The Upcoming MG Astor SUV Gets A New, Indianised Virtual Assistant

Normally, when automotive brands are talking about virtual assistants, they are usually talking either about Siri or the Google Assistant or an Alexa integration. Not many auto brands have bothered to build something of their own, with Mercedes being prominent for MBUX. However now, MG Motors has also joined the party with an AI-powered personal assistant building upon its legacy of being one of the first in the industry to bring voice commands to vehicles in India. 

Also Read: MG Motors Astors features autonomous tech and a connected car platform 

Now, MG Motors says that this assistant is a true companion as it gives personalised and contextual information to the driver.  It is leveraging AI and also is customised for India with it understanding the Indian dialect very well. This assistant debuts with the MG Astor and you just need to say "hello Astor" and it will respond in a voice that even has an Indian accent, something which we have seen before on virtual assistants by Apple, Google or Amazon.

Unlike most assistants which are almost invisible, this one is placed on top of the central console above the air vents for the air conditioning with it having a dedicated speaker and screen coupled with microphones that are likely beam-forming in nature. MG leverages techniques like natural language processing and natural language understanding which is parsed over the network to the Microsoft Azure cloud. 

MG Astor SUV With AI Inside

MG has added a visual element to the assistant with a screen that displays what at best can be called emotions portrayed in the form of rudimentary emoticons. Visually, it seems like it has been inspired by the HAL 9000 assistant in the iconic science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey by the late Stanley Kubrick. 

MG has partnered with Star Design which is part of the Star Global group to develop this assistant which the SAIC owned company claims is the first one designed globally for India. That's a lofty claim - as users can get a similar experience from the Google Assistant using Android Auto which has been available to users for years. However, there are clear advantages to MG's approach here as it is deeply integrated with the car and not an add-on parsed from a phone. 

For instance, Star Design is fundamentally calling this virtual assistant a robot since it has a physical element combining the speaker and display which shows a face and emotions. It believes this way, it builds an emotional connection faster with the user which enhances communication. 

MG partnered with Star Design in the US for the design of the new Astor AI personal assistant.

MG showed off some advantages of its approach. The assistant can respond to questions but is more interactive than something like Siri or Alexa since the physical element of the assistant rotates its screen towards the driver and responds mimicking a real human. 

Also Read: MG Motors partners with Microsoft Azure for localised cloud servers 

It then can answer general questions like "what is algebra?" It then goes about answering the question verbally and visually using the main infotainment display showcasing the text to the answer. It pulls information from Wikipedia or it can lighten up the mood by telling you a joke as well with some customised for India.

Users can ask it to tell you the news as well. And all this was demoed in the keynote. Apart from this it can control a host of car functions using quirky language that's part of Indian slang. Overall, it remains to be seen if this AI assistant can provide tangible benefits to the users but it sure is one heck of a party trick that will at least initially lure in users just the way Siri did when it was launched on the iPhone 4S a decade ago.