CES 2024: BMW announces new in-car gaming, streaming, AI and AR features

BMW has today announced new infotainment features and given a glimpse of their “digitalised mobility of the future” with new gaming, streaming and more options for their premium cars.

The new BMW Operating System 9 (iDrive 9) brings new features and products from the Connected Drive Store and will be available this year. The store offers music and audio, news and magazines and games for the infotainment system. Now there will be more games available and in the future, more games that will be able to be controlled using your usual gaming controllers such as (with Bluetooth connectivity) “Beach Buggy Racing 2.”

The new games will offer multiplayer gaming with split mode on the console available and will be available via an OTA upgrade for BMW Operating System 9 this year. Currently, users can already play multiplayer games using the AirConsole app and their smartphones but with the new controller compatibility more games will be added in the coming months.

To use all the apps available on the ConnectedDrive Store you will need to purchase the optional BMW Digital Premium package which allows not just all the apps but adds more customisation options and enhanced navigation functions.

BMW Theatre Screen and the Video App will now be available to stream content from various providers onto the central display in more executive and luxury models in the coming months but at this stage Australian availability has not been announced.

At CES this week, BMW will also be showing off their new AR applications for the car. Using Xreal Air 2 AR glasses users will be able to “see how navigation instructions, hazard warnings, entertainment content, information on charging stations and supporting visualizations in parking situations are embedded perfectly into the real-world environment.”

BMW is also creating its own voice assistant using technology from Amazon Alexa with the resultant BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant “the ultimate vehicle expert enabled by generative AI, powered by the Alexa LLM” (large language model — AI. The BMW assistant will provide “quick instructions and answers about vehicle functions in a much more human, conversational manner, while at the same time being able to control some vehicle functions.”

We don’t have any details on local availability just yet, but we will provide them when they come to hand. Ask at your local dealer if you can’t wait.

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