The Sound of BMW

The Sound & Voice

for BMW’s Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA)

Creating an emotional connection for a perfect conversation with your car.

The Munich-based luxury car brand, BMW, was one of the early pioneers of in-car entertainment and driver assistance. Given the sonic nature of driver assistance, we were approached by BMW’s Department of Innovation and Research in 2016. We were given the mission to create both a human feeling and a reliable audio experience for drivers utilizing the power of sound and voice.

How does the BMW of the future sound in its interaction with the driver?

We participated in 10 research projects for the brand which involved the Voice User Interface and accompanying UX/UI functional sounds. Driver-car interactions will shape the future of automotive experiences. We explored different voice timbres to find the balance between direct communication tones and entertaining conversation.

Our voice and sound evaluation system assisted us in this task.

We researched different impacts of functional sounds in specific situations by experimenting with different future IPA (Intelligent Personal Assistant) concepts and their general tone of voice. A set of dos and don’ts helped us execute the results and find the best combination between UX/UI sounds and voices to ensure a seamless driver experience. This successful sonic strategy aligned with the +100-year-old company’s commitment to technological improvements and customer experience.