- Volvo, Polestar and GM all recently announced Gemini in cars
- Reddit users have rallied to express their disbelief
- Early feedback suggests that the system can be slow and clunky
Volvo, Polestar and General Motors recently announced that they have begun rolling out Google Gemini to infotainment systems across their collective car portfolios, bringing free-flowing conversations and vehicle-specific information into Google-enabled vehicles.
Gemini, the company’s much-hyped AI assistant, is pitched to go far beyond the typical clunky voice assistants from the manufacturer that a large part of the driving population has come to despise.
Despite attempts to reduce driver distraction by enabling select voice commands to activate things like air conditioning or change a radio station, they have often proved frustrating as multiple commands have to be used or the software simply gives up and admits it can’t help.
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The Gemini, on the other hand, is touted to allow for “natural conversation,” according to the tech giant, with the ability to search for the perfect pit stop with free-flowing conversation.
“I need to eat lunch, find some highly rated sit-down restaurants along the way. I’m not in a rush, oh, and I want to eat out,” Google offers as an example, saying it will pull reams of data, including reviews, from Google Maps to help make a decision.
Drivers and passengers can then follow up with additional simple directions or ask Gemini to summarize text messages, turn the radio to something “jazzier” or reveal EV-specific data such as battery level upon arrival or how long it will take to charge up to reach a destination.
However, not all customers are happy with the system, and a quick scan through the Reddit forums reveals a host of issues.
While not a completely accurate source, a number of users have complained about Gemini’s in-car heavy nature, the fact that it doesn’t understand voice prompts, its struggles with third-party app integration, and that it’s overly chatty and buries useful information (like opening and closing times) in piles of useless fluff.
But it’s the concerns around driver data that seem to be at the heart of most of the arguments against Gemini in-car.
Analysis: GM customers seem especially skeptical
General Motors has made headlines several times for its ‘questionable’ infotainment decisions, removing Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from all its cars, choosing instead to lean into its native software so it could build a system that can access vehicle data, rather than being shut off from it like these ‘plug and play’ solutions.
However, several skeptics believe that GM, as well as many other manufacturers, is doing it to take control of driver data, a market predicted to be worth between $300 billion and $800 billion by 2030.
One Reddit user wrote: “The real story (and headline) should be: Google pays GM billions for driver data”.
Other users indicate they don’t trust a company with their “conversations,” since GM and its OnStar service have already been banned from sharing certain consumer data with consumer reporting agencies.
With Stellantis also coming under fire for displaying pop-up ads in vehicles, it’s easy to see why distrust is growing over the increasing number of connected technologies appearing in cars.
However, it is still early days in the automotive LLM integration space. Like most artificial intelligence, they are likely to improve quickly, and the experience people describe above may be very different in six months. Have you tried Gemini in your car? Tell us about your experience below in the comments.
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