Official Release: The BMW Group ushered in a new era of intelligent voice control with the introduction of the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant in March 2019. BMW’s Open Mobility Cloud powered by Microsoft Azure and the use of artificial intelligence are constantly enhancing the personal assistant’s capabilities. AI and machine learning are two of the hottest topics at the Microsoft Build developer conference taking place in Seattle on 6 – 8 May. The conference got underway with words from Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft Corp., Scott Guthrie, Executive VP of Microsoft Cloud + AI Group, and Guy Duncan, VP Operations Digital Products and Services BMW Group, on the companies’ successful work together as technology partners since 2016 and their new joint projects.

One project focuses on the creation of an open-source platform that makes future conversations with the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant more personalized, natural-sounding and multimodal, lending further depth to the system’s personality.

Microsoft’s Virtual Assistant Solution Accelerator built on Azure provides the necessary technological basis, leveraging Microsoft Azure cloud and AI capabilities such as Bot Framework and Cognitive Services. BMW customers could therefore arrange an appointment at their preferred BMW dealer, for instance, by simply talking with to the personal assistant. The conversation might start with a reminder that the service is due and finish with the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant arranging the appointment. In the same way, customers would also be able to manage their personal e-mails and calendar appointments during a journey.

The BMW Group and Microsoft development teams in Munich and Seattle are working on a multitude of new skills with the aim of creating an assistant with cross-channel capabilities with whom BMW customers will be able to hold a natural conversation.