One of the worst situations every driver wants to avoid is the unexpected appearance of a ball on the road. Most likely, a child will run after it, not paying attention to the vehicle. Drivers can assess the situation using contextual knowledge, but driver assistance systems or automated driving systems have yet to learn how to do so.
Bosch is looking to use generative artificial intelligence to further improve automated driving. In partnership with Microsoft, the company is exploring opportunities for cooperation and the use of generative artificial intelligence.
Generative artificial intelligence is expected to enable vehicles to assess situations and respond accordingly, ensuring even greater safety for road users. Improved road safety is something that 60% of respondents to Bosch Tech Compass 2024, Bosch’s global representative survey on technology and artificial intelligence, want.
Generative AI should make road traffic safer
The two companies expect their collaboration to take the performance of automated driving functions to the next level, enhancing the usability of the vehicle and providing improved safety for all road users.
To achieve this goal, such aspects as Bosch’s comprehensive understanding of vehicle operation, the functioning of artificial intelligence in the automotive industry, and access to vehicle sensor data to feed generative AI will be invaluable.
Today, when it comes to training autonomous driving systems, artificial intelligence is quickly running into its limitations. Existing driver assistance systems can detect people, animals, objects, and vehicles, and in the near future, generative AI will be able to help determine whether a situation could lead to an accident.
Generative AI uses huge amounts of data to train autonomous driving systems, which allows them to make better conclusions. For example, it can determine whether an object on the road ahead is a plastic bag or a damaged car part. This information can be used either to communicate directly with the driver (for example, to send a warning) or to initiate appropriate maneuvers, such as braking and activating hazard lights.
Bosch and Microsoft are already working on developing a universal software platform for seamlessly connecting cars to the cloud. The companies look forward to further cooperation to identify new opportunities for introducing advanced artificial intelligence technologies into the self-driving vehicle industry.
Generative AI as an impetus for innovation
“Generative AI is an impetus for innovation. It has the potential to transform industry in much the same way as the invention of the computer,” says Tania Rückert, Member of the Board of Management at Bosch and Chief Digital Officer.
A new study by Bosch Tech Compass 2024 also demonstrates this: 64% of respondents believe that artificial intelligence is the technology that matters most for the future. For comparison, just a year ago, only 41% of respondents shared the same opinion.
Generative artificial intelligence is already being used by Bosch in many areas, from manufacturing to everyday office work. In addition to Microsoft, the company works with several partners such as AWS, Google, and Aleph Alpha. Last year, Bosch Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Bosch Group, invested in Aleph Alpha, an AI startup.
“Bosch and Aleph Alpha want to learn from each other, benefit from each other’s know-how, and work together on broader AI use cases,” Rückert adds.
This partnership is already bearing fruit in North America: In collaboration with Aleph Alpha, Bosch is introducing an AI-based speech recognition solution on behalf of a premium car manufacturer. In this solution, a chatbot receives emergency calls and answers them using speech processing to recognize dialects, accents, and moods.
The call from the driver is received directly, which reduces waiting time to a minimum. Up to 40% of requests can be processed and resolved automatically; in more complex cases, the bot transmits all the necessary information to a service center agent who immediately takes over.
From AI search engine to manufacturing
Bosch AI experts are working on more than 120 different projects. These include the creation of program code or powerful chatbots and voice bots to support the work of technicians or interact with consumers.
Among the interesting solutions is AskBosch, a proprietary search engine using artificial intelligence launched in late 2023. It offers faster access through natural language to a wide range of data sources, such as those scattered across the intranet. In addition to external data, AskBosch also covers internal data sources, so Bosch employees can search for company-specific information.
Generative AI also enables faster production speeds. For example, at two Bosch plants in Germany, generative AI creates synthetic images to develop and scale intelligent solutions for optical inspection and optimize existing AI models.
Bosch expects this to reduce the time to plan, launch, and deploy AI programs from the current 6-12 months to a few weeks. Following the success of the pilot project, this synthetic data creation service will be offered to all Bosch businesses.
Bosch Tech Compass 2024: the pace of artificial intelligence
As artificial intelligence becomes more widely used, professional development becomes more important. That’s according to 58% of respondents to the Bosch Tech Compass survey. This opinion is particularly widespread in the United States (63%), while in Germany it is shared by 54% of respondents and in China – 52%.
In 2019, Bosch launched a training program to provide 30,000 participants with the opportunity to learn more about artificial intelligence. To date, about 28,000 people have participated in the program.
Like the Bosch Code of Ethics, which sets out ethical principles for dealing with artificial intelligence, this program was supplemented with materials on generative artificial intelligence.
