep-linked logs.

His work goes beyond technical implementation. His peer-reviewed publications, including Driving Innovation: A Guide to Automotive Software Development and Plugin-Based Navigation Architecture for Multi-Brand Systems, served as guiding frameworks for modern automotive software teams. In Dynamic Overlay Systems for Real-Time Infotainment Personalization, he explores runtime APIs that allow infotainment layouts to adapt based on driver preferences, regulatory needs, or regional branding, advancing the concept of UX-as-a-service for connected vehicles.

One of the major issues Kosamia addressed was enabling OTA-driven full-screen changes without compromising system reliability. His solution was a runtime controller that rendered overlays on base screens using compositional layering, allowing content to be safely injected into live UIs. Bridging disparate protocol standards between cloud, mobile, and embedded systems was another issue, addressed through a schema evolution guideline and abstraction layers using Protobufs and gRPC. To support multi-region configurations without code duplication, he devised modular KMP targets capable of region-specific injection, ensuring that updates remain lightweight and brand-consistent.

Ronak’s work also extend to operational excellence. With automated CI/CD pipelines using Fastlane, GitHub Actions, and GCP, he ensured zero-downtime rollouts and stable API compatibility across evolving platforms. Reuse of payload models accelerated integration velocity threefold, while preemptive trace logging reduced hotfixes by 50%—showing a deep focus on maintainability and scalability.

Looking forward, Kosamia envisions a world where the car isn’t just a machine, but a living platform: “OTA should power everything from subscription logic to UI flow to sensor-driven layout shifts,” he says. “The platforms that win will be the ones that can personalize in real time, per user, per region, per intent.” His roadmap focuses on architecting systems that evolve post-deployment, learn user behavior, and adapt to an ever-shifting landscape of regulation and experience design.

In an industry racing toward software-defined vehicles, Ronak Kosamia’s work stands out for both its technical ingenuity and clarity of vision. His systems are already inside millions of vehicles. More importantly, they are helping redefine how those cars operate, learn, and support the people who drive them.

About Ronak Kosamia: 

Ronak Kosamia is an automotive software architect driving the evolution of connected vehicles through over-the-air (OTA) updates, cross-platform development, and real-time personalization. With leadership roles at General Motors and Volkswagen CARIAD, he has implemented systems that reduced feature rollout times by 60% and enabled unified user experiences across platforms using Kotlin Multiplatform. His innovations in dynamic UI overlays, gRPC integrations, and event-driven APIs power millions of vehicle-to-cloud interactions. A published thought leader and operational strategist, Kosamia promotes modular, adaptive architectures that view vehicles as evolving digital platforms—contributing to the development of mobility through scalable, intelligent, and personalized software systems.