SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly a year after accusing Uber of stealing its driverless car technology, Waymo agreed on Friday to settle a closely watched lawsuit filed against the ride-hailing company.

Now for Waymo, which grew out of Google’s seminal autonomous vehicle project and is nearly a decade into an effort that aims to change the very nature of transportation, a much bigger fight looms outside the courtroom.

Waymo’s competition extends well beyond Uber — and a good part of that competition is directed by engineers it used to employ. Much of the artificial intelligence technology that has come out of Waymo’s work and from research run by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is now available from other sources, making it easier for companies, even start-ups, to compete.

“Waymo may have a technical advantage,” said Jason Doran, who helped run the delivery service Sidecar and joined General Motors when the carmaker acquired the start-up. “But they have to figure out a business model.”