Eyes-Off Driving And Google’s Gemini AI Coming To A GM Car Near You

The autonomous driving space is always shifting, and today General Motors revealed that buyers of the 2028 Cadillac Escalade IQ will be able to drive without watching the road. That’s only one part of the automaker’s new announcements that also include Google Gemini and Vehicle-to-Grid power.

Moving Autonomy Forward

Eyes-off driving is something plenty of automakers have talked about, but few are even close to delivering. General Motors currently sells cars with Super Cruise, a Level 2 system that can accelerate, brake, and change lanes.

However, it can only do this on specific highways and the driver must maintain attention on the road at all times. That said, it’s Super Cruise that is laying the foundation for eyes-off driving.

More: I Tried Out GM’s Smarter Super Cruise And It Feels Promising

So far, GM says Super Cruise has accrued some five million miles without a single accident attributed to it. The car of the future won’t just let you drive without watching the road – it’ll also let you leverage Google‘s AI bot Gemini to do all sorts of things.

That includes changing settings in the car, but it goes further to the extent that it should be able to learn driver preferences. Think of it as a supercharged version of the memory button.

Rather than just remembering seating and mirror position, it could remap the media buttons, change the display layout, automatically pull up navigation to a routine destination, and more.

Launching next year, it’ll even give drivers guidance on one-pedal driving, monitor maintenance, and help with things like finding a place to eat.

Going Beyond Cars

GM isn’t stopping at AI and autonomous driving. It appears to be picking up some of the Tesla playbook as it says it’ll soon offer bidirectional EV charging, solar integration, and a stationary home battery.

In other words, owners will have the opportunity to sell some of their extra juice back to the grid and then purchase it again later when rates are lower.

Apparently, while electric vehicles might not be growing as rapidly as they used to, the technology around them continues to mature – and that can only be good news for consumers.