GM is turning its 30-year-old OnStar button into an AI assistant that knows your car

For 30 years, the OnStar button in GM cars has meant one thing: press it and a person answers. Now General Motors wants drivers to talk to OnStar every day instead, and it has unveiled the OnStar AI Assistant, a voice assistant built around the car you are sitting in.

GM showed it off at its GM Forward event in New York on Wednesday, October 21. It will arrive first on the 2027 Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV through an over-the-air update “in the coming months”, with other GM vehicles to follow. GM didn’t give dates for the rest of its line-up.

What “Hey OnStar” can do

Drivers start with “Hey OnStar” and then say what they need in plain language. GM’s examples:

• Car controls: say “It’s getting warm in here” and the cabin cools down. It can also turn on the dome lights and open the glove box or charge port.
• Live car data: ask about tyre pressure, range or charging status, or whether you have enough charge to get somewhere, and it can map charging stops on the way.
• Warning lights: ask “What does that exclamation mark warning mean?” and get an explanation for your exact vehicle.
• The manual: ask how one-pedal driving or lane keep assist works on your model.

GM says the assistant is “built around your vehicle, your context, and authoritative GM knowledge”, and that this lets it “complete complex tasks that general-purpose assistants cannot”. When a question needs a human, it hands the driver over to an OnStar Advisor, the live operators who, GM says, take more than 20 million calls a year in North America.

“OnStar is now transitioning to be a connected intelligence platform”

GM’s chief product officer, Sterling Anderson, framed it as the end of OnStar as a call centre. He told TechCrunch:

OnStar is now transitioning to be a connected intelligence platform.

Sterling Anderson, chief product officer, General Motors

That platform reaches beyond the dashboard. Starting in 2027, a new OnStar phone app will replace the OnStar Guardian app and the separate Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC apps, and GM says the AI assistant will come to it too. The app adds Connected Cameras: when the car detects a trigger such as an aggressive horn honk, its cameras record the moment, upload it to the app and alert the owner. GM says recordings are encrypted and time-limited, that it “cannot access Connected Camera recordings”, and that customers can switch off camera, microphone, location and AI permissions.

Rivals are pushing AI into the cabin too: Tesla already lets drivers send xAI’s Grok off on errands, for a monthly fee.

Is it Google Gemini?

GM’s own release calls it a “native AI assistant” and says it is trained on GM’s vehicle knowledge, but it doesn’t name the model underneath. That matters, because GM has been rolling out Google’s Gemini to millions of its cars since April. A GM spokesperson told Ken Yeung’s newsletter The AI Economy that Gemini powers the OnStar AI Assistant, while noting that GM has also built its own large language model. GM hasn’t said how the two fit together, and Gemini stays available in its vehicles alongside OnStar.

Price and where it works

GM hasn’t published a price. Mary Barra, GM’s chief executive, said the assistant is included with a driver’s OnStar subscription, according to The AI Economy. GM hasn’t said which countries get it first: OnStar has more than 12 million subscribers across 22 markets, but the Lyriq launch and the app plans are pitched at GM’s North American brands, and GM hasn’t announced plans for Europe, China or other markets.

GM also pointed to its OnStar Fleet AI Assistant for business customers, which lets fleet managers ask questions about vehicle health, maintenance and fuel or energy costs in plain language.

Why it matters

Carmakers have spent years fighting Apple and Google for the dashboard. By turning OnStar, a service drivers already pay for, into an AI assistant that knows their exact car, GM is betting it can win back the voice in the cabin, and the subscription revenue that comes with it.

Sources: GM: Say “Hey OnStar” for a more intelligent drive; GM: GM Forward; TechCrunch (Sterling Anderson interview); The AI Economy (GM spokesperson, Mary Barra).