Talking alone in the car is an increasingly common habit. And not out of melancholy or loneliness, but because more and more cars are fitted with voice recognition systems. By itself, the technology is not new: it has been around for at least twenty years. In recent times, however, it has improved considerably and by now most software recognizes the spontaneous language of drivers. In short, it is no longer necessary to scan robotic questions, Just talk normally and the car is able to not only find an address or send a message, but also adjust the air conditioning or tell the weather forecast. The car becomes more and more intelligent and sometimes tries to read directly into the mind of the driver, see the case of Nissan prototype.
This market is the terrain on which the industrial and commercial battle takes place between the giants of the automotive industry and the giants of Silicon Valley.
In the first deployment, a special place belongs Mercedes-Benz. The German company created the system Mbux (Mercedes Benz Users Experience), which uses the American software Nuance and is able to understand and speak 30 languages. To ask him a question, just say two magic words: "Hey, Mercedes".
The first car in the world to be fitted as standard with a artificial intelligence controlled via voice assistant is the Mercedes Class A, arriving on May 12 in Italian dealerships. For the first year, the service is included in the purchase price of the car, while from the second year, the Internet connection (essential for voice assistance) will be paid separately.
But the Stuttgart group is not the only customer of Nuance. The US company created the platform Dragon Drive for speech recognition with artificial intelligence, a tool also used by Audi, BMW, Toyota, Ford, General Motors and PSA. Doing two calculations, the system in question is fitted to about 200 million vehicles around the world.
On the other side of the fence are the Masters of the Internet, each with their own voice assistant: Crab Apple, Cortana from Microsoft, Google Assistant e Alexa by Amazon. These systems are not created for cars, but are integrated into vehicle infotainment systems via apps – mainly Apple CarPlay e Android Auto – which allow you to use your smartphone in the car using the integrated display on the dashboard.
In their maneuvers to conquer market shares, the big names in the network do not limit themselves to creating new tools. They also close trade deals. Many. One of the most recent is the one announced in Las Vegas by Hyundai, which has partnered with Mountain View to integrate Google Assistant on its new models.
Meanwhile, Amazon it does not stand by and has already landed on the cars of manufacturers such as Toyota, Ford, BMW and Volkswagen (the Wolfsburg group has launched Alexa on the Seat range and will soon do the same on Skoda).
Finally, outside the US, there is competition with Silicon Valley Alibaba, who has made arrangements to bring in his voice assistant, Tmall genius, on cars sold in China by Volvo, Audi and Daimler.
