The AI bandwagon could very well be a Peugeot.
European car giant Stellantis has announced that it will include ChatGPT in some new Peugeot models from Wednesday. The new feature will be tested in five European countries (France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain) before rolling out later this year.
OpenAI, which started the AI craze that took the business world by storm when ChatGPT was introduced in November 2022, presents itself as a business-to-business company. He’s discovered enthusiastic and willing partners in the auto industry, with brands attracted to a car that not only understands voice commands, but can even respond to them — a truth reminiscent of the hit ’80s TV show, Knight Rider, in which David Hasselhoff’s character solved crimes by talking.
In recent years, automobiles have become increasingly computerized. Where there used to be dashboards, there are now touchscreens full of apps. Gone are the days when an in-car phone was the pinnacle of wealth, now replaced by Zoom calls in even the most affordable new cars. . Elon Musk once memorably said that Tesla, the electric vehicle company he founded, was “as much a software company as it is a hardware company, whether it’s in cars or in factories. “(Though Wall Street investors seem to have come to the conclusion that Tesla is, after all, an automaker. )
With all those new tech features and software updates, it’s only a matter of time before automakers turn to the industry’s newest advancement: synthetic intelligence.
Earlier this month, several other major automakers also announced the integration of ChatGPT. In June, Mercedes-Benz presented a test of ChatGPT on around 900,000 cars in the United States. Even participating in the test was a demonstration of the simplicity promised through AI chatbots. To participate in the test, users simply had to say, “Hey Mercedes, I wanted to sign up for the ChatGPT beta program” while in their car.
Volkswagen is taking one of the boldest steps among automakers by integrating ChatGPT into its lineup. The German automaker hopes that ChatGPT will be able to do more than the same old voice commands, such as turning on the radio or air conditioning in hot weather. With ChatGPT, whose main innovation is the ability to perceive and respond in natural language, those commands can be as undeniable as “I’m cold” to turn on heated seats or “it’s starting to rain” for headlights. All automakers, with the exception of VW in particular, also noted that ChatGPT can answer questions on virtually any topic, just like the online chatbot. When it announced the new features at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January, VW went so far as to say that its cars can simply have “enriching conversations. “
OpenAI was looking to explore how to expand versions of its generation for rapid use cases. The push comes as ChatGPT and OpenAI’s DALL-E symbol generator are becoming more common in the business world and companies are looking to adapt the equipment to their rapid use cases. On its first Developer Day in November, OpenAI launched the GPT Store, a repository of other equipment and programs in its software. The GPT Store is available to paid ChatGPT Plus subscribers and traditional business subscribers. This month, the GPT store had about 3 million other traditional chatbots.
Stellantis and OpenAI responded to a request for comment.