German car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz is integrating Google Cloud’s Automotive AI agent to “continue conversations and reference information” as a user drives. The new AI tool will rollout with the new Mercedes CLA, which has an improved MB.OS operating system and MBUX user experience platform for a more responsive experience.
Mercedes-Benz’s bigger bang for their MBUX
The latest AI-powered Mercedes CLA model was first announced at last year’s CES conference but the car maker didn’t specify which LLM it would be running on. The current MBUX Voice Assistant previously could only handle twenty commands using the “Hey Mercedes” trigger. Now the platform includes results provided by ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing, though it’s still not conversational. There’s also a plan to implement these results to improve older models that run the Voice Assistant system, but specific models remain unspecified.
MBUX is known to be one of the best voice models installed in any vehicle. The new MBUX Virtual Assistant has four personality traits: natural, predictive, personal, and empathetic. It’s also capable of asking more questions for further clarification.
Google’s Automotive AI agent is its AI model tailored for cars. The agent weaponises Google Maps data for “nearly real-time” Maps updates. The model can also give users points of interest, look up restaurant reviews, give recommendations, answer follow-up questions, and more. Google claims it can “handle complex, multi-turn dialogue.”
Automotive AI also (obviously) uses Google’s Gemini model and runs on the search company’s Vertex AI cloud platform, designed to help companies build AI experiences. “This is just the beginning of how agentic capabilities can transform the automotive industry,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
