Intelligent Vehicles, Intuitive Experiences: Software-Defined Vehicles Powered by Cerence AI Take the Stage at IAA Mobility 2025
By Christian Mentz, Chief Revenue Officer
As the automotive world gathers in Munich for IAA Mobility 2025, Cerence AI is once again at the heart of the innovative user experiences that are taking center stage. Across the show floor, leading automakers like BYD, BMW, Ford, Genesis, Hyundai, Leapmotor, Lucid, Mini, Opel, Polestar, Togg, XPENG, and more are showcasing vehicles that bring Cerence’s conversational AI solutions to life, highlighting how our technology is transforming the way drivers and passengers interact with their cars. Below you’ll find just a few of the highlights of where you can see Cerence AI in action at the show. And, beyond checking out what our customers are up to at IAA, we’d love to see you at the Cerence AI booth: Booth D21, Hall B2.
Volkswagen Group
Cerence has partnered with the Volkswagen Group to bring LLM-powered intelligence to vehicles across several of its brands. These advanced capabilities enable faster, more natural conversations that feel less like talking to a machine and more like talking to a helpful, knowledgeable companion – one that is ready to answer complex questions, suggest ideas, help with navigation, and even tell a story to entertain children in the car. Plus, this AI-powered experience is available not only for new cars, but to cars already on the road, driving added value for drivers even after vehicle purchase. Some of the highlights from the Volkswagen Group at IAA include:
Volkswagen will debut the ID. Polo and the ID. Polo GTI, which feature an enhanced IDA in-car assistant experience powered by Cerence AI. This experience will also roll out to Cupra, Seat, and Skoda cars in Europe and the US.
Audi will introduce the new Audi Q3 Sportback, which includes Cerence Chat Pro integrated as part of Audi’s in-car assistant.
Porsche will showcase the 2026 all-electric Macan, which features enhanced Voice Pilot that transforms the car into a conversational copilot, powered by Cerence AI.
Mercedes
Cerence AI and Mercedes-Benz are long-time partners on the MBUX infotainment system. This summer, we announced that our core technologies are supporting new agentic and generative AI capabilities in the fourth generation of MBUX, which rolled out first in the all-electric Mercedes-Benz CLA. At IAA, Mercedes-Benz will celebrate the world premiere of the electric GLC, which is the second vehicle to feature this next-gen MBUX.
Within MBUX, Cerence’s AI solutions serve as the core input and output mechanisms across 25 languages, enabling seamless interaction across the platform’s agentic architecture. This includes the automaker’s "living" avatar, which takes the form of the Mercedes-Benz star.
Renault
At IAA, Renault will be displaying the Renault 5 and Renault 4 E-Tech electric, which both feature Reno, the official Renault avatar built on humanized, voice-powered interaction from Cerence AI. Built on Cerence Assistant, Reno is an intelligent, helpful, and endearing in-car companion that brings customers a more intuitive and fun driving experience.
In addition, Renault leverages Cerence Chat Pro to advance Reno’s capabilities and bring the avatar’s intelligence to an entirely new level, enabling the avatar to engage in fun and conversational chit-chat and provide accurate and relevant responses to nearly every query imaginable. Interaction with Reno is further enhanced by Cerence’s neural text-to-speech, which enables Reno to convey different emotions in its responses to drivers, including apprehensive, cheerful, empathetic, sad, and serious.
Smart
At IAA, smart will celebrate its first time exhibiting at a European auto show. smart will present its complete all-electric portfolio – including the smart #5. The #5 features smart’s next-gen platform, including a generative AI-powered assistant built by Cerence. As the basis for this experience, smart leverages Cerence AI’s scalable full stack – speech recognition, natural language understanding, text-to-speech, and speech signal enhancement – taking a hybrid embedded and cloud-based approach to ensure drivers always have access to what they need, when they need it. In addition, the assistant leverages generative AI solutions from Cerence – Car Knowledge and Chat Pro – to deliver a more intuitive, intelligent, and integrated experience.
As drivers demand more natural, generative AI-powered experiences, OEMs are turning to Cerence AI to support them in not only rolling out new features for existing platforms but also building the next-generation of in-car UX that will start hitting the roads this year. As the doors open at IAA Mobility 2025, attendees will see first-hand how Cerence AI is making vehicles not only smarter, but also more personal and enjoyable for drivers and passengers alike. From long-time partners like NVIDIA, MediaTek, and Microsoft to new collaborations like SiMA.ai, the innovations on display in Munich showcase how our conversational AI is redefining the relationship between people and their cars.
