Although it may not be clearly visible to the car users, Cerence owns a large market share of embedded automotive voice assistants, with many automotive OEMs as customers.
When it comes to voice assistants in automotive, there are two implementations – one is cloud-based and the other is embedded. While cloud-based voice assistant systems are more known to the users, embedded voice assistant systems are hidden and more critical to the basic automotive system itself. A cloud-based voice assistant system always requires connection to the server, although embedded voice assistant systems are built into the automotive infotainment to take care of the basic voice commands critical to operation of the vehicle.
Started from the days of Nuance (before Cerence spun out), Cerence has accumulated lots of know-hows in embedded automotive voice assistant systems and owns more than 50% of the market based on SAR’s study published in 2021: SERVICE: Voice Assistant Platforms – SAR Insight
SAR identified the current Cerence customers as BMW, Chrysler and Volkswagen, while many of the proprietary embedded automotive voice assistants used in many other automotive OEMs are based on Cerence technology.
