The BMW Group is poised to set a new milestone in how people communicate with their vehicles. It is the first car manufacturer to add the Amazon Alexa+ AI assistant to its vehicles. The new BMW iX3, on show at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, will be the first model to feature a BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant enhanced with this technology. The technology will first be launched in Germany and the United States in the second half of 2026.
By integrating an AI assistant into its vehicles, the BMW Group is sending a clear signal: the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant will become a partner for actual conversations. Occupants benefit from intuitive, intelligent and dialogue-based interactions with the vehicle, enabling a type of communication that goes far beyond controlling vehicle functions. For the first time, people can ask complex questions related to both the vehicle and general knowledge topics. These capabilities become even more comprehensive once the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant is linked to a personal Amazon account. This connection then enables searching for music, retrieving messages and using other types of content – more intuitively than ever before.
“Our partnership with Amazon is based on a shared vision of technological excellence,” says Stephan Durach, BMW Group – Senior Vice President Development, Digital Services, Infotainment, Connected Company. “This has resulted in a product that sets new standards in the naturalness of human-vehicle interaction through the use of artificial intelligence. With the addition of Amazon’s Alexa+ technology to the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant, the vehicle becomes an intelligent companion for its users.”
A key feature of the new quality of the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant is natural language and free choice of words. Communication with the vehicle now resembles a normal conversation rather than being restricted to predefined voice commands. This means that several requests and questions can be combined, and follow-up queries are possible at any time. If, for example, the driver asks the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant about a famous painting of a woman and the artist who created it, the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant will know the answer. And if desired, it will provide a navigation route straight to the Louvre, where Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is on display. The assistant understands context, recognises the intention behind a query and uses these dialogues to respond even more accurately in future.
The enhanced BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant with Amazon Alexa+ will have its premiere at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, featured in the new BMW iX3, the first Neue Klasse production model. Underpinning this technology is the new BMW Panoramic iDrive with BMW Operating System X. The AI will subsequently be rolled out across the entire BMW model range, starting with the BMW iX3. Customers in Germany and the United States will be the first to benefit from the new AI technology starting in the second half of 2026, with other markets to follow.
(Picture: BMW)
