On October 26th 2016, General Motors and IBM announced a partnership to provide the auto industry’s first AI cognitive mobility Voice First platform. OnStar Go will use Watson’s cognitive learning and artificial intelligence capabilities in a car, to offer deals and advice in the vehicle dashboard. The system could help a driver avoid traffic, warn if a driver is low on fuel, turn on a gas pump and pay for your gas from the vehicle dashboard or order a cup of coffee while en route to a favourite coffee shop. It will be a Voice Commerce and Voice Payments system based around the automobile.
The Automobile as a Voice First Device
Watson OnStar Go will integrate with about a host of functions to control every aspect of the model of car it is operating, from setting the air conditioner temperature to turning on the indoor lighting.
Watson OnStar Go can connect with ExxonMobil and use the technology to help consumers find petrol stations and authorise a payment from inside the car. MasterCard will allow drivers and passengers to make payments for items and services from their cars through credit or debit cards stored in Masterpass, which will be embedded in OnStar Go.
“On average, people in the U.S. spend more than 46 minutes per day in their car and are looking for ways to optimize their time. By leveraging OnStar’s connectivity and combining it with the power of Watson, we’re looking to provide safer, simpler and better solutions to make our customers’ mobility experience more valuable and productive.”—Mary Barra, CEO GM.
By the end of the year GM will have greater than 12 million connected vehicles on the road with Wi-Fi hotspots that allow the flow of information and data. Watson will be able to learn a driver’s preferences. If the driver gives consent, IBM and OnStar can tailor Voice Commerce location-based deals in vehicles. For example, Watson can remind a driver to pick up shopping at a store a few miles before his exit.
IBM Pay for Voice Payments
Voice based applications are starting to proliferate. IBM also announced IBM Pay on October 25th 2016, a platform that can be adopted to any number of mobile commerce systems including Voice Commerce and Voice Payments. IBM Pay is equal parts Square and equal parts Stripe and will be distributed via IBM’s world wide sales groups in partnership with Apple and iOS devices. Voice Commerce and Voice Payments do not closely resemble retail or on-line/in app transactions, they are an entirely new paradigm.
On October 25th 2016 Bank of America released Erica, an AI-based Voice First Voice Banking platform that will begin in the company’s app and extend to just about every secure Voice First system.
This is a powerful new extension of real-time Voice Banking that will lead to having access to money management and advice that previously was only available to high net worth and institutional banking clients. This extends powerful tools to even the smallest banking customer.
A Self Driving Car is a Voice First Device
Self driving and autonomous cars are, by definition, Voice First devices. There will be no keyboards in these cars just as there will be no steering wheel. Cars that have drivers will become much more safe with real AI based Voice systems that can assist you proactively without the need to take your eyes or hands off the road. Watson OnStar Go is the first serious system to be released but there will be more.
The Car that keeps on Learning
Watson’s Machine Learning platform is quite unlike the current Voice systems found in cars today. To put it simply, they stop learning the moment the car is manufactured. Perhaps some receive software upgrades but this is rare. With Watson OnStar Go, the platform will continue to learn about you and ultimately expand abilities and proactive interactions. When you trade up, perhaps in four years, all of your personalised knowledge will move with you. This is a brand lock-in never seen before in automobiles.
Alexa, Siri, Watson —You Will Use Them All
Watson OnStar Go represents the convergence of dozens of Voice First devices, from Viv in your Samsung Washing machine controlling unruly and complex menu functions with a command like “Wash my white socks” to your new GM car with command like “Direct me to the closest Exxon, fill it up and pay for it on IBM Pay” and more. You will have dozens of Voice First devices around you in the next 10 years and you will use them all.
Voice First is not a “winner take all” market but an ever widening market where one can no more predict the expansion than one could have predicted the iPhone when the Apple 1 was being built in Steve Job’s garage.
There is little doubt that you will have a dialog with Watson via many devices and if your future automobile is a GM, it will come as a free standard piece of equipment, like a radio and remote locking. Your car will thus be, a Voice First device and it will be part of a greater Voice First revolution.
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