“Bosch is working on opening up a new dimension of AI applications in vehicles,” said Dr. Stefan Hartung, Chairman of the Bosch Board of Management, at this year’s Bosch Connected World AIoT industry event in Berlin. In the future, generative AI will enable vehicles to assess situations, react accordingly and thus protect road users even better. More safety on the roads – this is also the wish of 60 percent of respondents to this year’s Bosch Tech Compass, a global, representative Bosch survey on the topics of technology and AI.
Generative AI to bring more safety to road traffic
The two companies believe that a collaboration would take the performance of automated driving functions to the next level. Their hopes are pinned on generative AI, which is intended to increase comfort in the vehicle and safety for all road users. To feed generative AI, Bosch’s comprehensive understanding of vehicles and automotive-specific AI expertise is likely to prove just as valuable as the technology company’s access to vehicle sensor data. “Microsoft is fully committed to improving road safety. Therefore, we look forward to exploring opportunities to collaborate with Bosch in the area of generative AI,” said Uli Homann, CVP and Distinguished Architect at Microsoft.
When it comes to training systems for automated driving, AI still quickly reaches its limits. Although current driver assistance systems can already recognize people, animals, objects and vehicles, in the near future they could use generative AI to determine whether an accident is imminent in a given situation. Generative AI trains systems for automated driving on the basis of large amounts of data, from which improved insights can be drawn. For example, it is possible to deduce whether an object on the road is a plastic bag or damaged vehicle parts. This information can either be used to communicate directly with the driver – such as displaying warning messages – or to initiate appropriate driving maneuvers – such as braking and switching on the hazard warning lights.
Bosch and Microsoft have already worked together to develop a software platform for seamless connectivity between cars and the cloud and will now explore new opportunities to bring cutting-edge AI technology to their customers and the automotive industry as a whole.
Generative AI as an innovation booster
“Generative AI is an innovation booster and can change the industry, similar to the invention of the computer,” says Bosch Board of Management member and Chief Digital Officer Dr. Tanja Rückert. This is also shown by the new Bosch Tech Compass 2024: 64 percent of respondents believe that AI is the most important technology of the future. By comparison, just one year earlier, only 41 percent of respondents were convinced of this.
From manufacturing to everyday working life – generative AI is already being used in many areas at Bosch. In addition to Microsoft, the company is working with several partners, including AWS, Google and Aleph Alpha. Last year, the Bosch Group’s corporate venture capital unit, Bosch Ventures, invested in the AI company Aleph Alpha. In addition, Bosch has announced a content-related collaboration with the start-up to jointly implement new use cases for both Bosch employees and customers. “Bosch and Aleph Alpha want to learn from each other, benefit from each other’s expertise and work together on cross-domain use cases,” says Rückert. This partnership is now bearing its first fruits: Bosch is working with Aleph Alpha to introduce AI-based speech recognition in North America on behalf of a premium car manufacturer. A voice bot understands and answers breakdown service calls using natural language processing, which also recognizes dialects, accents and moods. The waiting time for the driver is reduced to a minimum as the call is answered directly. As many as 40 percent of calls can be processed and resolved automatically. For more complex queries, the bot transmits all relevant information to a service center agent, who takes over the case immediately.
From the AI search engine to production
All in all, AI experts at Bosch are currently working on well over 120 specific applications that result from new AI models for the company’s employees and customers. These include, for example, the generation of software program code or powerful chat and voice bots to support technicians or interact with end customers. At the end of 2023, the company’s internal AI search engine “AskBosch” went live, which uses natural language to provide faster access to a wide variety of data sources, such as those distributed on the intranet. In addition to externally available data, “AskBosch” also incorporates internal data sources. This enables Bosch associates to research Bosch-specific information. Generative AI is also increasing speed in manufacturing: Bosch is launching the first projects in two German plants in which generative AI generates synthetic images in order to develop and scale AI solutions for optical inspection or to optimize existing AI models. Bosch expects this to reduce the time from project planning to commissioning and the ramp-up of AI applications from the current six to twelve months to just a few weeks. Following successful piloting, this service for generating synthetic data is to be offered to all Bosch locations.
Bosch Tech Compass 2024: pace of use of artificial intelligence
The use of AI in more and more areas of life is also making professional development increasingly important: 58 percent of respondents to the Bosch Tech Compass are convinced of this. At 63 percent, approval is particularly high in the USA (Germany: 54 percent, China: 52 percent). Bosch is also setting the pace in the use of artificial intelligence here and is taking its associates along with it. In 2019, Bosch launched an AI training program to initially train 30,000 associates in the field of artificial intelligence. So far, around 28,000 associates have completed the program. Like the Bosch AI Code of Conduct, which sets ethical guidelines for dealing with artificial intelligence, this has been supplemented with content on generative AI.
About the survey
For the representative study, the Gesellschaft für Innovative Marktforschung mbH (GIM) conducted an online survey of people aged 18 and over in seven countries (Brazil, China, Germany, France, the UK, India and the USA) on behalf of Robert Bosch GmbH in December 2023. At least 1,000 people were surveyed in Germany, France and the UK, and at least 2,000 people in Brazil, China, India and the USA. The samples are representative of the respective country in terms of region, gender and age (BR, DE, FR, UK, US: 69 years / CN, IN: 18-59 years).
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Further links
👉 www.bosch.com
👉 Bosch Tech Compass 2024
Photo: Bosch
