The partnership between Honda Motor Company and SoundHound Inc. recently reached a new milestone with the introduction of Honda’s in-car voice assistant—powered by Houndify. The integration of the voice assistant into the new Honda e electric car in Europe and Japan and select Honda Jazz models in Europe will give drivers a whole new level of convenience and efficiency. The in-car assistant supports five major European languages and Japanese, and offers a conversational interface that allows the driver to access cloud-based services like navigation, music, local search, weather, restaurant search, and much more, all hands-free.

The Honda Jazz is one of Honda’s most popular cars and is widely available in Europe now. The Honda e is the first electric vehicle launched by Honda in Europe and Japan and represents the next step towards their vision for 100% of European sales to be electrified by 2025. Honda’s voice assistant is available as a service on all Honda e and select Honda Jazz models in French, German, Spanish, Italian, English, and Japanese. The Honda e is the first fully electric vehicle to feature Houndify’s voice AI.

In an article in Insurance Edge, Tom Gardner, senior vice president, Honda Motor Europe commented, “Today’s customer expects their vehicle to connect seamlessly with their wider life. Honda’s development of next-generation connectivity can clearly be seen with the launch of features such as the Honda Personal Assistant and My Honda+. We are committed to widening the availability of these features to meet the expectations of our customer.”

Through the power of Houndify’s independent voice AI platform, drivers and passengers can ask Honda’s voice assistant even the most complex questions like:

• “OK Honda, show me restaurants within five kilometers, except French and Japanese, that have WiFi, have at least three stars, and are open past 10 pm.”

Houndify’s ability to remember context also allows for quick follow-up questions like:

• “Does it have parking?” 

The natural language interface can proactively prompt for the next step, like directions to the destination:

• “Would you like directions there?” 

Deep navigation integration allows drivers to further the experience by asking questions like:

• “Are there any convenience stores along the way?”

Conversations with Honda e and Honda Jazz are more natural thanks to Houndify’s proprietary Speech-to-Meaning® and Deep Meaning Understanding™ technologies that enable the voice assistant to understand context, such as the user’s location or previous queries, eliminating the need to repeat information.

The introduction of the voice assistant in Honda e in Europe and Japan and select Honda Jazz cars in Europe is the next step in a long-standing partnership. SoundHound Inc. and Honda Motor Company first announced their partnership in October 2018 and premiered their collaboration at the 2019 Tokyo Motor show, where they demonstrated Honda’s in-car voice assistant to positive reviews.

Learn more about the new Honda’s new voice assistant here. Read more about the partnership between Honda and SoundHound Inc. here.

Developers interested in exploring Houndify’s independent voice AI platform can visit Houndify.com to learn more and register for a free account.