Users will experience a voice assistant that not only accepts natural voice commands but can also conduct conversations. Soon, participants who ask the Voice Assistant for details about their destination, to suggest a new dinner recipe, or to answer a complex question, will receive a more comprehensive answer \u2013 while keeping their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sure, a relatively complex query like \u201cwhat\u2019s a good independent sandwich shop on my route that\u2019s within half a mile of a gas station\u201d might stump a traditional voice interface. If you don\u2019t have a passenger to look that up for you, it might be nice to have that capability. Who is asking for a new dinner recipe on the road? Is that really the best use case they could come up with?<\/p>\n

As usual, the benefits of the technology are somewhat notional and surely no driver asked for this capability. Perhaps it is simply that Mercedes is tired of running its own voice interface service and would rather offload it to a third party. The interface prominently says (if you look closely at the top image) \u201cPowered by ChatGPT in Microsoft AI,\u201d in MBUX, in the Mercedes Me app \u2014 like a nested doll. Who\u2019s doing what?<\/p>\n