Volkswagen announces voice AI in its Chinese cars from later this year

German auto giant Volkswagen announced it’s incorporating AI voice commands into its cars for the Chinese market.

Starting in the second half of this year, all vehicles based on Volkswagen’s China car system will feature AI agents that allow humans to control car features with voice commands, the company said on Tuesday.

“The car should be like a companion,” Volkswagen China CTO Thomas Ulbrich told CNBC’s Eunice Yoon.

He said the company’s in-car AI agent would draw on tech from Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu, among others, to create a tool with “personality” that can anticipate a driver’s needs.

The AI uses a locally trained large language model and runs entirely on the car, rather than the cloud.