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VW Ready to Ride With Amazon’s Alexa

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2016 Volkswagen CCFrom Siri, to Cortana, to whatever Google calls its voice command assistant, there are several pieces of artificial intelligence to help you interact with technology. Alexa is the latest to join the crowd, created by the engineers at Amazon and usually packaged in “her” own unit called the Amazon Echo. It turns out that Alexa is looking to hitch a ride sometime soon, and she’ll be getting help from the team at Volkswagen.

While Alexa makes shopping at Amazon and accessing your digital music library much easier, the AI is also instrumental in a connected home. With the right tech accessories, Alexa can turn on lights and adjust a thermostat, among other home commands. VW’s plan for Alexa is for drivers to be able to ask Alexa through the car to complete tasks while driving. For example, on a cold day, a driver could instruct their vehicle to tell Alexa to turn up the heat before they get home. According to Autoweek, on the other side of things a driver at home could ask Alexa to check in with the VW vehicle in the garage to see how much fuel is left in the tank for planning trips.

Automakers like Ford and Hyundai are planning on adding Alexa to their vehicles as well, but in those manufacturers’ cases, an app would be required for functionality. VW is planning on having Alexa already included in the software that comes on the system of a car on delivery. This is certainly a step toward making multitasking while driving much simpler, but hopefully not more distracting.

News Source: Autoweek