VW vehicles to converse with drivers via ChatGPT by mid-year (updated)

Cerence

08/01/2024 18:55

(Recasts with detail from press conference on features, future
plans)
    By Abhirup Roy
       LAS VEGAS, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Volkswagen's  VOWG_p.DE 
voice assistant integrating ChatGPT into its cars will be able
to converse with users in a back-and-forth dialogue by the
middle of the year, the carmaker said on Monday as it presented
the technology in Las Vegas.
    Volkswagen presented its first vehicles featuring ChatGPT,
to be available for customers in North America and Europe from
early in the second quarter of this year, at the CES electronics
trade fair.
    From raising the temperature when it hears "I'm feeling
cold" to showing the nearest Indian restaurant upon hearing "I
want butter chicken", the AI can recognise and respond to a
range of demands, according to executives from Volkswagen and
Cerence  CRNC.O , who partnered with Volkswagen on the
technology.
    Customers can now adjust functionalities from their vehicle
without touching a button, Kai Gruenitz, the Volkswagen brand's
board member for technical development, told Reuters on the
sidelines of the CES trade fair.
    "Our customers don't want to manually adjust their seats ...
they want to use speech dialogue systems," he said.
    Volkswagen said it was the first volume manufacturer to make
the technology a standard feature in its compact segment cars.
General Motors said last March it was working on a virtual
personal assistant using AI models behind ChatGPT.
    Mercedes-Benz ran a test programme last June enabling around
900,000 vehicles which had the automaker's "MBUX" system to
download ChatGPT, with the view of users eventually being able
to carry out tasks like making movie or restaurant reservations
from behind the wheel.

 (Reporting by Abhirup Roy in Las Vegas, Writing by Victoria
Waldersee in Berlin, Abhirup Roy; Editing by Rachel More and
Jonathan Oatis)
 ((Victoria.Waldersee@thomsonreuters.com;))