The new AI-enhanced Point-of-Interest search and navigation feature is coming to the new Mercedes-Benz CLA later this year.
Mercedes-Benz and Google Cloud announced the expansion of their strategic partnership to introduce new conversational capabilities to the MBUX Virtual Assistant, powered by Google Cloud’s new Automotive AI Agent.
Built using Gemini on Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s Automotive AI Agent is specially tuned for the automotive industry and can reference information from Google Maps Platform to give users more detailed and personalised conversational responses about navigation, points of interest, and more.
Google Maps Platform provides Mercedes-Benz owners with fresh and factual information about 250 million places around the world, and the map is updated nearly in real time, with over 100 million updates made to the map each day.
With the enhanced search and navigation experience, users can converse naturally with the MBUX Virtual Assistant and get answers to questions like: “Could you guide me to the nearest fine-dining restaurant for a unique culinary experience?”.
Users can also ask follow up questions, like: “Does the restaurant have good reviews?” or “What is the chef’s signature dish?” and the MBUX Virtual Assistant can respond with accurate, up-to-date information and display navigation details through the vehicle’s native interface. The new experience will be available in the MBUX Virtual Assistant, with Mercedes-Benz’s new CLA series later this year.
Google Cloud’s Automotive AI Agent will also enable the MBUX Virtual Assistant to handle complex, multi-turn dialog and can retain memory of conversations, which means users can continue conversations and reference information throughout their drives.
“At Mercedes-Benz, we seek to offer our customers an exceptional digital experience. Our partnership with Google Cloud will further enhance in-car navigation, combining sophisticated location data with generative AI.Launching with the new CLA, our next-gen navigation will allow drivers and passengers to use voice commands to obtain comprehensive and personalised information within seconds.”
Ola Källenius, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, said, “Mercedes-Benz is known for providing an amazing driving experience, and our partnership will bring cutting edge AI breakthroughs to make those experiences even better. Our new Automotive AI Agent will help drivers navigate and search with in-vehicle assistants, so those interactions are more natural and helpful. This is just the beginning of how agentic capabilities can transform the automotive industry and I’m excited to see our partnership drive progress forward.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said, “Google Cloud’s Automotive AI Agent enables automakers to leverage the power of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to build and deploy customised, first-party, voice assistant experiences with state-of-the-art AI quality. Automotive AI Agent was built using Google’s Gemini models, which enables multimodal reasoning capabilities through natural language speech interactions and uses information from Google Maps Platform.”
The new AI-enhanced Point-of-Interest search and navigation feature is coming to the new Mercedes-Benz CLA later this year. It will be the first vehicle designed with the new Mercedes-Benz operating system, MB.OS. A rollout to further models with the MBUX Voice Assistant is also planned.
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