General Motors will add a conversational AI assistant powered by Google Gemini to its cars, trucks, and SUVs starting next year, the U.S. automaker said Wednesday during an event in New York City.ย
The Google Gemini rollout is one of several tech-centric announcements made at the automakerโs GM Forward event, and it will be one of the first to get into consumersโ hands. Others, including an overhaul of its electrical architecture and computing platform and an automated driving feature that allows drivers to keep their hands off the wheel and eyes off the road, arenโt coming to GM brands until 2028.
GM is the latest automaker to lean into generative AI-based assistants that promise to respond to driver requests in a more natural-sounding way. Stellantis is collaborating with French AI firm Mistral, Mercedes is integrating ChatGPT, and Tesla has brought xAIโs Grok to its vehicles. ย
GMโs integration with Gemini is the next logical step for the automaker. Vehicles produced by GM brands Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC already have โGoogle built-in,โ an operating system that gives drivers access to Google Assistant, Google Maps, and other apps directly from the carโs infotainment screen. In 2023, Google began using Google Cloudโs Dialogflow chatbot to handle non-emergency OnStar features, including common driver queries like routing and navigation assistance.ย
GMโs Gemini-powered AI assistant will have similar levels of capability โ itโll just perform better, according to Dave Richardson, senior vice president of software and services.
โOne of the challenges with current voice assistants is that, if youโve used the, youโve probably also been frustrated by them because theyโre trained on certain code words or they donโt understand accents very well or if you donโt say it quite right, you donโt get the right response,โ Richardson told TechCrunch. โWhatโs great about large language models is they donโt seem to be affected by that. They have context about previous conversations that they can bring up. Theyโre flexible in how you speak to themโฆso overall youโre getting a better, more natural experience.โ
That might make drafting and sending messages, planning routes with additional stops (like a charging station or a favorite coffee shop), or even prepping for a meeting on the go, a more pain-free experience. The assistant will also have access to the web to be able to answer certain questions, like โWhatโs the history of this bridge Iโm driving over?โ
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The Gemini assistant will be made available to via the Play Store as an over-the-air upgrade to OnStar-equipped vehicles, model year 2015 and above.
GMโs new voice assistant is a step towards the automakerโs goal of developing its own custom-built AI that connects to your vehicleโs systems through OnStar, GMโs in-car concierge. The way GM executives described the technology at the NYC event, it seems like a mix of a health wearable and an AI pendant, but for your car.
The assistant promises to access vehicle data to provide maintenance alerts and route suggestions, explain car features like one-pedal driving, and turn your heat or air conditioning on before you enter the vehicle.
โThe idea here is you take [an existing] large language model, and you train it and refine it on a specific domain,โ Richardson said. โWeโll take a base model and train it on the vehicleโs specifications, distill that down, and have that running on the vehicle.โ
While GM has a close relationship with Google and will already be implementing Gemini into certain vehicles, Richardson said GM plans to test several foundational models from other AI firms, which could include OpenAI, Anthropic, and others.
Richardson said drivers will be able to control what information the assistant can access and use, and it can learn from your habits to offer personalized recommendations.ย GMโs emphasis on user controls is notable given the companyโs recent controversy over selling customer driving and geolocation data to insurance brokers.ย
Richardson said any data GM gets from drivers goes directly towards improving the product and wonโt be sold to bring in additional revenue for the automaker. Over the last nearly two years, GM has brought on a new data team โ including Christina Montgomery, who spent 30 years as IBMโs chief privacy and trust officer โ to put standard processes and data governance technology in place.
โEverything that weโre going to do is going to be driven by customer consent, so you can always opt in or opt out,โ he said. โOur viewpoint is that data and privacy has to be built into everything that we do.โ
This article has been updated with comments from Dave Richardson.
