Ford announced Wednesday at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show that it is developing an AI assistant that will debut in its smartphone app before expanding to its vehicles in 2027. The company is also previewing the next generation of its BlueCruise advanced driver assistance system, which will be cheaper to manufacture and more capable, ultimately enabling eye-off driving in 2028.
Wednesday’s announcement was one of the only announcements from a major automaker at CES, marking a sharp reversal from the late 2010s when they dominated the show. And it wasn’t created at a fancy keynote event. Rather, Ford discussed the news in a speaker session called “Great Minds,” which aims to “explore the intersection of technology and humanity.”
Ford says the digital assistant is hosted by Google Cloud and built using off-the-shelf LLM, giving it deep access to vehicle-specific information. This means your assistant can answer advanced questions like, “How many bags of mulch can I hold in the bed of my truck?” But it also means owners can ask for detailed real-time information such as oil life.
The company plans to introduce the assistant to the newly revamped Ford app in early 2026. Native in-vehicle integration is expected to arrive in 2027, but the company hasn’t said which models it will prioritize.
Ford didn’t go into detail about what the in-car experience will be like, but looking at some of the more technologically advanced automakers, it’s not hard to imagine the possibilities.
Just last month, Rivian showed off its own digital assistant that sends and receives text messages, handles complex navigation requests, and changes climate controls. Tesla has integrated Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok into its vehicles, and customers are using it to generate sightseeing tours on the fly. While some of these features may subvert what Ford has in mind, the automaker has also spent a full year crafting in-vehicle integration.
Ford says the new BlueCruise system unveiled Wednesday is 30% cheaper to manufacture than current technology. It is scheduled to debut in 2027 as the first EV built on the company’s low-cost Universal Electric Vehicle platform and will be a mid-size pickup truck.
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Ford has high expectations for this next-generation BlueCruise system, including the ability to achieve eye-off driving in 2028. But it also claims the system can handle “point-to-point autonomy” similar to what Tesla offers with its fully self-driving (supervised) software. Rivian also teased a point-to-point system coming later this year. All these systems require the driver to be ready to take control of the car at any time.
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