AI (for Artificial Intelligence), the hottest buzzword online these days, is truly going everywhere. Not content with just your time on the computer and phone, AI is also now gunning for your cars. Following in the footsteps of the Chinese carmakers, or was it the Germans like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen, Volvo has now announced that the Google Gemini large language model (LLM) chatbot will soon also be integrated into their cars in place of the Google Assistant, as part of the carmaker’s expanded partnership with the internet giant.
The partnership was announced during the Google I/O 2025 event yesterday, which also saw the introduction of “Google Gemini in the car”. Volvo cars will be among the first to “benefit” from the conversational AI technology, the Swedish carmaker said in a press release.
According to Volvo, Google Gemini is able to better understand what the driver wants while driving through natural conversations. In addition to the usual commands, users will also be able to ask the AI chatbot to translate a message into another language, ask questions from the car’s user manual, or even learn specific details about your destination.
“This kind of natural conversation can help reduce your cognitive load so that you can stay focused on driving, reducing distractions for everyone onboard,” Volvo says in a press release.
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In addition to integrating Google Gemini into their cars, Volvo will also serve as one of Google’s reference hardware platforms for future Android development in cars. That means Google will use Volvo Cars as a lead development partner for new features and updates. On the flipside, the latest Android features and performance enhancements will also come to Volvo cars faster than other cars with “Google Built-in” – similar to Google’s Pixel line of phones.
“For years, Google and Volvo Cars have collaborated closely to bring cutting-edge technology to connected cars,” said Google, Android for Cars Vice President, Patrick Brady. “We’re excited to deepen this partnership, accelerating the pace of innovation that will not only improve the driving experience for Volvo customers but also set new benchmarks for the automotive industry.”
READ: ‘AI’ is the new buzzword for cars – but does it actually make your car better?
