No CarPlay, just voice: Rivian wants AI to run the cabin

Rivian's software chief says AI makes the CarPlay debate obsolete and pushes the voice-driven Rivian Assistant as the future cabin interface.

Rivian has once again explained why it is in no rush to add Apple CarPlay to its electric vehicles. According to chief software officer Wassym Bensaid, the rise of AI makes the whole debate over phone mirroring «completely obsolete».

Rivian's logic is straightforward: the car is gradually becoming not just software-defined, but AI-defined. Instead of separate buttons, icons and menus, the company wants to build control around its voice helper, Rivian Assistant. It is meant to handle climate, navigation, media and other vehicle systems without surrendering the entire screen to a third-party platform.

For the carmaker, this is also about owning the interface. CarPlay takes over the display and limits deeper integration with the car, while a proprietary system lets Rivian ship features faster, collect data and avoid waiting on Apple's decisions. Bensaid claims that five years ago more than 70% of surveyed Rivian customers asked for CarPlay, while today fewer than 25% do.

But the risk is still there. In-car voice assistants have long been a weak spot: they made mistakes, struggled to understand commands and irritated drivers. Rivian is betting on a new level of AI and its own hardware to tie the assistant more deeply into the car and cut latency.

For now it looks more like a bet on the future than a victory in the present. If the assistant really starts to understand drivers better than a smartphone does, CarPlay will become less necessary. If not, owners will once again remember that a familiar icon sometimes works more reliably than a beautiful idea.