Ford has an AI assistant and new hands-free BlueCruise tech on the way

Ford is developing an AI assistant that will debut in the company’s smartphone app before expanding to its vehicles in 2027, the company announced Wednesday at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show. The company also teased a next generation of its BlueCruise advanced driver assistance system that will be both cheaper to make and more capable — ultimately leading to eyeless driving by 2028.

Wednesday’s announcement was one of a few to come from a major automaker at CES, marking a sharp turnaround from the end of 2010, when they dominated the show. And it wasn’t created at a flashy keynote event; Ford previously discussed the news during a speaking session called “Great Minds” that was intended to “explore the intersection of technology and humanity.”

Ford says the digital assistant will be hosted by Google Cloud and will be built using off-the-shelf LLMs, and the company will give it deep access to vehicle-specific information. That means the assistant can answer high-level questions like “how many bags of mulch can my truck bed support?” But it also means owners can get detailed, real-time information such as oil life.

The company is rolling out the assistant to its company recently updated Ford app in early 2026. A native integration into vehicles will happen in 2027, although the company would not specify which models it is prioritizing.

Ford didn’t go into detail about what the in-car experience will be like, but it’s not hard to imagine the possibilities when you look at some of the more tech-forward automakers.

Just last month, Rivian showed off its own digital assistant for sending and receiving text messages, handling complex navigation requests and changing climate controls. Tesla integrated Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok into its vehicles, allowing customers to generate on-site tours. Some of these possibilities may overshadow what Ford has in mind, but the automaker also has a full year to work out in-car integration.

The new BlueCruise system teased on Wednesday is 30% cheaper to build than current technology, according to Ford. It will debut in 2027 on the first electric car built on the company’s low-cost “Universal Electric Vehicle” platform, which is expected to be a midsize pickup.

Ford is promising more with this next-generation BlueCruise system, including “eyes-off” driving by 2028. But it also claims the system will be able to handle “point-to-point autonomy,” similar to what Tesla offers with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software. Rivian has also teased a point-to-point system coming later this year. All these systems require the driver to be ready to take control of the car at any time.