If you’ve ever used a car’s voice assistant and immediately given 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 is putting its next-generation cockpit on display in the new iX3, including Panoramic iDrive and an AI-powered Intelligent Personal Assistant. The headline, though, is the Amazon partnership: BMW says it will be the first automaker 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 get a demo at Amazon’s Devices & Services exhibit at the Venetian (Ballrooms G–J). BMW first announced their partnership with Amazon Alexa in 2022.
What Alexa+ Actually Is
Alexa+ is Amazon’s generative-AI upgrade to Alexa, designed to be less rigid and more conversational—closer to a back-and-forth assistant than a “say the exact command” tool. Amazon describes it as more capable, more personalized, and aimed at handling 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 has been rolling out in early access).
BMW first BMW isn’t saying it’s replacing its assistant with Alexa. Instead, Amazon describes BMW as the first automaker to deliver its next-generation Alexa Custom Assistant powered by Alexa+—essentially Amazon’s tech powering a carmaker-branded voice experience, rather than a generic Alexa skin dropped into the dashboard. In BMW’s wording, the customer-facing system is still the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant—but with Alexa+ technology enabling more natural dialogue and more context-aware responses than traditional in-car voice commands.
Expect Smart Conversations With Your BMW
What BMW is chasing here is a system that can understand normal human phrasing, keep context over multiple sentences, and do useful things quickly without turning driving into a scripted demo. BMW’s own CES 2026 wording leans into exactly that: more natural dialogue, more intelligent capabilities, and less “command and response.” And if you’ve experienced the current BMW Personal Assistant in the car, then you’d know that it has some shortcomings, especially when it comes to understanding full sentences.
BMW isn’t publishing a full feature list in the CES tease, and that’s probably deliberate. In a living room, Alexa+ can stretch its legs—smart home control, lists, scheduling, shopping workflows, and (in some rollouts) even a web-based chat interface.
In a vehicle, expectations are different. The win won’t be “it can talk.” The win will be whether it can handle real driving-life requests—navigation changes mid-route, finding places without clunky phrasing, adjusting vehicle functions, and remembering what you meant two sentences ago—without lag, without confusion, and without making you repeat yourself.
We’ll have a chance to demo the Alexa+ in January and will bring you a full video demo of the system.
