Ford is developing an AI assistant that will debut in the company’s smartphone app, before developing a vehicle in 2027, the company announced Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show 2026. The company is also teasing the next-generation BlueCruise advanced driver assistance system that will be cheaper and more feasible – which will eventually lead to driving in 2028.
Wednesday’s announcement was the only one to come from a major automaker at CES, marking a sharp shift from the late 2010s when they dominated the show. And it’s not made in a flashy main event; Instead, Ford addressed the news in a speaker session called “Great Minds” intended to “explore the intersection of technology and humanity.”
Ford says the digital assistant will be hosted by Google Cloud and will be built using off-the-shelf LLM, and the company will provide access to vehicle-specific information. That means the assistant can answer high-level questions like “how many bags of mulch can the truck bed support?” But it also means owners will be able to get granular, real-time information like oil life.
The company rolled out the assistant the newly revised Ford application at the beginning of 2026. A native, in-vehicle integration will come in 2027, although the company will not determine which model is prioritizing.
Ford didn’t go into detail about the experience in the car, but it’s not hard to imagine the possibilities when looking at some of the more advanced automakers.
Just last month, Rivian showed off its own digital assistant that sends and receives text messages, handles complex navigation requests, and replaces climate control. Tesla has integrated Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot into its vehicles, which customers use to create live tours. Some of these capabilities may be shocking to what Ford has in mind, but the automaker also has a full year to complete in-car integration.
The new BlueCruise system teased on Wednesday is 30% cheaper than current technology, according to Ford. It will debut in 2027 in the first EV built on the company’s low-cost “Universal Electric Vehicle” platform, which is expected to be a mid-size pickup.
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Ford promises more with this next-generation BlueCruise system, including blind-spot driving in 2028. But it also claims the system will be able to handle “point-to-point autonomy,” similar to what Tesla offers with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software. Rivian has also teased a point-to-point system coming later this year. All these systems require the driver to be ready to control the car at any time.