Ford is creating an AI assistant that can debut within the firm’s smartphone app, earlier than increasing to its autos in 2027, the corporate introduced Wednesday on the 2026 Shopper Electronics Present. The corporate additionally teased a next-generation of its BlueCruise superior driver help system that’s each cheaper to make and extra succesful — in the end resulting in eyes-off driving in 2028.
Wednesday’s announcement was one of many solely ones to come back from a serious automaker at CES, marking a pointy turnaround from the late 2010s once they dominated the present. And it wasn’t made at a flashy keynote occasion; reasonably, Ford mentioned the information at a speaker session known as “Nice Minds” that was meant to “discover the intersection of know-how and humanity.”
Ford says it digital assistant is hosted by Google Cloud and can be constructed utilizing off-the-shelf LLMs, and the corporate is giving it deep entry to vehicle-specific data. Meaning the assistant can reply high-level questions like “what number of baggage of mulch can my truck mattress assist?” However it additionally means house owners will be capable of ask for granular, real-time data like oil life.
The corporate is rolling the assistant out to its newly revamped Ford app in early 2026. A local, in-vehicle integration will are available in 2027, although the corporate wouldn’t specify which fashions it’s prioritizing.
Ford didn’t go into nice element about what the in-car expertise will appear like, however it’s not onerous to think about the probabilities when among the extra tech-forward automakers.
Simply final month, Rivian confirmed off its personal digital assistant sending and receiving textual content messages, dealing with advanced navigation requests, and altering local weather controls. Tesla has built-in Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok in its autos, which prospects have used to generate on-the-spot sightseeing excursions. A few of these capabilities might eclipse what Ford has in thoughts, however the automaker additionally has a full yr to hammer out the in-car integration.
The brand new BlueCruise system teased on Wednesday is 30% cheaper to construct than the present know-how, in line with Ford. It’ll debut in 2027 on the primary EV to be constructed on the corporate’s low-cost “Common Electrical Automobile” platform, which is predicted to be a mid-sized pickup.
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Ford is promising extra with this next-generation BlueCruise system, together with eyes-off driving in 2028. However it additionally claims the system can be able to dealing with “point-to-point autonomy,” much like what Tesla presents with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software program. Rivian has additionally teased a point-to-point system coming later this yr. All of those techniques require the drivers to be able to take management of the automobile at any second.
