Automotive journalists love to clown on in-car voice assistants, always talking about how useless and pointless they are, but not me. I’m already the kind of guy that says “thanks girl” after asking Siri a question, and I do love using a good voice assistant in a car (emphasis on the word “good.”) They can genuinely lessen driver distraction and accomplish a number of features, but most of the assistants on the market are kinda clunky, robotic and not very fun.
At CES 2024 Mercedes-Benz is aiming to change that, unveiling a new virtual assistant for its next-gen MB.OS infotainment system that will debut with the new CLA. Mercedes says the new assistant uses generative AI for a “hyper-personalized user experience” that will feel like a natural conversation.
The MBUX voice assistant in existing Mercedes models already pretty great. It can handle everything from adjusting climate control temperature and radio settings to reclining your seats and changing the ambient lighting, and upcoming models like the new E-Class will be able to chain multiple commands together. The car also recognizes different voices and knows what seat the speaker is sitting in, so if the rear-right passenger says “turn on my massage,” the car turns on the massage just for their seat.
Mercedes says the new virtual assistant was designed around four personality traits: empathetic, natural, personal and predictive. It uses “generative AI and proactive intelligence” to give drivers personal suggestions based on learned behavior, routines and other situational data. The voice itself is said to be “a more emotional neural voice” that changes its cadence to express different emotions and be more empathetic.
Speaking about the new AI assistant, Mercedes chief software officer Magnus Östberg had this to say:
The Mercedes-Benz user experience of tomorrow will be hyper-personalized. With generative AI, our MBUX Virtual Assistant brings more trust and empathy to the relationship between car and driver. Thanks to our MB.OS chip-to-cloud architecture, our future vehicles will provide customers with exactly what they need when they need it.
Unlike in existing cars, the virtual assistant actually has an appearance, taking the form of a “living star” avatar created using the Unity video game engine. The star – which is the Mercedes three-pointed star, of course – can express different moods and emotions through animations. It’s not nearly as cute as Spike, the bulldog personal assistant in the next-gen Mini Cooper, but it’s better than nothing.
The next-gen CLA will be the first car to ride on Mercedes’ new MMA platform, which was designed to accommodate both internal combustion and fully electric powertrains, though the EV versions are the focus. The CLA should debut by the end of 2024, and will be followed by MMA-based replacements for the GLA, GLB and CLA Shooting Brake.