Rivian continues to defy buyer expectations by refusing to add Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to its electric vehicles. Instead of smartphone mirroring, the company wants full control over the in-car interface and is building its own digital platform. According to Rivian's chief software officer, Wassim Bensaid, third-party systems take over the entire display and disrupt the user experience the manufacturer wants to create itself.
Rivian is betting big on artificial intelligence and voice control. The company hopes that in the future, drivers won't need to search through menus or tap countless on-screen buttons—they'll simply talk to the car. The Rivian Assistant is designed to become the central cabin element, handling navigation, climate, media, and other functions.
This approach looks risky because automotive voice systems have long been clunky and bad at understanding natural speech. But Rivian believes modern conversational AI models can solve these old problems. The company aims to shift from a 'software-defined' vehicle to an 'AI-defined' one, where many tasks are performed by a built-in digital agent rather than through separate apps and complex menus.
Ditching CarPlay also gives Rivian a practical advantage: the manufacturer controls updates, bug fixes, and new feature launches itself, without relying on third-party platforms. According to the company's internal surveys, more than 70% of potential buyers demanded CarPlay support five years ago, but that figure has reportedly dropped to 25% thanks to regular updates of its own system.
However, developing this approach requires serious infrastructure. Processing millions of voice requests through the cloud is expensive, so Rivian plans to limit overly long conversations with its car assistant. In the future, the company wants to move a significant portion of computing directly into the vehicle using a new chip called XMM3, which can handle complex multi-step commands locally without a constant server connection.
Rivian isn't alone in questioning the future of smartphone mirroring. Tesla and General Motors are also betting on their own interfaces, and the premium segment is paying more attention to deep voice systems. If these assistants become fast, accurate, and truly useful, the debate around CarPlay may gradually lose its significance: the car screen will become a standalone platform rather than an extension of the smartphone.