ChatGPT coming to VW cars for "enriching conversations"

Volkswagen has used the world's biggest technology event, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, to announce it will soon offer voice conversations with ChatGPT – the now-famous 'chatbot' taking over the web.

For this story, I asked ChatGPT itself to explain what it can do as a standalone service. It gave me a novel, so I asked for a short version: "I am ChatGPT, a sophisticated AI developed by OpenAI, designed to understand and creatively respond to a wide range of text-based queries and tasks."

Although famous for 'hallucinating' facts, ChatGPT is increasingly improving as a go-to for quick answers – like a Wikipedia you can chat with.

For upcoming new Volkswagen models, ChatGPT will feature in the brand's IDA voice assistant through the Chat Pro system provided by VW partner company, Cerence.

Among its talents, VW says, will be "Enriching conversations, clearing up questions, interacting in intuitive language, receiving vehicle-specific information, and much more – purely hands-free".

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What can ChatGPT do in my Volkswagen?

The company has not yet detailed the full breath of IDA's ChatGPT-enhanced capabilities beyond its core conversational features, although the below paragraph seems to suggest it will be able to help the car's integrated voice-control system interpret the driver's spoken requests if the phrase used does not fall within the parameters already programmed by Volkswagen itself.

"The voice assistant is activated by saying "Hello IDA" or pressing the button on the steering wheel. IDA automatically prioritises whether a vehicle function should be executed, a destination searched or the temperature adjusted. If the request cannot be answered by the Volkswagen system, it is forwarded anonymously to AI and the familiar Volkswagen voice responds."

Volkswagen also stresses that the ChatGPT portion of its voice assistant cannot access any vehicle or user information, ensuring "the highest possible level of data protection".

The upgraded IDA system with ChatGPT will feature in a number of new models bound for Australia, including the ID.3 electric hatch, ID.4 electric SUV and larger ID.5 electric SUV, along with the new Tiguan, new Passat and updated Golf.

Generally speaking, even the best in-car voice assistants currently available are frustrating to the point of not bothering with them. In my experience, having used ChatGPT's voice chat capability on my phone, Volkswagen's updated IDA system could be the first worth getting to know.

Elsewhere in the industry, Mercedes-Benz has confirmed it's testing ChatGPT [↗] but has yet to announce a rollout plan, while Kia has revealed it will launch a new AI chatbot with its upcoming EV3 electric SUV.

FLASHBACK: CES 2017