Ford has admitted it leaned too heavily on artificial intelligence to police the quality of its vehicles, and spent the past three years hiring 350 veteran engineers to repair the damage.
The payoff landed this week. Ford ranked as the highest mainstream brand in the 2026 JD Power U.S. Initial Quality Study, released on 25 June, its first time atop that table in 16 years. The carmaker scored 152 problems per 100 vehicles, down from 193 a year earlier. That 41-point fall amounts to a reduction of roughly 21 per cent, the largest single-year improvement of any mass-market brand in the study.
