Capping off a smorgasbord of Volvo news today, the Swedish carmaker has announced it will roll out Google’s Gemini generative AI to a massive 2.5 million cars in what it has dubbed “one of the biggest over-the-air updates in the history of the world” – just hours after revealing the EX60 with the feature.
According to Autocar, the virtual assistant – which will replace the old Google Assistant – will be rolled out to every single Volvo running on the company’s Android Automotive-based operating system, first introduced on the XC40 Recharge EV (now called the EX40) back in 2020. This comes as part of an interface update that will bring even the oldest cars in line with the EX30, the EX90 and the just-launched ES90.
Those with a good memory may remember that this update was originally slated for last year, but it was delayed to allow for further development. Now, however, chief technology officer Anders Bell says the update is “in the final stages of testing validation” and will be pushed out in the coming months.
With regards to the big claim of this being one of the world’s biggest OTA updates, Bell adds that while companies like Tesla also regularly push out massive fleet-wide updates, Volvo operates in far more countries, making this one of the most significant yet. The move will give the older cars essentially the same infotainment interface as the newer ones, with slight differences to account for the slower processors and smaller screens.
“We’re going to deploy that back to those cars to give them a necessary, very nice upgrade of the owner’s interaction experience with the car,” he said, adding that once the system has been updated, “it’s a pretty easy update to replace the current Google Assistant with Gemini.”
Gemini’s large language model (LLM) enables more natural and personalised conversations without having to remember specific commands. Users can ask questions about various topics – including about the car’s functions and details on their navigation destination – as well as crafting or translating messages.
The post Volvo to add Google Gemini to 2.5mil cars globally in “world’s biggest” OTA update, MY2020 and up eligible appeared first on Paul Tan’s Automotive News.
