If you’ve ever used a car’s voice assistant and immediately gave up because it felt like talking to a phone tree, BMW wants to show you a different approach at CES 2026. In Las Vegas (January 6-9), BMW will unveil its next-generation cockpit in the new iX3, including Panoramic iDrive and an AI-powered intelligent personal assistant. The headline, however, is the Amazon partnership: BMW wants to be the first car manufacturer to integrate Alexa+ technology into its vehicles.
BMW says the demo will be available at its booth in the Silver Lot in front of the South Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center. You can also view a demo at Amazon’s Devices & Services exhibit at the Venetian (Ballrooms G-J). BMW first announced its partnership with Amazon Alexa in 2022.
What Alexa+ actually is
Alexa+ is Amazon’s generative AI upgrade to Alexa, which is less rigid and more conversational – more like a back-and-forth assistant than a “say the exact command” tool. Amazon describes it as more powerful, more personalized and designed to handle more complex tasks than the older Alexa experience. On the consumer side, Amazon has also positioned Alexa+ as a paid tier: $19.99/month, but included with Amazon Prime (and it launched in Early Access).
BMW first BMW doesn’t say it will replace its assistant with Alexa. Instead, Amazon describes BMW as the first automaker to launch its next-generation Alexa Custom Assistant based on Alexa+ – essentially Amazon’s technology that enables a voice experience under the automaker’s brand, rather than a generic Alexa skin that is inserted into the dashboard. In BMW’s formulation, the customer-focused system is still the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant – but with Alexa+ technology, which enables more natural dialogues and more contextual responses than traditional in-car voice commands.
Expect intelligent conversations with your BMW
What BMW is aiming for here is a system that understands normal human phrases, maintains context across sentences, and does useful things quickly without turning driving into a scripted demo. BMW’s own CES 2026 wording aims to do just that: more natural dialogue, more intelligent capabilities and less “command and reaction”. And if you’ve experienced the current BMW Personal Assistant in the car, you know that it has some shortcomings, especially when it comes to understanding complete sentences.
BMW doesn’t release a full feature list in the CES tease, and that’s probably intentional. The living room is where Alexa+ comes into its own – smart home controls, lists, scheduling, shopping routines and (in some launches) even a web-based chat interface.
The expectations of a vehicle are different. The victory will not be: “It can talk.” The victory will be whether it can handle real-world demands of driving life – mid-route navigation changes, finding places without awkward wording, adjusting vehicle functions and remembering what you meant two sentences ago – without delay, without confusion and without having to repeat yourself.
We will have the opportunity to demo Alexa+ in January and give you a full video demo of the system.
