00:00:04: Welcome to the Human and Technology Podcast.

00:00:07: This podcast is for anyone who develops, distributes or uses technology... ...for all those that always have a feeling that technology overwhelms or dominates them.

00:00:20: For everyone wants to know how to deal with technology in everyday life!

00:00:25: For anyone want's understand what technology does do us And How we can get our lives back.

00:00:32: this podcast is for those who want to make technology sexy.

00:00:37: All the product developers, designers, UX-UI professionals, product managers, CTOs and CEOs... And it's for you!

00:00:47: My name is Dr Peter Oreska.

00:00:50: my friends call me Dr Peter.

00:00:53: I am your host ...and i'm happy that are here.

00:01:02: Welcome To The Human Technology Podcast.

00:01:07: First little remark up front.

00:01:09: You may hear that the sound quality is not as good As you are used to have it.

00:01:17: this, because I'm traveling This week and i don't Have a microphone with me?

00:01:24: I Don't have my office so i'm sitting in an apartment here And speaking right into My macbook.

00:01:33: So Please excuse for the poor sound quality of today.

00:01:41: Second remark up front, this episode is something like an extra episode.

00:01:49: I planned to go into summer break last week but i realized that Last week was The Car HMI in Berlin organized by a company called WeConnect and This Is An important meeting is from my point of view, the most important automotive HMI meeting in Europe.

00:02:14: They have a version for US as well which also has excellent quality.

00:02:18: so if you had chance to go one of these events there take it!

00:02:23: It's worth it.

00:02:26: and I decided make an additional episode this week on the car HMI.

00:02:32: what was going on?

00:02:39: Third remark up front, I was hired by WeConnect as the opening keynote speaker originally.

00:02:47: So when we talk to the organizers with their idea alright and how will give introductionary speech for first twenty minutes making a key note?

00:02:56: but it's core meaning of giving a key notes in its original meanings setting the key that tune for conference.

00:03:09: When I started preparing about three weeks before the event, I realized they shifted me to another slot in the event which is okay.

00:03:22: A few days before the events i received an email where the organizer said sorry to say this but we have kicked you out of their program completely.

00:03:34: You can come as a delegate.

00:03:35: We're gonna pay your delegate ticket but you will not be speaking.

00:03:41: They wrote a couple of reasons in the email which I cannot take seriously, so at end-of-the day... ...I try to not take it personally!

00:03:56: It's a certificate?

00:03:57: Of course But what can i do?

00:04:02: if they don't want me and many people have asked during this meeting Hey, why don't you speak here?

00:04:09: Where is your traditional speaking?

00:04:10: slow.

00:04:11: Whereas our superstar speaking this said okay they kick me off the program.

00:04:15: if you want to have him back on the agenda talk to the organizers and I then said ok um no let's put it other way.

00:04:32: If You Want To Hear Me When We Connect Courage In My Next Week Approach The Organizer.

00:04:38: Tell them, hey I'm ready to come but i want to see Peter on stage.

00:04:42: I wanna see Dr.

00:04:43: Peter Professor Peter On the Stage telling me who's latest views and automotive HMI.

00:04:51: This will be very helpful for you.

00:04:54: And another up front remark here If we talk about next week Next year I am a bit doubtful that this would happen.

00:05:09: There was an obvious lack of budget.

00:05:15: First thing is that they combined four conferences to fill the event location, so it wasn't only the car HMI but also in Kevin Sandsen which has been co-located I think two years And now they added the software-defined vehicles and the software defined vehicle's testing.

00:05:40: These four conference all in all had roughly the same audience as we hit it five years, six years ago or before Corona for the car HMI only then WeConnect has what they call The Icebreaker.

00:06:02: this is a A meeting with a couple of free-floating totally casual workshops on the day before the event.

00:06:11: Many, many years ago that was an external location and they had some food in some drinks.

00:06:18: Couple of years ago there moved it to the conference location... ...and skipped the foods so that only wine beer water coke drink.

00:06:31: this year very short term They cancelled that or officially they shifted it to seven thirty in the morning of the first conference.

00:06:40: When I arrived there at eight, i didn't see anything like an icebreaker workshop.

00:06:44: so basically they canceled it.

00:06:48: The conference dinner then was moved to the exhibition area again.

00:06:53: until last year It was always on external location and This year it was in the exhibition area, which is not a bad idea because that gives the exhibitors and sponsors an additional opportunity to meet people.

00:07:09: To talk with them about their products... No problem!

00:07:12: I have NOT been there but two of my peers told me independently from each other That food had gone after five minutes and it was awful For all these points or indicators that there must be serious problems at WeConnect.

00:07:33: I would hate to see the car HMI fade out, because it is such a high value meeting and then all of people are there!

00:07:45: It's almost like a family event for me... ...I go there and i'll meet with old friends or new friends.

00:07:53: so if talk about next year events I hope that there will be a car HMI in twenty-twenty seven.

