Nuance Automotive Powers MG Hector, India’s First Internet Car
Nuance Communications, Inc. and MG Motor, a SAIC company, announced that it has partnered to bring Nuance’s conversational AI-powered mobility assistant to MG cars worldwide, starting with MG Hector, India’s first internet-enabled car. Hector will feature MG Motor’s new iSMART Next Gen connected mobility platform, which leverages Nuance technology to enable drivers to control and interact with the entire in-car system using just their voice.
Activated with “Hello MG” rather than the push of a button, MG Hector’s Voice Assist feature was specifically designed by Nuance for the India market to recognize Indian-accented speech. Leveraging Nuance’s state-of-the-art conversational AI and machine learning, iSMART Next Gen in the MG Hector understands and continuously learns the needs and preferences of drivers and passengers over time to provide an increasingly personalized and connected experience. The assistant is deeply integrated with the car itself and enables more than 100 voice-activated commands, including opening and closing of the windows and sunroof, AC control, navigation, etc. Natural language understanding and generation allow drivers to interact with MG Hector naturally, just as they would with another person, to ask questions and complete commands, while speech signal enhancement removes noise from the microphone input to clearly identify who in the car is speaking and deliver personalized content and results to queries.
Beyond the voice-activated features, MG Hector drivers also benefit from Nuance’s hybrid approach, which combines embedded and cloud-based content and services to deliver a fast, seamless experience – even in areas of poor connectivity. Furthermore, iSMART Next Gen offers seamless connectivity for real-time, over-the-air software updates to all MG cars, starting first with MG Hector. This means the Voice Assist feature can be continuously updated with new words or phrases, changing language, and new content, ensuring that the system is always offering state-of-the-art capabilities.
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