BMW’s newest iDrive system was met with a touch of skepticism when it was first unveiled at CES last year – and I’ll count myself as one of those that had some concerns.
For a start, the system does away with the German marque’s famous physical rotary dial, which was one of the most intuitive and simplest ways to interact with a vehicle when driving.
These widgets are fully customizable and are joined by a new multifunction steering wheel that is peppered with haptic touch buttons.
“This is by far the most advanced infotainment system we have ever built,” explains Stephan Durach, senior vice president of UI/UX development at BMW Group as he gives me a guided tour of the new technology in the parking lot of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
“After using the technology, not a single person has requested that we return to the physical dial. This will only be helped by the fact we now have Amazon Alexa Plus embedded into iDrive,” he explains.
This is BMW’s breaking news, and the reason it attended CES 2026 this year, as it becomes the first automotive brand to integrate Amazon’s supercharged voice assistant into a vehicle.
Smooth talker
BMW wanted to build on its existing voice assistant, which has been a little hit-and-miss in previous tests, with something that is far more capable – enter stage right Amazon Alexa Plus.
It’s all very simple and intuitive. Later this year, uttering “hey BMW” when inside the upcoming iX3 (in Germany and the US at first) will wake up a familiar Alexa voice, which is then able to understand natural, chatty conversation and assist with any requests.
It no longer requires multiple wake-up phrases and instead carries on listening to the driver or passengers can ask follow-up questions.
During the demo, it was able to check if a nearby ski resort was open, determine if there was snow on the peaks and whether equipment rental was available.
Similarly, Alexa Plus could recommend good restaurants on the way and even locate somewhere to pick up some sunscreen.
“We chose Amazon’s technology because we wanted something that could handle complex tasks and requests, but also do something about them,” Durach says.
He points out that that while ChatGPT and other LLM-based chatbots are great at answering general queries, they often fail to then follow up with direct navigation to a location, for example, or setting the vehicle to Sport mode because it knows the route ahead looks fun.
BMW’s system can and Durach says that adds value to the customer while drastically improving safety by removing the distraction of a complex touchscreen menu.
If talking to thin air feels odd, the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant can be placed as a widget in the centre of the fantastically crisp Panoramic Vision display. It takes the form of an enthusiastic ball that widens its eyes and wiggles its eyebrows while talking.
Room for improvement
While the demo was undeniably impressive, even able to understand tricky accents and mis-speaks, it wasn’t 100 per cent perfect. There were moments where it seemed to stall while it calculated a response and others where it required additional prompts before it understood the request.
Local restaurant recommendations came courtesy of Yelp, rather than Google Reviews, and, as a result, some of those suggested spots couldn’t be booked directly through the platform, but many could.
In addition to this, there is still some data that BMW is yet to connect with Amazon’s systems, such as live flight information. Durach says that this is coming soon.
“We chose Amazon because we know the company has spent a huge amount of time and money developing their language models. We also know they will continue to develop them and this will only mean our technology improves with time,” he says.
More importantly, Durach reiterates that this one system takes care of pretty much everything in the car, including Spotify and other apps that can be installed on the Android operating system.
In fact, the central display is formatted for entertainment and Durach says that while Amazon Prime can currently be enjoyed when parked, he sees a time in the not-so distant future where advanced levels of autonomous driving will allow for TV bingeing on the move.
After all, the upcoming iX3 will be capable of hands-free driving at speeds of up to 130 km/h (81 mph).
And yes, if you log into your Amazon account, you can indeed ask the cheerful voice assistant to place orders for toilet roll and other important products when on the move. It’s undoubtedly the future.
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