SoundHound brings AI voice personas
to cars

Voice AI company SoundHound has launched Brand Personalities, a feature that lets automakers customise voice assistants to match their brand identity, enhancing user experience and loyalty for OEMs.

Brand Personalities enables car makers to control the personality of their voice assistant by modifying response style, character and vivaciousness. Automotive partners can choose from pre-designed personas, create fully customised personalities tailored to their specific needs, or even introduce seasonal characters for campaigns.

Due to SoundHound’s software architecture, multiple personas can be defined for specific sub-brands or model lines – allowing sports cars, family cars, and commercial vehicles to have distinct personalities that reflect customer needs.

The new feature builds on the core features offered from SoundHound Chat AI Automotive’s voice assistant, which integrates generative AI capabilities with car controls and real-time domains like flight times, navigation, and weather.

As innovation and technological advancements in the automotive industry evolve, the assistant’s customisation tools, like Brand Personalities, enable automakers to keep the end user in focus, enhancing the user experience as well as the value of in-vehicle voice assistants for OEMs.

For OEMs, the new feature offers:

• Distinct brand expression: OEMs can define personalities aligned with their brand identity to create memorable and meaningful interactions.
• Multi-brand differentiation: Allows multi-brand OEMs to clearly differentiate brands while using the same underlying software.
• Model-specific variability: Tailor personalities to specific vehicle lines, such as a family car versus a high-performance sports car, or a commercial vehicle.
• Market adaptability: Adjust the assistant’s Brand Personality to match the tone and conversational style for regional and driver preferences.

In a recent SoundHound study titled Reclaiming the Cockpit: How Voice Generative AI Creates Strategic Advantage for Automakers, the company reveals 77% of regular drivers are likely to use voice generative AI capabilities in their vehicle if available.

This highlights a strong demand for advanced voice AI features that provide more tailored, user-specific interactions and enhance the overall driving experience. For consumers, Brand Personalities aims to increase satisfaction and trust in the technology by providing a more relatable and engaging in-vehicle experience.

“As automakers look to differentiate their offerings, SoundHound designed Brand Personalities to elevate the in-car experience beyond what’s expected, giving brands complete control over how they engage with their consumers,” said Michael Zagorsek, COO of SoundHound AI. 

“This innovation goes beyond functionality. It is a fully customisable, deeply engaging experience that builds meaningful connections and long-term brand loyalty.”

SoundHound’s voice AI technology is deployed in millions of cars and TVs worldwide, across 20 brands and more than 25 languages. Brand Personalities follows recent launches of SoundHound Chat AI Automotive in Lucid Motors, Alfa Romeo, Citroën, Peugeot, Opel, and Vauxhall.

In March 2024, SoundHound AI announced that Stellantis’ DS Automobiles was the first automaker in the world to go into full production with a voice assistant that integrates the latest generative AI technology via SoundHound Chat AI Automotive.

* Visit the website SoundHound website here.