Volkswagen releases ChatGPT assistant in EVs and new Passat, Tiguan and Golf

Volkswagen announces the integration of a custom voice assistant based on ChatGPT for the European market at CES 2024. The custom IDA voice assistant will be released this spring for the new ID.7, ID.4, ID.5 and ID.3 EVs, and the Passat, Tiguan and Golf.

The German car manufacturer brings in collaboration with the Cerence Chat Pro software and OpenAI’s large language model ChatGPT, an upgrade for the existing IDA voice assistant. Volkswagen promises: “The smart assistant can enrich conversations, clarify questions, interact in natural language, and share vehicle-specific information.” Users must say the usual “Hello IDA” or press a button to activate the voice assistant.

Volkswagen states that the IDA assistant assesses orders based on priority and, depending on the request, carries out orders itself or uses ChatGPT. The question is then forwarded ‘anonymized’ to OpenAI.

The voice assistant is according to TechCrunch somewhat limited in its capabilities. Chatbot providers do this more often. In the case of the IDA assistant, for example, subjective questions about sensitive political topics and other car brands are not answered. General knowledge questions to which competitors are the answer will be answered.

Volkswagen is not the first to add ‘generative AI’ to voice assistants for cars. Mercedes announced ChatGPT functions via Azure OpenAI from Microsoft six months ago. TomTom has a similar system. During CES 2024, BMW announced a voice assistant based on Alexa.