AI in Cars: A Few Ways Experts Think We'll Soon Have New Tech Integrated Into Our Vehicles
You can already talk to some new cars. The useful question is whether the assistant can see this vehicle, talk to the highway software, or watch whether you are looking at the road.
DETROIT — On a late-model Chevy with Google built-in, you can already ask Gemini about traffic or the radio. What you still can't do, GM says, is ask the car about itself with the same fluency.
Carmakers are trying to close that gap this year and next. The first versions are already in apps, over-the-air updates, and a few dashboards.
General Motors has been rolling Gemini into about four million U.S. Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick, and GMC vehicles with Google built-in, model year 2022 and newer. Anna Santos, GM's director of product management for voice and AI, told CNBC in July that a native assistant, wired to OnStar and the car's own telemetry, would follow later this year.
The useful job is the one Gemini still can't do. Oil life. A warning light. A kids setting that changes seats, climate, and locks in one ask.
That same OnStar connection is why households should ask what gets recorded. In January the FTC finalized an order with GM and OnStar after geolocation and driving-behavior data were sold without adequate consent. For five years, GM can't share that kind of file with consumer reporting agencies, the firms that feed insurers.
Ford is putting a version of that voice in the phone first. In August the company said it was ramping an assistant across Ford and Lincoln apps, toward as many as eight million eligible vehicles. Upload a photo of the load. Ask how much fits in the bed. The dashboard version is still scheduled for 2027.
Mercedes is putting ChatGPT, Bing, and Gemini in one conversation. The 2027 C-Class, due in U.S. showrooms in the first half of next year, can draw on all three in the same exchange and send navigation questions to Google's Automotive AI Agent. Every answer still rides the car's cellular link and a Mercedes me login.
Then there is asking the car to drive. In mid-September Tesla quoted an owner who used Grok to send Full Self-Driving Supervised to an ATM, then home. The company said it was a lot like having your own robotaxi.
You still have to watch. FSD is SAE Level 2. NHTSA is still in the file, including traffic-law and reduced-visibility cases that cover millions of cars.
GM's quieter version already has a number attached. In April the company said Super Cruise customers had driven a billion hands-free miles on mapped highways, with a camera on their eyes. Eyes-off is promised for the Escalade IQ in 2028.
Ford is talking about a next BlueCruise that is cheaper to build, due in 2027, and eyes-off a year after that. For now the product you can buy is still hands-off, eyes-on, and often a paid extra.
Europe did not wait. As of July 7, every new passenger car and van registered in the EU needs an advanced driver distraction warning. Washington hasn't required the same camera. NHTSA is studying how those systems should work, not writing a federal rule.
If you buy Super Cruise or BlueCruise in the U.S., you already have a driver-facing camera. The EU rule puts a version of that hardware into ordinary cars, including trims that never offered a highway package.
Before you stretch a payment for a voice, ask which brain comes with the car, whether it's a subscription, and what the camera stores. Run that add-on through the car affordability calculator and the insurance guide, the same way you would a trim upgrade.