General Motors adds Google Gemini to 4 million vehicles

If you have an ongoing relationship with Google Gemini that usually gets suspended when you enter a car, those days are over.

General Motors announced this week that, in the near future, an update will roll out to more than four million GMC, Chevrolet, Buick, and Cadillac vehicles, enabling Gemini support. Gemini will be available through the car’s GM’s infotainment system in model year 2022 vehicles or newer.

While there are many potential uses for this AI integration, it can be broadly summarized as hands-free, conversational AI chatbot functionality for your car. There are a few things owners need to do to make sure the update works:

1. Connect to OnStar

2. Sign into Google Play Store

3. Set US English as your assistant language

4. Opt in to Gemini

Once all of that is done and the update is available (it sounds like availability will vary depending on model during this initial rollout), owners will be able to talk to their car while driving.

Drivers can ask Gemini to summarize incoming text messages and send new ones, ask the car to plan a route to one destination that includes a detour to grab coffee, or even request an automatically generated music playlist to fit a certain mood.

You can also ask Gemini to queue up your favorite TV show through an app like HBO Max, but fellow pedestrians can rest assured that this only works when the car is parked. Gemini might be able to facilitate distracted driving to some degree, but not to that degree.

This isn’t the first time AI has been integrated into vehicles. Grok has been available for Tesla vehicles since last year in a similar capacity, and ChatGPT recently came to Apple CarPlay.

GM also teased even more AI features set to arrive later this year in the form of a “custom-built AI assistant, fine-tuned with proprietary vehicle data to help anticipate your every need.”

So, big news for anyone who wants to talk to their car.