AI seems to be the buzzword of the decade, and the automotive industry isn’t immune from its hype. At the recent 2024 Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit, artificial intelligence in automotive tech was a prevalent theme, with GM CEO Mary Barra and the Chevy Blazer EV making appearances at the conference.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit is an annual conference put on by the San Diego-based tech firm famous for its Snapdragon line of semiconductor products. The summit covers advancements in everything from smartphones to gaming to VR, but at this year’s conference in Hawaii, much of the keynote presentations were dedicated to automotive technology. It was the big launch for the Snapdragon Ride Elite and Cockpit Elite chipsets.
Qualcomm’s latest purpose-built automotive tech involves AI-enhanced features that we could see in production cars in the near future. A few include a head-up display with overlays that show information like business hours and museum ticket prices as you drive by. Backseat passengers can also get pop-ups with educational features like flashcards, or they can connect with friends during the drive.
Some of these features might sound like vaporware, but the folks at Qualcomm are making big claims about its tech going to production sooner rather than later. “With the platforms they’re building, OEMs are wanting to move very fast, and they’re going to put these chips into the market in 18 months,” Qualcomm automotive manager Nakul Duggal said.
One of those OEMs could be General Motors. Mary Barra appeared at the conference via video and talked about integrating AI technologies into GM vehicles for a more personalized driver experience and touted the success of GM’s partnership with Qualcomm on telematics, driver assistance systems, and more.
Mary Barra wasn’t the only GM cameo at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit. A Chevy Blazer EV was used to demonstrate the new technologies Qualcomm is working on bringing to market, like predictive maintenance and improved user interfaces that are more personalized to the driver.
Although we question when some of these augmented reality features will be ready for prime time, the trend of cars becoming more connected and reliant on software and over-the-air updates seems unstoppable, with Qualcomm playing a big role in that ongoing transition.
Check out the full Day 1 keynote (featuring Mary Barra at the 50:54 mark) here:
And Day 2 here:
Comments
Forget AI until you can get the new cars to have all of the tech we used to have (e.g., pause live radio, native Android auto, and NA V6 engines instead of turbo I4s).
Somehow Mary Barra and vaporware are a perfect fit. (See HUD, surround video recording, and themes, all promised but not delivered on the Cadillac Lyriq)
GM should concentrate on make the software in their current EV cars actually WORK seamlessly and have the MyCadillac app take less than 5 minutes to connect or execute requests. Even better would be a route planning experience like Tesla cars provide.
Fixing what doesn’t work would be better than working to add glitzy new functions.