00:08:07: Let's go down to the content of this event, so... The major thing or discussion point was why the future of automotive HMIs is about orchestration not single displays and instances.

00:08:27: It is about how do we put it all together?

00:08:29: How can make one whole experience for the user.

00:08:35: Over the past decade, We have seen that rise of digital cockpits growing real estate display real estate number and size of displays grew plus voice assistant artificial intelligence multi-modal interaction.

00:08:55: every year A new technology appeared to dominate the discussion.

00:09:03: Carriage in my twenty-twenty six felt somewhat different, not because there was a revolution now that wasn't a revolutionary interface shown.

00:09:16: it is not because someone presented The next generation of displays and surprisingly It Was Not Because AI Overshadowed overshadowed every other topic.

00:09:30: I feel that something more fundamental happened for the first time in industry seemed to move away from thinking in terms of individual interfaces, individual instances and started thinking in turns of orchestrated experiences.

00:09:48: Vehicles are no longer viewed as isolated products.

00:09:51: they're becoming intelligent knots within a larger digital ecosystem that includes smartphones, cloud services, digital platform smartwatches, AI agents and humans.

00:10:05: You are all part of this

00:10:09: ecosystem.".

00:10:10: And if there's one message or the CarHMI-ist, that is we have an orchestrated digital ecosystem.

00:10:24: for years Automotive HMI innovation was measured in screen size and screen resolutions, visual effects.

00:10:33: Then this year's display became surprisingly unimportant.

00:10:37: of course there were discussions about new cockpit layouts, slimmer instrument clusters a bit about display technologies as well but that wasn't more just like an evolution.

00:10:51: rather than big improvements, the real discussion has shifted.

00:10:57: Instead of asking how should information be displayed?

00:11:02: The industry increasingly asks which information should reach to user in which context and through which channel.

00:11:13: And this is a profound change!

00:11:16: The cockpit no longer at the center becomes more and more one touch point within a much larger digital ecosystem.

00:11:28: And connected to that, one word kept appearing throughout the entire conference.

00:11:35: there was orchestration including touch points interaction modalities customer journeys multiple user roles, digital services.

00:11:46: already first little intelligence.

00:11:49: all this ultimately revolved around one question.

00:11:54: How do we coordinate increasingly complex systems in a way that they feel simple for humans?

00:12:05: And this represents the major evolution of human machine interface design, for years... twenty-five years!

00:12:12: We've focused on designing interfaces.

00:12:15: today multiple systems.

00:12:24: And tomorrow we will orchestrate complete experiences and the challenge is no longer to build more interaction modalities, The challenge is making decisions on which modality do you use?

00:12:39: What information in which device ?

00:12:42: In what moment do I need that information ?

00:12:46: What are the contexts of?

00:12:47: how can we reflect them?

00:12:52: the human machine interface.

00:12:55: And, that best HMI is no longer one with most features has never been really but... The Best HMI Is One That Makes Complexity Disappear.

00:13:11: Our official intelligence was ubiquitous at CAR-HMI twenty years ago.

00:13:16: it's everywhere!

00:13:18: The discussion has changed dramatically.

00:13:21: only a short time ago AI artificial intelligence primarily manned voice assistants.

00:13:29: We have super smart voice assistant and I talked about the Soundhound AI agents presented at CES this year, one of them most impressing showcases I saw in Las Vegas.

00:13:43: that was all voice.

00:13:44: today only half a year later our official intelligent increasingly means agantic systems.

00:13:51: instead of executing isolated commands AI agents begin coordinating complete workflows.

00:14:00: The user defines the objective, the target and destination.

00:14:05: where do I want to go?

00:14:07: The AI organizes individual steps.

00:14:13: This requires something more important than language understanding.

00:14:20: This requires knowledge about context.

00:14:26: Future vehicles Must understand who is traveling where are they going which services are available?

00:14:33: What's the user preferences and And what's happening around them.

00:14:37: What does the context, what kind of journey Is it as a family trip this business trip?

00:14:42: isn't that commuting isn't shopping?

00:14:44: yet one people doing this?

00:14:47: at The end AI will become less visible.

00:14:52: It will, it's a primary role of the AI.

00:14:56: We'll not be talking to people that we'll be orchestrating increasingly complex ecosystems from the background and then they're best.

00:15:10: I may at the very end become something that users hardly notice And at the end this has consequences to human-centered design.

00:15:24: So for many years HMI Design focused on ergonomics, usability, font sizes, color contrasts and all these remains important.

00:15:36: no question about it.

00:15:39: At the current HMI we over again discussed more fundamental questions Who are we actually designing for?

00:15:52: Questions like accessibility, who is using this.

00:15:56: Do we have professional operators?

00:15:58: so we have agricultural machinery?

00:16:00: do they have commercial vehicles?

00:16:02: We talked about cross-cultural differences and all these are not separate topics.

00:16:10: They point towards the same realization.

