Mercedes will incorporate ChatGPT into its cars as a voice assistant. Owners can ‘issue natural voice commands’ and ‘conversate’ with the AI. The introduction starts with an optional beta program.
That science program will start in the United States, where Mercedes says 900,000 cars will be compatible with the system. These are cars equipped with the Mercedes-Benz User Experience system; that system has existed since 2018. That beta starts on June 16 and should last three months. The final release date of the feature has not yet been determined.
The AI in the cars must be able to ‘answer questions about the destination, suggest a dinner recipe or answer a complex question’. It is expected that ChatGPT in Mercedes cars will be able to answer the same questions as ChatGPT at OpenAI itself. However, it is not known which model will be used by the automaker.
The AI does its calculations in the cloud and uses Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service. Mercedes states that the voice command data is stored in the ‘Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Cloud’ and is not shared with third parties. It is also anonymized before being analyzed. The announcement contains a complete overview of which models are eligible for the test.
Automaker General Motors said it was also exploring such steps. However, this company has not taken any concrete steps in this regard to date.
The Mercedes-Benz C118 is one of the models that can access the ChatGPT beta in the US.