Volkswagen is bringing ChatGPT to its vehicles so that you can ask your car to do things

Volkswagen is set to integrate OpenAI's ChatGPT in its cars by Q2 2024, marking the first time this generative AI tool is used in vehicles.

In Short

• Volkswagen announced at CES 2024 that it will install OpenAI's ChatGPT in its cars by Q2 2024.
• Initially, the AI-powered vehicles will be launched in Europe and the US, with plans for the Indian market yet to be revealed.
• The integration of ChatGPT into Volkswagen's IDA in-car voice assistant aims to enable more natural conversations between the driver and the car.

Generative AI tools will soon be available in your cars! At CES 2024, Volkswagen jumped on the generative AI bandwagon and announced that by the second quarter of 2024, it will install the popular OpenAI ChatGPT in its cars. Now, Volkswagen is surely not the first company to announce installing gen AI tools in its cars. However, it’s certainly the first to adopt ChatGPT in vehicles. Volkswagen announced that the chatbot will be available in models like the Tiguan, Passat and Golf.

Do note though, that initially, the ChatGPT-powered vehicles will only come to the European market and then eventually the US. But the company hasn’t yet revealed its plans for the Indian market. However, the reason that this news holds importance for the Indian audience is because, one, it's quite likely that the ChatGPT-powered Volkswagen cars may soon come to India too, and two, with one brand adopting a technology that is so hot in the market right now, there is always a probability that you will see its competitors trying to do the same as quickly as possible.

As per Volkswagen’s announcement at CES 2024, the company will be integrating ChatGPT into its own IDA in-car voice assistant so that the conversations between a driver and the car are more natural. The integration will apparently allow users to ask the car to perform tasks like switch the AC on or off, or even “general knowledge questions”, claims Volkswagen.

To maintain privacy, Volkswagen says that any query and answers between the driver and the chatbot will be “deleted immediately to ensure the highest possible level of data protection”, as reported by The Verge. There will be a wake work to activate the chatbot and there will also be a button on the steering wheel to trigger it.

At this point, this is an interesting development with in-car entertainment and in-car operations getting smarter with generative AI integration. If we go to a slightly more hypothetical plane, it sounds even better if you imagine the Xiaomi SU7 EV, running on HyperOS, an operating system that you also have on your phone and laptops, and then using a chatbot-like ChatGPT in your car that can possibly also access information for you from other devices –– and all of this hands-free.

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While all of this will take a while before being actually available, especially in a country like India, where there will always be the issue of language barrier with a voice activated chatbot like this in the car, however, it is always good to keep in mind that chatbot like ChatGPT often hallucinate information. So when you ask questions pertaining to general knowledge, for instance, always proceed with caution.

Published By:
Nandini Yadav
Published On:
Jan 9, 2024