TomTom and Microsoft have announced the creation of a conversational assistant for cars. The technology uses artificial intelligence to allow voice interaction to happen in a natural way, similar to how ChatGPT works, for example.
According to TomTom, the assistant is capable of fulfilling requests involving various aspects of the car, such as infotainment systems, location search and vehicle command systems.
This means that the driver won’t need to memorize voice commands. All you have to do is say naturally that you want to go to a certain place, open the window, turn up the temperature of the air conditioning or change the radio station. According to TomTom, you can do all of this in a single interaction.
“Leveraging our expertise in navigation and technology, we’re creating an innovative way for people to interact with their cars,” says Mike Schoofs, Chief Revenue Officer at TomTom.
“With both companies integrating what they do best into a single solution, we are transforming the in-vehicle experience, allowing drivers to ask their car for anything and trust that it will deliver.”
TomTom and Microsoft have been partners since 2016
The technology will come embedded in the TomTom Digital Cockpit — an open, modular infotainment platform — and can be integrated with other automotive systems.
The assistant is built on top of the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, which gives external developers access to features similar to what OpenAI uses in ChatGPT, such as large-scale language models. The partnership between the two companies dates back to 2016, with TomTom providing location data for Azure Maps, Bing and Windows services.
Since July, TomTom has had a plugin for ChatGPT itself, which helps plan trips and explore new places with the company’s maps.
