We’re living in the end times, and that means Volkswagen announced Monday it is adding ChatGPT artificial intelligence to its cars – integrating the AI into the automaker’s IDA voice assistant.
Volkswagen made the announcement on the opening day of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The company says it’s the first volume manufacturer to offer ChatGPT as a standard feature starting in the second quarter of 2024. Here’s the catch though: it’s still up in the air whether or not it’ll come to the U.S.
VW says that “in the future” drivers will have “seamless access to the constantly growing artificial intelligence database in all Volkswagen models equipped with the IDA voice assistant.” Your car’s AI-powered assistant will apparently read researched content out loud to vehicle occupants as they drive. VW’s AI partner, Cerence, developed the Cerence Chat Pro engine that runs the chat program.
In other parts of the world that care less about distracted driving, the new chatbot will be offered in the VW ID.3, ID.4, ID.5, ID.7, Tiguan, Passat and Golf. The automaker says IDA voice can be used – for example – to control the infotainment, navigation and air conditioning. That’s all vaguely standard nowadays, however, VW says it will also be able to answer general knowledge questions. Looking ahead, Volkswagen has even bigger plans for what its ChatGPT software will be able to do:
In the future, AI will provide additional information in response to questions that go beyond this as part of its continuously expanding capabilities. This can be helpful on many levels during a car journey: Enriching conversations, clearing up questions, interacting in intuitive language, receiving vehicle-specific information, and much more—purely hands-free.
Volkswagen says that nothing significant will change for the driver. They won’t need to create an account, install an app or activate ChatGPT. Instead, it’ll be activated simply by saying “Hello IDA” or by pressing the button on the steering wheel.
Here’s how task requests will be divvied up between VW’s onboard voice assistant and ChatGPT:
IDA automatically prioritizes whether a vehicle function should be executed, a destination searched and the temperature adjusted. If the request cannot be answered by the Volkswagen system, it is forwarded anonymously to AI and the familiar Volkswagen voice responds.
For those of you who are worried about security, VW says ChatGPT will not gain any access to vehicle data, and questions and answers will be deleted immediately.
We’re in a new technological era – where just about every question can be answered without us having to Google a single thing – even if those answers are consistently wrong or misleading. Now, that function is making its way into cars. VW says the feature is still being “considered” for the U.S. market, but it’s just a matter of time before it gets here.