BMW showcases AI and augmented reality at CES

In-car digital experiences and artificial intelligence (AI) are the dominant themes of BMW at the Consumer Electrics Show (CES) 2024 in Las Vegas, US, from Tuesday to January 12. The company will showcase new infotainment products for its latest model portfolio, and unveil innovative development for the future.

Visitors will be able tele-operate a BMW iX and guide it around the Silver Lot on the exhibition site, discover as a passenger the potential offered by augmented reality glasses and experience a new generative artificial intelligence (AI) BMW personal assistant with quicker answers and how-to responses on vehicle features.

BMW Operating System 9 (OS9), which will be rolled out this year, makes new gaming experiences possible. The optional BMW Digital Premium offering gives customers with cars fitted with the operating system access to a range of products, including on-demand functions for the vehicle, third-party apps for music and audio, news and magazines, and gaming categories.

Use of proper gaming controllers is also coming, BMW says. For example, the classic console game Beach Buggy Racing 2 is available, with two players in the vehicle able to compete in split-screen mode using any standard gaming controllers with Bluetooth capability. The controller link-up will be made available over the air for OS9 in 2024.

In addition to the BMW Theatre Screen, which has Amazon Fire TV built into the rear compartment of the BMW 7 Series, customers are now also able to watch a variety of video content on the central display, including live channels and on-demand media libraries covering news, sport, entertainment for children, movies and TV series.

BMW will extend the video capability to more compact models, including the MINI sub-brand, with a number of portals such as Pluto TV, Bloomberg, TED, Yahoo! and Chili.

Driving will be enhanced by XREAL Air 2 augmented reality glasses. BMW will also use CES 2024 to demonstrate for the first time how augmented reality (AR) glasses enrich the driving experience.

Visitors can test the AR glasses on a drive through Las Vegas, seeing how navigation instructions, hazard warnings, entertainment content, information on charging stations and supporting visualisations in parking situations are embedded into the real-world environment by the XREAL Air 2 function.

BMW has been working on the development of its AR and mixed reality (MR) technology since 2008 and is investigating applications for head-mounted displays in research projects. AR and MR devices are poised to become increasingly popular in the next few years, while technological advances will debut in cheaper models in future.

The BMW voice assistant is now enhanced with the help of the Alexa Large Language Model (LLM) and a potential series rollout is in preparation. Since the introduction of the first BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant in 2018, language interaction has been an essential part of BMW iDrive.

Now, thanks to generative AI, visitors will experience how the voice assistant provides quicker instructions and answers about vehicle functions in a much more human, conversational manner, while being able to control some vehicle functions.

The latest proof point gives customers control over many vehicle functions so they can keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road.

The next-generation of automated level 4 parking solutions is also being prepared, including the development of automated valet parking that enables a driver to leave their vehicle in a designated drop-off area and the vehicle then searches for parking, manoeuvres into the space and later exits and can even drive back to the pickup area for collection.

Either an autonomous driving system or a tele-operated valet system can be used as the underlying technology for this, says BMW. Using live camera images to guide and move the vehicle, tele-operation offers complete control in situations that could be challenging for fully autonomous systems, such as in complex or unfamiliar environments.

CES 2024 visitors will be able to try out tele-operated valet parking themselves.