SALTZMAN: General Motors shows off future of ‘personal autonomy’

General Motors held its second annual GM Forward event in New York City last week, once again spotlighting the company’s investments in tech and innovation.

Much of the focus was on automation, including the (near) future of hands-free driving, as well as the announcement of GM’s own OnStar AI Assistant coming later this year.

“Our goal is to give people back that precious commodity – time,” GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra said in her opening remarks on Wednesday. “We’re changing what it means to drive, turning your car into an intelligent partner that makes your life easier.”

That vision of “personal autonomy” was the common thread between most of the day’s announcements and product demonstrations.

Evolution of ‘Super Cruise’

Barra shared the next generation of Super Cruise, the world’s first hands-free driving assistance technology, is on track to deliver “personal autonomy” by 2028 –announced a year ago at the inaugural GM Forward event.

First, a short primer on what the current version of Super Cruise can do: When enabled in the more than 20 compatible vehicles (across Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC and Buick) it can accelerate and decelerate without your input, steer for you (to stay in your lane), and automatically change lanes on the way to your destination.

To date, Super Cruise works on more than one million kilometres of mapped roads, primarily highways and freeways, across Canada, the United States, China, South Korea, and some Middle Eastern countries (including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).

Currently, you must remain attentive and ready to take control at any moment. While your hands may be off the wheel, your eyes must be on the road; a small camera is mounted to the top of the steering wheel column to ensure you’re staying alert.

GM says more than 1.2 billion miles (almost 2 billion kilometres) have already been driven by GM customers with Super Cruise enabled, on both gas-based and electric vehicles (EVs).

GM announced autonomous highway driving will launch in 2028, beginning with the Cadillac Escalade IQ, which means you can safely take your eyes off the road, too, perhaps to catch up on your favourite show or tackle your email inbox even before you get to the office.

To work towards this near future, Barra said GM has started testing pre-production vehicles on closed courses, along with “hundreds of data-collection vehicles” already driving across the country, generating roughly one million miles of multi-sensor data each month, to augment a much larger pool of generated data.

(GM mentioned several times its unparalleled troves of data and long-standing presence in the automotive industry are massive competitive advantages.)

Connected vehicles will also communicate with our smart homes, as we witnessed in a conceptual demo, whereby a car autonomously pulled into a driveway, which turned on the outdoor and indoor lights and opened the garage door to park itself for the night.

While some of these experiences can be performed today, GM says future vehicles will be able to do errands for you – even if you’re not inside. This includes picking up groceries, safely getting family members where they need to go, and parking itself. This is called “Mission Mode,” according to Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson.

“Our vision is that eventually every vehicle should drive itself or its occupants anywhere, and we’re investing across the self-driving stack to make that real,” Anderson said.

‘OnStar AI Assistant’ coming in December

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, GM’s existing OnStar is a subscription-based safety and connectivity service that provides automatic crash response, emergency roadside assistance, stolen vehicle tracking, remote smartphone commands, and more.

Announced at GM Forward, “OnStar AI Assistant” looks to be a major AI overhaul of this popular connected car platform, transforming the service into an intelligent in-vehicle (and app-supported) digital assistant – to complement many of the vehicle’s existing “Google built-in” services (plus Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support in many models).

Beginning with an over-the-air update pushed to the 2027 Cadillac LYRIQ later this year, OnStar AI Assistant unlocks many convenient hands-free features. Most impressive in the demos were the vehicle-related questions or commands that combine conversational language with deep vehicle understanding.

For example, say “Hey OnStar,” followed by something like this:

– “What does that exclamation mark warning mean?” (and you’ll get a verbal explanation)

– “Turn on the lights” or “Is my wallet in the glove box?” or “It’s getting warm in here” (and the vehicle will respond with a relevant action)

– “Do I have enough charge to get there?” (OnStar AI then checks your remaining battery and add stops to charge up)

OnStar AI Assistant will automatically connect to a human OnStar Advisor if it cannot answer or handle a request.

While other AI assistants can handle non-vehicle requests, too, OnStar AI can also find music for you (even by describing a song’s lyrics), read your messages aloud (and send replies) and start route guidance to specific addresses or named places (including businesses).

GM said OnStar today connects more than 12 million subscribers across 22 markets; OnStar advisors handle more than 20 million calls in North America each year.

On a related note, a new OnStar app will start in 2027, to deliver a unified experience across vehicles and devices. Along with vehicle info and management controls, it adds features like support for connected cameras (to receive video clips of things like incident recordings), opt-in access to other OnStar-supported vehicles (allowing you to see family members on a map and coordinate tasks based on proximity) and access info before you even step into the vehicle, such as weather, road conditions, and route information (to provide timely alerts and guidance).

‘Concept Horizon’ a vision of the future

One more standout from GM Forward: “Concept Horizon.”

General Motors’ futuristic autonomous cabin design flips the script on car interiors, transforming them into dedicated spaces for relaxation, work, and leisure.

In one demo called “Relax Mode,” you can tell your vehicle you need to unwind after a stressful day and it will dim the cabin lighting and show soothing colours, play relaxing music, enable the massage chairs and even dispense fragrancies into the air.

Consider it a few moments of Zen while commuting home in rush hour traffic.

It’s another example of GM’s overall future vision: reimaging what mobility could look like and regaining your time to spend it on things that matter.

– Marc Saltzman is the host of the Tech It Out podcast and is the author of the book, Apple Watch For Dummies (Wiley)

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