News/Rumors June 27, 2012

Cadillac 2013 XTS Already Pimped With Siri

Cadillac’s head of customer experience, Mark Harland assured the future owners of the 2013 XTS model that they will receive an iPad at the same time with the car to make it easier for them to accommodate with the Cue system. However, it seems that Cadillac 2013 XTS came with a bigger surprise.

At the Classic Car Club, who took place last week in Manhattan, Cadillac engineers unveiled the presence of voice technology in a 2013 XTS when an iPhone was plugged to the ride’s system. A song was asked to be played then Siri’s voice retorted.

Mark Hichme, top engineering at General Motors, assured everyone that the Cadillac does not have Siri integration but that the voice of the Cue system is “basically” the same with that of Siri. Such confusion is due to the fact that great brands, including Apple, Cadillac, BMW and Mercedes are using Nuance’s voice-recognition technology.

Apple has the licensed rights to use Nuance’s speech-recognition technology for its products, and, as Nuances admits, it is Siri who made the voice-control popular but due to Apple’s secrecy there are no obvious proofs that Siri originates from Nuance. This may affect the Cupertino Company if a conflict concerning Siri’s voice appropriation will occur.

To avoid the sonic brand association, Nuance thought of offering to companies a large variety of voices and languages and the possibility to build their own custom voices via third-parties.