By Vania La Rocca, Director of Product Operations
ChatGPT and its advanced natural language capabilities have pushed conversational user experiences across industries into a new era. With Cerence Chat Pro, we’re making these important AI advances accessible to automakers, helping global OEMs like Volkswagen and Skoda integrate ChatGPT into their existing in-car voice assistant platforms with full flexibility, extensive customization options and low integration effort.
Our decades of experience in developing intuitive, intelligent in-car experiences have given us a deep understanding of what OEMs need to roll out successful conversational capabilities in the car – leveraging the latest in artificial intelligence while ensuring full brand control and delivering immediate value to drivers and passengers. When it comes to ChatGPT, with Cerence Chat Pro, we are elevating the in-car experience and bringing much needed automotive industry-specific relevance by empowering automakers to:
Generate new content
One of the most impressive feats of ChatGPT is its ability to create, or “generate,” new content, a concept referred to as generative AI. With Cerence Chat Pro, automakers can pull in the generative skill of ChatGPT to help answer open-ended questions, enriching the experience of drivers and riders. For instance, a driver can ask the in-car assistant to tell a story about dinosaurs for the kids in the backseat. ChatGPT can craft a compelling narrative, targeted to the whole car, creating an entertaining and fun activity for all passengers that is integrated into the in-car assistant experience.
Enable intuitive and natural navigation
ChatGPT is a powerful tool that enables intuitive experiences, allowing drivers and passengers to engage more naturally with the in-car assistant. Cerence helps bring unique automotive relevance to these capabilities: for example, we help automakers integrate ChatGPT into infotainment features like navigation. Instead of a driver asking where to find a grocery store, they can ask something more natural like “where can I find olive oil?” ChatGPT helps the assistant understand that phrase to be the same prompt as “where is the nearest grocery store?” While the car still looks to its existing mapping solution to then source POIs and inform navigation, ChatGPT lets the interaction become more natural by serving as somewhat of a “translator.”
Establish safeguards
Generative AI is powerful and brings with it huge opportunity. Its expansive capabilities, however, can also be problematic for brands if not managed properly. At Cerence, we partner with automakers to create guardrails for their systems, determining which topics to exclude from the ChatGPT-enabled conversation in the car and fine-tuning the UX to market-specific requirements (for example, avoiding sensitive political or other topics). This not only makes the experience more in-car UX appropriate but also enables it to be better aligned with the OEM’s unique brand.
Elevate brand identity
Our long history working with leading OEMs around the globe means we know what conversations typically happen in the car. By allowing the OEM to customize answers to the most common questions using our existing language model, we can create brand-forward, enriching in-car experiences. It also lowers the cost of using generative AI for response creation – saving that for the more complex queries. Consider the question, “which is the best automotive brand?” OEMs may want to define a response vs. leaving that one up to ChatGPT.
To experience how Cerence Chat Pro in action, check out our series of demo videos here.