Mercedes has partnered with Microsoft to integrate ChatGPT AI into Mercedes-Benz cars in the United States. More than 900,000 vehicles will be outfitted with the generative artificial intelligence which is currently being tested in-car to determine its eventual usability.
Interested Mercedes-Benz owners can opt-in by using the car’s voice command system to say “Hey Mercedes, I want to join the beta program.” Although Mercedes cars and many other auto brands have voice command systems that enable the driver to get simple tasks done inside the vehicle, ChatGPT is believed to be able to expand the capabilities of these systems.
Already, Mercedes-Benz owners can simply say “Hey Mercedes” and then give a short voice command to the vehicle to dial a phone number for a call, locate a destination, adjust the vehicle temperature, or play some desired music tunes – these functions are limited because the commands are limited to the given functions.
“While most voice assistants are limited to predefined tasks and responses, ChatGPT leverages a large language model to greatly improve natural language understanding and expand the topics to which it can respond,” Mercedes said in a blog post.
But with ChatGPT, a driver or car occupants can engage in a fluid conversation with the AI chatbot and make an unending range of requests from food recipes to tourist destinations to phone repairs and scuba-diving among others. The ChatGPT AI will respond to queries in the most humane manner possible with follow-up questions yielding deeper responses for helpful considerations.
According to the corporate vice president of Microsoft’s AI platform, Eric Boyd, Mercedes-Benz drivers will be able to ask ChatGPT to place restaurant orders, make hotel reservations, purchase movie tickets, or contact a family member in the most natural ways possible. He said drivers do not need to look away from the road while interacting with ChatGPT, unlike the former systems in which buttons or touchscreens must be pressed for tasks.
“Unlike standard voice assistants that often require specific commands, ChatGPT excels at handling follow-up questions and maintaining contextual understanding. Drivers can ask complex queries or engage in multi-turn conversations, receiving detailed and relevant responses from the voice assistant,” Boyd stated.
Starting from Friday, June 16, Mercedes-Benz owners in the US with the MBUX “infotainment” system in their cars will be able to beta test ChatGPT by just saying “Hey Mercedes, I want to join the beta program.”