- Mercedes-Benz is one of the first automakers to use Google Cloud’s new Automotive AI Agent product to improve navigation conversations with generative artificial intelligence for company car assistants
- The artificial intelligence-driven MBUX voice assistant will enable a higher level of personalization, intuitive search and navigation capabilities through a conversational interface
Mercedes-Benz and Google Cloud today announced the expansion of their strategic partnership to introduce a new generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) that will enable Mercedes-Benz vehicle owners to use in-vehicle conversational search and navigation. Mercedes‑Benz is one of the first car manufacturers to create an enhanced generative artificial intelligence assistant using Google Cloud’s Automotive AI Agent. The agent is customized for the automotive industry with the Gemini model on the Vertex AI platform and detailed location information from Google Maps. Thanks to the improved experience of this generative artificial intelligence, the Mercedes‑Benz complements the POI search requirements with more detailed and personalized conversational responses.
Drivers of Mercedes-Benz vehicles can thus search for their favorite destinations using the MBUX voice assistant. Through the new Automotive AI Agent from Google Cloud and extensive information on 250 million locations worldwide from Google Maps, Mercedes-Benz will enrich the virtual assistant MBUX with a new interesting dimension, which will be introduced with the new CLA. It will allow users to have a natural conversation with the vehicle to easily discover destinations and personalize their rides. Thanks to the new function, users will be able to search for places by voice in an unprecedented way.
For example, a user might say, “I’m looking for a good Italian or Greek restaurant for a special birthday dinner with the family.” When the system responds, the user can ask additional questions, such as, “Does it have any featured dishes?” or “What are the customer reviews?”. In order to achieve maximum functionality, the MBUX virtual assistant keeps the conversation in its memory for up to one hour, so that the user can return to it later. This additional layer of intelligence can be used for any location search request, such as hotels, museums, sports stadiums, art galleries or shopping malls.
Users can further refine their searches in the next dialog and thus find the most relevant target. This means they can ask if there is a dog-friendly cafe on the way to the museum they plan to visit later that day. Or to find out if there is a florist near a friend’s house with good references. If no data is available for a specific search request, the MBUX virtual assistant can use Internet data and initiate a phone call to obtain more information.
“At Mercedes-Benz, we strive to offer our customers a unique digital experience. Our partnership with Google will further improve in-car navigation through a combination of sophisticated location data and generative artificial intelligence. Our next-generation navigation, which will be launched with the new CLA, will enable drivers and passengers to use voice commands to obtain comprehensive and personalized information in seconds.”
Ola Källenius, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Mercedes-Benz Group AG
“Mercedes-Benz is known for providing an amazing driving experience. Our partnership will bring breakthrough advances in artificial intelligence to further enhance these experiences. Our new Automotive AI Agent will help drivers navigate and search with in-vehicle assistants to make these interactions more natural and useful. This is just the beginning of how the capabilities of AI agents can change the automotive industry, and I look forward to seeing how our partnership drives development forward.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet
Introduced today, Google Cloud’s Automotive AI Agent will enable automakers to harness the power of generative artificial intelligence and large-scale language models (LLM). Thanks to this, they can use a voice assistant (first-party voice assistant) to create and deploy a personalized AI experience with superior AI quality and robustness. Automotive AI Agent was built on Google’s Gemini model and enables multimodal reasoning through natural language interactions combined with navigation and search.
A new AI-enhanced POI and navigation function will be launched with the new CLA from Mercedes-Benz later this year. The new CLA will be the first model to be designed with the new MB.OS operating system from Mercedes-Benz. The plan is also to introduce MBUX voice assistant in other models.
You can find more information about the Mercedes-Benz brand at:
a www.mercedes-benz.sk
Source: www.nextech.sk
