New Cerence offering enables automakers to preserve their unique, branded experiences and data ownership through OS-agnostic approach to conversational assistant development
Cerence Inc. (NASDAQ: CRNC), AI for a world in motion, today announced that its Cerence Drive conversational AI platform is now available on Android Automotive OS, giving automakers the ability to build custom, OEM-branded, conversational assistants atop the Android Automotive OS stack for the first time. This new offering from Cerence delivers capabilities that are most important to automakers: ownership over their unique brand experience, control over vehicle and driver data, and integrated coexistence and usability among multiple big tech ecosystems.
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Cerence is deeply committed to coexistence and interoperability among the various big tech and general-purpose assistant ecosystems and has transformed its Cerence Drive platform into a truly OS-agnostic offering. With Cerence’s best-in-class conversational AI built on top of Android Automotive OS, automakers can now ensure their native digital assistants can seamlessly coexist with Google Automotive Services, including Google Assistant, without compromising brand ownership and while preserving the unique in-car experience they’ve built for their drivers. Automakers also maintain deep visibility into driver usage and interactions, providing them with rich data for improvements, updates, and continued innovation.
“The Cerence Drive platform layered on the Android Automotive OS removes barriers and obstacles for OEMs looking to create an exceptional branded and connected experience for drivers,” said Sanjay Dhawan, CEO, Cerence. “By taking a completely OS-agnostic approach to uniting these two platforms, Cerence delivers true coexistence of ecosystems in the car – an ‘and’ rather than ‘either/or’ approach – that creates a safer and more intuitive experience for drivers.”
By running Cerence Drive on Android Automotive OS, OEMs can position their Cerence-powered, custom-branded in-car assistant as the main interactive interface for their drivers. With a deep integration layer between Cerence Drive and Android Automotive OS Voice Interaction Service, drivers get a best-in-class experience with multi-intent support, along with multi-seat intelligence, speech signal enhancement, and noise cancellation. This gives OEMs and their drivers the best of both worlds – a highly intelligent and customizable mobility conversational AI assistant built on decades of automotive industry experience that harnesses the power of the full-stack, open-source Android Automotive OS.
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“The race for voice in the car continues, with leading automakers increasingly seeking brand differentiation via personalized voice controls,” said Fahad Hamid, Senior Connected Car Specialist at SBD Automotive. Added Hamid, “To ensure interoperability and be considered for wider deployment, voice solution providers need to work across disparate platforms and ecosystems of the automaker’s choosing.”
The recently launched Cerence Drive 2.0 fully adheres to Android Automotive OS specifications and utilizes the Android Automotive OS Voice Interaction Service natively to enable the Cerence-powered voice assistant as a default assistant in car. It also enables interaction and invocation through various other means, including custom-branded wake-up word, push-to-talk using a physical voice control button typically located on the steering wheel, or tap-to-talk using a software voice control button as part of the system user interface.