Your Mercedes just got a brain upgrade

Updated Jan. 3, 2025, 12:55 a.m. | By East Coast Breakfast / Skyye Ndlovu

Mercedes-Benz cars can now hold humanlike conversations with you, thanks to the latest ChatGPT brain upgrade. Should we be worried?

MBUX and ChatGPT — Fotofantastika / iStock

Mercedes-Benz is taking a big step forward in making cars smarter, and more human. With this latest upgrade to its MBUX voice assistant, drivers and passengers will be able to have conversations with their car that feel as natural as talking to a friend.

This magic touch comes from integrating ChatGPT into its onboard system. This means the voice assistant doesn’t just respond to your commands, it can hold a full conversation. Now you can actually talk to your car without the annoying lag or that "I'm sorry, but I didn't get that."

You can ask it something as random as, “How many Formula One titles has Lewis Hamilton won?” and it’ll tell you. Then, without missing a beat, you can follow up with, “When was his first?” and it’ll know exactly what you mean.

What’s even cooler is the upgraded system will source real-time information from Microsoft Bing, ensuring you’re always getting accurate, up-to-date answers. Meaning, you can ask it everything from “What’s the weather like later today?” to “Did Manchester City lose again?” Your Mercedes Benz will have all the answers.

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According to Markus Schäfer, Mercedes-Benz’s Chief Technology Officer, this isn’t just about adding features; it’s about creating a more personal and rewarding connection between driver and vehicle. You can also activate it with your voice or a button on the steering wheel, so you don't have to take your hands off the wheel or your eyes off the road.

Best of all, this upgrade is completely free, as long as you already have a super fancy Mercedes-Benz. It’s being rolled out as an automated update to more than three million Mercedes-Benz vehicles equipped with the MBUX system. It’ll be available in German, British English, and American English.

This isn’t just the next step for voice assistants – it’s a giant leap in the way we interact with our cars. Soon our cars will be sentient, just in time for the machines to take over and overthrow humans, exactly as we prophesied.

We’re literally living in that 20th-century Sci-Fi movie.

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