Global car manufacturer Volkswagen (VW) has announced plans to integrate ChatGPT into its IDA voice assistant. starting from the second quarter of 2024.
The announcement was made at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024, held in Las Vegas this week.
Powered by Cerence Chat Pro technology from VW’s partner Cerence, the new feature will be integrated in all VW models equipped with the IDA voice assistant including the new Tiguan, Passat and Golf models.
“Thanks to the integration of ChatGPT and collaboration with our partner, Cerence, we are offering our drivers direct access to the AI-based research tool,” says Kai Grünitz, Volkswagen’s Brand Board member for technical development.
In a statement, VW says that the new generative AI-powered feature will allow users to ask about news, traffic updates, points of interest, and even have casual conversations with the car, using ChatGPT’s language processing capabilities.
Concerns about trusting AI-based technology have been a significant discussion point, with some expressing reservations over potential privacy breaches, factual inaccuracies, and the absence of genuine human interaction.
To address these concerns, VW assures users that ChatGPT does not gain access to any vehicle data and questions and answers are promptly deleted to ensure data protection.
Security measures are facilitated by Cerence. The US-based company developed the technology that powers VW’s current voice assistant IDA and the technology needed to integrate ChatGPT into IDA. VW directly partnered with OpenAI for ChatGPT access.
The new feature is set to be available to customers in North America and Europe from early in the second quarter of this year.
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