The Waymo agents are constantly monitoring the fleet for exceptions. When an exception is raised, a human reviews the footage and the situation. They can send commands to the car and suggestions about which way to branch or a course of action to choose. So ultimately, it is the Waymo Driver doing the actual driving.
If a Waymo gets really jammed up, they can indeed send in a human driver, who will appear in person, disengage the Waymo Driver automation, and drive the car normally. This has happened to me only once in 3,000 miles. The Waymo Driver, in my experience, is pretty good about keeping passengers informed when it's a bit delayed or confused by a complex situation. And the CSR will call in if they need to.
But no, it is a misconception that people have: Waymos cannot be "driven remotely" by any means.
And yet?
A guy phoned into our waymo with a thick indian accent and told us to hold on just one moment and steered us around the obstacles and then let the waymo get back to it.
I know I'm just some person on the internet but this is what happened.
Edit: I think I was wrong and the parent comment is right, although this is indeed what it seemed like happened to me, that human on the other end of the line was most likely a member of Fleet Response. More details here: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
Also I was confused because now-a-days the word "agent" in my circles more often than not no longer refers to a human.
uhhh i've been in a situation where a remote human took over before
it's rare but it can happen (or at least it could 1.5 years ago-ish)
the specific situation was a tight alleyway with cars parked on either side and people doing things like opening car doors and crossing randomly. the waymo obviously wanted a much wider safety margin than what was available and stopped to wait for things to clear up. the remote human driver instead drove more aggressively towards the pedestrians so they would clear the road.