I Rode Shotgun Nuance's AI-Powered Auto Assistant

I Rode Shotgun with Nuance's AI-Powered Auto Assistant

When you've got both hands on the cycle and both eyes focused on the road, the final thing you want to do is start arguing with your vocalisation-powered assistant about what exactly yous were asking it to await up. Unfortunately, that happens a fiddling scrap too oftentimes on my road trips when my failure to employ precise phrasing stumps Siri and sends me spiraling into road rage.

So imagine how pleasant it was when the folks from Nuance picked me up in a tricked-out Chrysler Pacifica loaded up with the speech recognition company's Dragon Drive automotive banana, and I found out that Dragon Drive not only understood me perfectly only could handle ii requests virtually simultaneously.

Dragon Drive uses AI as well as natural language and speech recognition to understand your commands. (Credit: Nuance) — (Image credit: Dragon Bulldoze uses AI besides equally natural linguistic communication and speech recognition to sympathize your commands. (Credit: Nuance))

To testify off Dragon Drive'southward power to listen to 2 commands at once and sympathize both, Lior Ben-Gigi, a senior product manager at Nuance, told the automotive assistant to bring up a route to the Gilt Gate Bridge and notify 1 of his contacts almost our estimated inflow time. Dragon Bulldoze produced a route and then told us a message nearly our arrival in an hour's time had been sent — pretty impressive stuff if you've ever struggled to make a phonation-powered assistant empathise just one of your commands.

Dragon Drive'south trick: it's built on multiple layers that assistance the automotive assistant figure out and human activity on simply exactly what you're proverb. In add-on to automated spoken communication recognition that tin can hear your dictated command and natural language agreement that can effigy out the intent behind your words, Nuance has also added an bogus intelligence layer that'southward able to place your commands in context.

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All these things come together to make things easier on the driver, Ben-Gigi explained to me. "Equally a commuter, I don't have to remember too much," he said.

Dragon Bulldoze, which Nuance developers for automakers to include in their in-car infotainment systems, tin likewise tap into the sensors and diagnostic information of the automobile itself. In another demo, we plotted a course betwixt my home in Northern California and San Diego; the Dragon Drive system calculated a route, but too threw in stops at gas stations when it calculated we would demand to refuel the Pacifica.

"It can sympathise the distance [we're driving], that we have a certain amount of fuel, and it tin can calculate a detour that doesn't take a lot of time," said Ben-Gigi, pointing out that the gas stations selected by the driving banana were conveniently located correct of the freeway.

What I particularly capeesh about Dragon Drive is that it didn't seem to require a serial of specific commands to recognize what you were saying. That'south a byproduct of the system's prowess with natural language. Say "I'yard common cold," explained Nuance senior managing director of product marketing and strategy Eric Montague, and the automotive assistant would recognize that it needed to turn on the car'due south heating system.

The Pacifica minivan we used in the demo had been specially modified by the Dash team. Whereas most cars with a Dragon Drive-powered assistant contain merely two microphones, this car had half-dozen — all the amend to show off the vocalisation biometrics features Dash has developed.

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After registering your phonation with the Dragon Bulldoze system much in the same way you would with Siri or Google Assistant — you basically say "Hello, Dragon" a few times so that the banana tin larn the sound of your vocalism — you're able to control the voice commands of the auto. There's a Guest style, which allows someone like a rider or a valet to operate express commands, simply info you might not want other people to admission — your contacts, say — remains accessible only if Dragon Drive recognizes your voice.

Dragon Drive uses voice recognition and seat location in its Name That Tune-style game. (Credit: Nuance) — (Image credit: Dragon Drive uses vocalism recognition and seat location in its Proper noun That Tune-style game. (Credit: Nuance))

All those biometric microphones in a car can also let yous and your fellow passenges pass the time on a road trip with a friendly game. To showcase the arrangement's ability to recognize different voices, Dash created a version of Name That Tune that could play through the Pacifica'due south infotainment system.

As a music clip played, my swain passengers and I could shout out "got it," and the voice-recognition system would figure out which of united states had buzzed in first. The system would so but heed to that contestant's approximate, ignoring any interruptions from the other players.

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Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom's Guide. He has strong opinions about Apple tree, the Oakland Athletics and sometime movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.