{"id":1978090,"date":"2026-06-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1978090"},"modified":"2026-06-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:00:00","slug":"is-ai-voice-control-in-cars-the-next-big-thing-or-a-complete-waste-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1978090","title":{"rendered":"Is AI voice control in cars the next big thing… or a complete waste of time?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has become a significant hoopla for carmakers to desparately plead that they are in no way a \u2018legacy\u2019 industry. The audience skews heavily tech, and this year AI voice interaction was hot hot hot.<\/p>\n

In the show-floor demos, trained operators would ask their cars to change the climate settings, schedule a meeting after checking who\u2019s available, and navigate to a destination based on inputs like \u2018can you find me a good Italian restaurant?\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Seeing the oh-so-2026 label \u2018AI\u2019 added to voice control, we\u2019re supposed to believe it possesses higher, human-adjacent powers compared with the voice control that\u2019s been native to our cars for years, or indeed with Siri or Google Assistant.<\/p>\n

They also claim these systems can hold several conversations simultaneously with different people in the car. Certainly that should overcome a massive fail with every in-car voice assistant I\u2019ve ever used. I start talking, and at the same time one of my family also pipes up, and the whole interaction falls on its backside.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But this acknowledgement by AI developers that there are other occupants in the car shows they\u2019re inventing a solution to a problem that doesn\u2019t exist. Why would my passenger hold a verbal t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate with the dashboard about reviews for a restaurant? They\u2019d look on their phone. The only moment they\u2019d talk to the car is at the end of the process when they\u2019d found nearby parking and want it in the satnav. But even then, they\u2019d get probably get more luck tapping it into the touchscreen.<\/p>\n

And if they wanted to turn on their seat heater? If they have to do it by voice, right there is a 24-carat demonstration that the car\u2019s ergonomics are fundamentally crap. The control should be obvious on the screen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But most of all, underlying all this is the laughable assumption that a connected car is actually, y\u2019know, connected. Your phone call drops, your WhatsApp takes ages to arrive, your satnav loses traffic connection… the mobile networks rub your nose in it, reminding you that a monthly subscription doesn\u2019t actually buy you reliable network coverage. And so any in-car feature designed around a strong, stable signal will inevitably fail and frustrate.<\/p>\n

Also, am I the only one who hates talking to a bot? Humanity is for us humans, thanks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has become a significant hoopla for carmakers to desparately plead that they are in no way a \u2018legacy\u2019 industry. The audience skews heavily tech, and this year AI voice interaction was hot hot hot. In the show-floor demos, trained operators would ask their cars to change the climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1978090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1978090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1978090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1978090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1978090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}