A German startup received a funding round to support its development of a voice assistant focused on use in cars. German Autolabs secured €7 million for its work on the AI dubbed Chris, which launched in Europe late in 2018. Drivers can use Chris to operate Android phones behind the wheel, with support for messaging, navigation, calls, and music commands.
“With the growing success of voice AI, the need for vertical solutions in the automotive sector will soar,” said Holger G. Weiss, German Autolabs’ co-founder and CEO. “Key differentiators in this field are data safety, domain knowledge and customer touchpoints. This is not competitive to the horizontal players such as Amazon or Google.. Further, since the production cycles in automotive are traditionally too long to build and train AI in an iterative way, German Autolabs’ advantage is our aftermarket approach.”
Other recent developments from the startup include a collaboration with telecom Orange to enable its multi-service virtual assistant Djingo in cars.