• by Tanya Gazdik , August 29, 2023

General Motors and Google Cloud are sharing details of current AI collaborations, along with confirming plans for future generative AI deployments. 

Throughout their work together, GM’s team has tapped Google Cloud’s conversational AI product, Dialogflow, to build and deploy AI solutions.

Those include OnStar Interactive Virtual Assistant, launched in 2022 and powered by advanced, intent-recognition algorithms that use Google Cloud’s conversational AI technologies. OnStar subscribers are provided with routing and navigation assistance, including turn-by-turn directions. 

The virtual assistant handles common inquiries but also endeavors to distinguish phrases and words that may signify an emergency situation.

Serious accident and emergency response requests are quickly diverted to OnStar’s specially trained emergency advisors. 

With this technology, OnStar has been better able to immediately understand a customer’s question or request the first time it is spoken, providing a response with a natural-sounding voice.

With the OnStar IVA successfully helping GM customers requesting navigation assistance, OnStar Advisors have been able to spend more time with customers with requests that require a human touch. 

The successful deployment of Google Cloud’s AI in GM’s OnStar service has now opened the door to future generative AI deployments being jointly piloted by General Motors and Google Cloud, according to the companies.

The automaker also employs chatbots across its corporate and brand websites to conversationally answer customer questions about GM vehicles and product features based on the latest technical information from GM’s vehicle data repositories.

Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize the buying, ownership, and interaction experience inside the vehicle and beyond, says Mike Abbott, executive vice president, software and services, General Motors.

“Our software-led approach has accelerated the creation of compelling services for our customers while driving increased efficiency across the GM enterprise,” Abbott says in a release. “The work with Google Cloud is another example of our efforts to transform how customers engage with our products and services.”

GM’s decision to collaborate with Google Cloud in exploring new generative AI applications builds on a journey the two companies began in 2019 when GM named its first vehicles with Google built-in. Since then, the number of GM vehicles with Google built-in has grown, giving customers access to Google Assistant, Google Maps and Google Play, directly from their vehicles’ center displays. 

That collaboration expanded to the deployment of Google Cloud’s conversational AI technology, Dialogflow. With this technology, GM’s OnStar virtual assistant is now handling more than one million customer inquiries a month in the U.S. and Canada, and is available in most model year 2015 and newer GM vehicles connected by OnStar. 

With this technology, customers can get quick answers to questions like, “Tell me more about GM’s 2024 EV lineup,” or learn how to take advantage of new technology features in their vehicle.

GM’s initiative to place Dialogflow into its OnStar technology will earn technology industry recognition at Google Cloud’s annual Next event in San Francisco. 

Among a heavily competitive pool of companies across industries using Google Cloud technologies, GM stood out for its successful and broad deployment of AI, earning it a “Talent Transformation” award.