Volkswagen Unveils New AI Lab to Make Cars Smarter

Automobile manufacturer Volkswagen has launched an AI company called AI Lab to collaborate with the technology industry in Europe, North America, and China. The lab's primary focus is to identify new AI-based product ideas that can be incorporated into cars. 

The company intends to serve as an incubator and a globally networked competence center to rapidly develop digital prototypes and transfer them to VW Group brands for implementation.

VW's AI Lab will specifically work towards improving speech recognition and the application of new AI technologies like generative AI to enhance communication between vehicles, homes, and other infrastructure. The automaker envisions AI-optimized charging cycles for electric vehicles (EVs), extended vehicle functions, and improved vehicle networking.

“We want to offer our customers genuine added value with artificial intelligence. We aim to link external digital ecosystems with the vehicle, creating an even better product experience. Collaboration with technology companies is crucially important for us. In the future, we intend to simplify cooperation in organizational and cultural terms,”  Oliver Blume, CEO, Volkswagen-Porsche, explained.

Volkswagen envisions AI playing a role in various aspects of daily life, such as actively engaging in conversations to make appointments, monitoring online auction sites for car parts, and identifying rare vehicles through voice notifications during traffic. The company hopes that AI will contribute to creating a safer and more adept consumer-oriented SAE Level 4 system (with high driving automation).

The AI Lab's goals align with VW's strategy to provide added value to customers through AI, linking external digital ecosystems with vehicles to enhance the overall product experience. The company expects simplifying cooperation with technology companies in organizational and cultural terms for future advancements.

Additionally, it is believed that further AI advances could include networking vehicles on the same roads for collision avoidance and shared sensing.

Earlier this month, the global auto giant showcased its first vehicles with ChatGPT integrated into its IDA voice assistant. In the future, this will allow customers to have seamless access to the growing artificial intelligence database in all Volkswagen models equipped with the IDA voice assistant and have researched content read out to them while driving. Volkswagen will be the first volume manufacturer to offer Chat GPT as a standard feature from the second quarter of 2024 in many production vehicles.