Mercedes Benz brings Chat GPT to the car

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently in the public eye like no other technology: Ever since the technology group OpenAI presented the speech- and text-based chatbot ChatGPT (Chatbot Generative Pre-trained Transformer) to the public for the first time in late November 2022, there has been no getting around OpenAi's adaptive language model. The company also partnered with Microsoft earlier this year to integrate Chat GPT into its Bing search engine.

Designed to have human-like conversations based on text input or voice queries, ChatGPT can easily explain complicated issues, write poems, messages or short texts. ChatGPT has been trained on millions of texts from the web, social media, online forums, newspaper articles and books.

Mercedes-Benz has now announced that it is exploring the applicability of the ChatGPT AI system in its vehicles and has begun integrating it into selected models. However, it will not yet be available in all vehicles. For example, only models equipped with the MBUX infotainment system will be eligible. This offer is also limited to the USA for the time being. Here, more than 900,000 vehicle owners from 27 model series can voluntarily participate in a beta test phase that is expected to last three months. In the first phase, the application will be integrated into the MBUX infotainment system over-the-air using Microsoft's Azure Open-AI service. To participate in the beta program, drivers simply need to say, "Hey Mercedes, I want to participate in the beta program."

ChatGPT will then not only execute specific voice commands for the vehicle, but also engage in conversations with the driver. In the future, the intelligent voice assistant will tell the driver interesting facts about the destination or answer questions about the destination. An important safety aspect is that all information will be spoken by the vehicle, allowing the driver to concentrate on the road and keep his hands on the wheel.

In doing so, Mercedes is tapping into a trend that has grown massively in the automotive sector in recent years. Whether it's Amazon's Alexa assistant, Google Assistant from Google's parent company Alphabet, or Apple's Siri, almost all automotive groups are already working closely with major technology companies to bring voice assistants to market. According to a study by Statista, half of all drivers already issue voice commands to their cars. In the future, the systems will also record the driver's mood and physical and mental state.

At the IAA MOBILITY in Munich in September, the world's largest companies from the technology and mobility sectors will come together in an interactive atmosphere to discuss and present the use of artificial intelligence in cars. After all, the car is increasingly being used as an intelligent assistant or as a space for immersive virtual reality experiences.