00:16:17: There's no such thing as an average user And if you have something that is close to an average user, this probably the most boring person you can imagine.

00:16:27: The extremes!

00:16:29: They are the important ones.

00:16:31: So future HMIs must adapt to different capabilities Different contexts, different cultures and different professional environments.

00:16:43: Maybe the strongest message was designing for the extremes very often leads to better products for everyone.

00:17:01: Another point, software becomes more and more infrastructure.

00:17:05: Experiences become the product.

00:17:08: so software you find in vehicles where of course a major topic?

00:17:15: For me most interesting observation was that software itself is becoming less important not because it matters less but it became something like an infrastructure.

00:17:27: They are like electricity or the internet.

00:17:31: The competitive advantage will come no longer from software alone, it won't not come from hardware and will NOT come from artificial intelligence.

00:17:44: Competitive Advantage will come form creating an experience in which all these elements work together seamlessly And this is why I believe we are moving beyond the software defined vehicle.

00:18:06: And maybe if you talk about AI-defined vehicles, which is also something that can be talked about and yes it's a step for me The next step Is the experienced defined Vehicle.

00:18:24: This is this as to step forward.

00:18:30: All right Let us come down the five takeaways that I made.

00:18:40: That took away from Curry Jumai, twenty-twenty six displays are losing their central role.

00:18:50: future at Jamai.

00:18:51: innovation happens between systems in ecosystems and digital ecosystems not on screens only.

00:19:04: orchestration number two becomes the new design principle.

00:19:11: Coordinating interaction is more important than just adding new features.

00:19:20: We have growing complexity on vehicle dashboards and we have growing complexity by adding more interaction instances, we have multi-modal channels, multi channel interactions.

00:19:34: And now we have to put this together Working like a beautiful orchestra, Like a band playing.

00:19:44: And if you have single musician that believes he or she is the biggest thing in this one and here's her place whatever... This will not sound good.

00:19:56: A group of musicians, a band are an orchestra.

00:19:59: Sounds great because they play together Because They give one whole.

00:20:07: This is what we need to think HMI's in.

00:20:15: And this how you see HMI and think HMIs.

00:20:20: And number three, our official intelligence evolves into orchestration.

00:20:26: It will last be an assistant but more like the conductor of an orchestra The band leader.

00:20:36: Agentic AI coordinates tasks instead of simply executing commands.

00:20:47: Number four, human-centered design becomes a more human than ever.

00:20:55: accessibility, cultural diversity professional use cases become more and more strategic drivers of HMI Design.

00:21:10: number five The soft, pretty fun vehicle is only the beginning.

00:21:15: We're seeing the car as a platform like a smartphone which you get with little bit of operating system some core functions on it so that basically works and then You start personalizing them.

00:21:28: Then you adapt to your needs.

00:21:32: Do you have special needs?

00:21:34: Are you a professional driver or do you have specific tasks?

00:21:37: Do you work...do you drive?

00:21:41: Do you use the vehicle in specific contexts?

00:21:46: All this will be reflected then, and the software that you add to it.

00:21:52: The competitive advantage of single car makers... ...will increasingly be determined by quality of overall experience And this is why I believe that the software-defined vehicle will turn into the experience defined vehicles.

00:22:18: Perhaps Car HMI in twenty, twenty six Will not be remembered for one single groundbreaking technology.

00:22:29: Probably it will be remembered For introducing a new way of thinking That the future automotive HMI no longer about designing individual interfaces.

00:22:45: It is... ...about designing relationships between humans and an orchestrated, intelligently orchestrated by AI digital technological ecosystem.

00:23:03: The relationship that we use ends this digital ecosystem which is controlled by artificial intelligence.

00:23:12: This distance will be the core in the future and as I see it, we'll become defining... The defining challenge!

00:23:21: The biggest challenge of next years.

00:23:27: at the very end As always CarHMI- ... was an excellent event as far as content was concerned.

00:23:38: Content was above average great presentations, great presenter.

00:23:42: I learned a lot again as always excellent networking opportunities and so i for sure hope that there will be another car hmi next year!

00:23:59: And now guys summer break enjoy your vacation.

00:24:04: relax charge your batteries.

00:24:05: we see enormous challenges coming up in the next months and years in the automotive industry.

00:24:14: So we need all our energies, I will be back probably late September early October with new episodes.

00:24:25: And I'm rethinking a couple of details off this podcast...I've just started working on it!

00:24:40: Enjoy your time, enjoy...your vacations.

00:24:50: That's it for today!

00:24:52: Thank you for spending time with me.

00:24:55: I hope that You are able to take something With You and do Something For Yourself That Will Be Forever.

00:25:02: For an unknown exchange You will find Me on a LinkedIn And On My Websites beta minus rusco dot com and beyond-hmi.de.

00:25:15: Write me an email on the podcast at Beyond-HMI.de.

00:25:21: Do it next time, take care and stay healthy.