Mercedes-Benz is putting ChatGPT on the road. The automaker is using Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service to bring the viral natural-language model to its in-car voice assistant. It will initially be available in a three-month beta program for US customers in select vehicles, but Mercedes says it will consider a broader and more permanent rollout in the future.ChatGPT integration could put the automaker’s “Hey Mercedes” voice assistant on steroids. Rather than merely answering simple and pre-programmed commands like “Turn up the heat” or “What’s the forecast,” it can carry natural conversations about virtually any topic, including contextual follow-up questions. (Children of the 1980s can finally live out their Knight Rider fantasies.) In addition, Mercedes says it’s “exploring” ChatGPT plugins to enable tasks like making restaurant reservations or booking movie tickets through natural language.Although holding a lengthy chat on the road coul
