Bosch has teamed up with Microsoft to find ways generative AI can make roads safer.

Imagine a ball rolling out into the road. The chances are it will be followed immediately by a child in hot pursuit, oblivious to any traffic. But while human drivers can assess this situation using their contextual knowledge, today’s assisted and automated driving systems still have to learn how to do it.

Bosch is collaborating with Microsoft on the use of generative AI to improve automated driving functions.

“Bosch is working on bringing a new dimension of AI applications into the vehicle,” said Stefan Hartung, chairman of the Bosch board of management.

The expectation is that generative AI will enable vehicles to assess situations and react accordingly, and in this way keep road users safer. Greater safety on the roads is also the wish of 60 per cent of respondents to this year’s Bosch Tech Compass, a worldwide representative Bosch survey on the subjects of technology and AI.

The two companies anticipate that a collaboration would take the performance of automated driving functions to the next level. They would like to see generative AI help enhance convenience in the vehicle and provide greater safety for all road users.

“In our unwavering commitment to safer roads, Microsoft is eager to explore collaboration opportunities with Bosch to pioneer the realm of generative AI,” said Uli Homann, Microsoft CVP.

Today’s driver assistance systems can detect people, animals, objects and vehicles, but soon generative AI could help determine whether a situation could potentially lead to an accident. Generative AI uses vast amounts of data to train systems for automated driving, enabling them to draw improved conclusions from these data. For example, it could deduce whether an object on the road ahead is a plastic bag or a damaged vehicle part. This information can be used either to communicate directly with the driver – such as by displaying a warning – or to initiate appropriate driving manoeuvres, such as braking while switching on the hazard warning lights.

Bosch and Microsoft have already partnered to develop a universal software platform for seamlessly connecting cars and the cloud, and are looking to work together to identify opportunities to bring AI technology to the autonomous vehicle industry.

“Generative AI is a boost to innovation,” said Tanja Rueckert, Bosch chief digital officer. “It can transform industry in much the same way as the invention of the computer.”

The 2024 Bosch Tech Compass shows this as well: 64 per cent of respondents believe AI is the technology with the greatest importance for the future. In comparison, only 41 per cent of respondents were of the same opinion just one year ago.

Bosch invested in AI company Aleph Alpha last year and said it would collaborate with the start-up on finding use cases both for Bosch associates and customers.

“Bosch and Aleph Alpha want to learn from each other, benefit from each other’s know-how, and work together on cross-domain use cases,” Rueckert said.

This partnership is now bearing its first fruits in North America. In collaboration with Aleph Alpha, Bosch is debuting AI-based speech recognition on behalf of a premium car manufacturer. In this, a chatbot understands and answers breakdown service calls with the help of natural language processing, which also recognises dialects, accents and moods. The call is taken directly, reducing the driver’s waiting time.

AI experts at Bosch are working on well over 120 applications these AI models open up for the company’s associates and customers. Such applications include the generation of software code or chatbots and voicebots to support technicians or interact with consumers.

As AI is used in more areas of life, professional development is becoming increasingly important: 58 per cent of respondents to the Bosch Tech Compass (www.bosch.com/stories/technology-report-tech-compass-2024) are convinced of this. This opinion is particularly prevalent in USA at 63 per cent, Germany at 54 per cent and China at 52 per cent.

For the survey, people aged 18 and over in seven countries (Brazil, China, Germany, France, India, UK and USA) were polled online on behalf of Bosch by market researcher Gesellschaft für Innovative Marktforschung in December 2023. In Germany, France and the UK, at least 1000 people were polled per country; in Brazil, China, India and the USA, it was at least 2000 people each.