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On Wednesday in New York City, General Motors laid out its future, and a large part of it is rebooting its OnStar service and wrapping it into your life as your own personal AI-powered assistant.
GM’s Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson said, “The intelligence of OnStar will exist everywhere.” And he means everywhere. Your car. Your phone. The cloud. Even your fleet management software.
Don’t fret: You’ll still be able to actually call and speak to someone at OnStar, if you grew up with that service and take comfort in speaking with a real human.
Your vehicle needs to understand your preferences and goals. It’s the only way to be truly personalized, according to Anderson.
GM spokespeople and executives gave multiple examples of ways OnStar AI will help manage real-life situations to make life easier.
If you are going to be late for soccer practice, Anderson noted, your car shouldn’t just show a red line on the navigation screen. It should know where your partner is and when your grocery pickup is scheduled, then move the pickup and alert others to your schedule change.
The new onboard AI-powered OnStar will launch first in the 2027 Cadillac Lyriq in the coming months via an over-the-air update, with more models to come after.
Director of Product Management for Voice and Vehicle AI Anna Santos told The Drive that, theoretically, the OnStar AI assistant should be backward-compatible with some previous GM models with a goal of rolling it out to vehicles where possible. The Lyriq utilizes the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor in its infotainment system, and many other GM EVs use the same processor. Additionally, the new gas-powered Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500, along with other new upcoming models, will also feature OnStar AI in the future.
OnStar will go beyond the car starting in 2027. GM will kill off today’s standalone Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick apps as it launches an all-encompassing OnStar smartphone app. The app itself will bundle your GM vehicles, regardless of brand, into one place.
The app will also send alerts and guidance based on vehicle signals, weather, road conditions, and route information as the AI-powered assistant ties into your life, including your calendar.
A new Connected Cameras function will enable automatic incident recordings. Events that engage the system, an example included an aggressive horn honk, will trigger the onboard cameras, capture the event, and upload the footage to the OnStar app via the cloud while sending you an alert.
Anderson was quick to note that the data is encrypted end-to-end and will be accessible and shareable only by the owner. Beyond this, GM noted that owners will be able to see what information a feature uses, why it’s needed, when it’s active, and how it’s handled. Owners will be able to control the cameras, microphones, location, and AI permissions with simple settings, which weren’t shown at the event.
Whether OnStar’s reboot for the new age will resonate with owners and buyers is yet to be seen, but the service is now 30 years old with more than 12 million subscribers. The definition of a built-in user base for GM’s new AI agent.
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As Director of Content and Product, Joel draws on over 15 years of newsroom experience and inability to actually stop working to help ensure The Drive shapes the future of automotive media. He’s also a World Car Award juror.
