The new Rivian Assistant can send and read texts, and integrate with your Google Calendar. It’s not fully baked yet, but its special sauce is full vehicle integration via voice commands.
Rivian debuted a new AI assistant this week, and it brings welcome relief to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto lovers who went cold turkey on their favorite dash tech since switching to one of the company’s swanky electric cars.
Rivian is one of several automakers that chose to build its own car tech from the ground up. Tesla has also avoided third-party interfaces (for now), as has General Motors. But for many people, life without CarPlay or Android Auto is a dealbreaker.
Turns out, there is a middle ground. The new Rivian Assistant can do things like read and respond to texts, from both iOS and Android devices. This was a highly requested feature from the Rivian community, according to Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s chief product officer, who spoke on stage at the company’s first annual Autonomy and AI day in Palo Alto, California, on Thursday.
The Rivian Assistant will begin rolling out in early 2026. It’s built on multiple large language models and is part of the larger Rivian Unified Intelligence system, the company says. Happily, it will work on all Rivian vehicles no matter when you bought it, including first- and second-generation operating systems, as well as the more affordable R2 when it debuts later in 2026.
While I’m typically a little suspicious of in-car voice assistants, this one was impressive in the live demo.
