Las Vegas: Amid an eventful press conference on the first morning of CES, the largest consumer electronics show in the world, it was Panasonic’s announcement of two collaborations, one with Amazon and the other with Google, that is most likely to grab the headlines.
In keeping with the trend towards voice control and built-in personal assistants, the most famous of which are Google’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa, Panasonic unveiled two new in-car infotainment systems, capable of controlling music, temperature, GPS, and a range of other features.
Amazon and Panasonic initially rolled out Alexa Onboard, a new service that is all part of Amazon’s drive to ensure Alexa is featured everywhere, from home to car.
Alexa Onboard is capable of answering queries such as where the nearest petrol station is, or how far your destination is, and what the traffic is like on the way.
Tom Taylor, Amazon’s senior vice president for Alexa, said that users would be able to transition from their system at home, to their one in the car, effortlessly.
“Say, for example, if you’re listening to an audiobook at home: You’ll be able to pick up exactly where you left off when you get in the car,” Taylor said.
Responding to this, Panasonic chief executive said: “There’s no question that for a long time, the consumer wanted a really seamless integrated voice solution in the vehicle.”
In a statement on Alexa Onboard’s offline capabilities, Gebhardt added: “Enabling some of these capabilities even without an Internet connection is revolutionary.”
Towards the end of the press event, Gebhardt unveiled Panasonic’s collaboration with Google, which offers many of the same features as its Amazon system.
Panasonic seemed to sit firmly on the fence over the debate which is expected to define CES 2018: Which brands would partner with Amazon to use its Alexa platform, and which would partner with Google to use its Google Assistant system.
Instead of picking a side, Panasonic announced that it was in fact collaborating with both Google and Amazon, and had developed in-car infotainment systems to work with both of the companies’ personal assistant platforms.
It was unclear how users might choose between the two, but signalled a clear intent by both companies early on in the week to continue aggressively pushing to get their systems in as many third party products as possible.
According to a 2016 report by Strategy Analytics, Panasonic is the market leader in the vehicle infotainment space, with a 11.5 per cent market share. Another study by Research and Markets estimates the in-car infotainment market to grow into a $30 billion market by 2022.
