Revving Up the Driving Experience with Cognitive Computing

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Within 10 years, a majority of the cars produced in the world will be connected to the Internet and many of them will be capable of driving themselves—ushering in a revolution in how we drive, maintain and insure our cars.

The auto industry showed glimpses of the future at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show and will reveal more at this week’s North American International Auto Show. But a new study by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, A New Relationship –People and Cars, reveals that consumers want to play a role in shaping the car of the future.

Many surveyed for the study expressed an interest in crowd sourcing new services and products, for example. They were most interested in engagement methods such as voting on new ideas and answering questions about new designs. Many consumers also want greater involvement by being able to submit ideas online and by participating in design games and contests.

Surprisingly, as many as 37 percent of those surveyed said they would be “very likely” to allow their driving and mobility data to be a source of design input.

Consumers in IBM’s study also show a high level of interest in self-enabling vehicles — cars that can learn, heal, drive and even socialize. These capabilities include autonomous, self-driving cars, vehicles that can be fixed without human intervention and the implementation of cognitive computing to learn and assimilate to the driver’s behaviors.

There are several such cognitive innovations already in the works. For example, a major automaker’s self-learning cars use a new learning algorithm to recognize who is in the car and learns driver preferences and driving style.

At NAIAS, we’ll showcase virtual reality cognitive capabilities that will enable people to experience what driving will look like when powered by Watson. The demo, developed by IBM Interactive Experience, the world’s largest digital agency, allows automakers and infotainment suppliers to visualize how Watson can inform drivers about maintenance issues, road conditions and safety alerts. With cognitive computing powered by Watson we are sharing the capabilities that are being used to transform the way people interact during their driving experience.

The list of use cases is limitless, but the innovation anchored by three Watson capabilities: (1) the ability to learn who the driver is, her personality in the moment, her driving behaviors, the environment inside and outside the vehicle cabin; (2) the ability to process massive quantities of data; and (3) the ability to enable natural language interactions between the people and the vehicle.

At IBM, we’ve developed an application of Watson capabilities to enable automakers and infotainment suppliers to deliver next-generation driving experiences. The driving experience of the future will include cars that learn a driver’s behaviors, and sense and respond to the vehicle and the surrounding environment to make the ride safer and more enjoyable.

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