By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 19th, 2024
Sources familiar with the matter said that GM will be developing a virtual personal assistant using the same AI models that power ChatGPT.
ChatGPT took the world by storm with the open AI platform offering answers to questions across multiple domains, and in no time. Industries across the world are now looking at ways to leverage ChatGPT for different applications. Automobile giant General Motors is reportedly planning for a ChatGPT-powered virtual personal assistant in future electric vehicles (EVs). With this, GM is looking to expand its collaboration with Microsoft, which has a multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.
Earlier this year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that their investment in OpenAI will “advance cutting edge AI research and democratize AI as a new technology platform” thereby opening up new experiences.
Deployed on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, OpenAI powers different AI products like GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and DALL·E 2. But the latest report from Semafor notes that the tech would be coming to future electric vehicles by GM.
Sources familiar with the matter also stated that General Motors will be developing a virtual personal assistant using the same AI models that power ChatGPT. They also said that GM is planning for something more advanced than the simple voice command features available today.
A Glimpse into AI-Powered Virtual Assistant
Scott Miller, GM’s vice president of software-defined vehicles, has also confirmed that the automaker is working on a more advanced AI assistant.
Consider this example with a very primary application. Suppose a light pops up on the dashboard, a user can ask the virtual assistant what that actually means. Then they would get a detailed readout based on their own diagnosis and would inform the user if that needs immediate attention. The technology has been powered by new data models which could pull from massive data sets.
GM said that they plan to add an additional layer to design the assistant with more car-specific functions than ChatGPT. In the past, General Motors has worked with Microsoft on digital technology for GM Cruise. Thus, it will have some advantages with the promising AI tech.
Several tech companies have been already keeping some focus on virtual assistants for vehicles for a while. However, real-life abilities for the same are emerging now. One of the possible applications of virtual assistants is they can keep drivers on the road and off their smartphones. As and how the industry evolves, more applications would come to the forefront.