Rivian Assistant starts rolling out with the ability to control every aspect of your EV

Today Rivian has started rolling out the Rivian Assistant, which you definitely won't be shocked to hear is an AI assistant for your car (novel concept, we know). The Rivian Assistant "is built directly into your vehicle's hardware and software, providing the unique power to talk to every aspect of the vehicle and get things done for you", the company's press release proudly states.

This is now rolling out to all compatible Rivian Gen 1 and Gen 2 owners who subscribe to Rivian Connect+ or are in an active trial. To talk to the Rivian Assistant, just say "Hey Rivian".

It can adjust car settings on the fly (like changing drive modes and ride height), it can manage climate controls, check range-on-arrival estimates, and open the front trunk. It understands natural language and complex context, so you can say things like "make everyone's seat toasty except mine" and it will get the idea.

You can of course also ask it for directions, have it search the map for points of interest, ask questions about a song that's playing, send texts to friends with AI-assisted messaging, and even ask it how to change the tires on your Rivian since it contains the user manual too. Additionally, it can answer general knowledge questions, summarize local news, everything you'd want a chatbot to do.

There's integration with Google Calendar allowing the Rivian Assistant to check your schedule, manage appointments, move meetings, whatever you need. In case you're concerned about privacy, the "Hey Rivian" activation can be turned off, and you can also limit location sharing and disable the memory feature. Any context the assistant learns about you is saved "securely" to your specific driver profile.