Google is harnessing the power of AI to make it easier and less distracting for drivers to communicate with their smartphones while on the road. The search giant's latest announcement coincides with the launch of Samsung's Galaxy S24 series this week.

Google's answer to Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, is designed to take all the important, car-friendly features out of your phone and put them front and center on the car's central display. But anyone who has ever tried to reply to a message while driving is well aware of the pitfalls of in-car voice assistants. Receiving a flood of group chat messages or wrestling with clunky digital transcriptions is often as distracting as looking at a phone screen.

Google's upcoming Android Auto update aims to address exactly this problem; Android Auto will soon use AI to automatically summarize long texts and hectic group chats while driving, not what is unfolding on your phone, Allowing you to focus on the road. Like other AI-powered technologies, it will also be able to suggest relevant actions and replies and carry them out without having to pick up the phone.

For example, if a friend texts you about lunch plans, Android Auto can give you important information such as the restaurant location and meeting time, quickly capture the estimated time of arrival, and call your friend. Then, to navigate to the location your friend told you about, all you have to do is tap once.

This sounds like a very common use case for AI. Being able to automatically reroute to a new meeting place or send an ETA with one click means less time focused on the car's central display instead of the road. And fewer distracted drivers behind the wheel is definitely a good thing. [This is not the only update to Android Auto. Personalized design elements stored on the owner's smartphone, such as wallpaper and icons, will soon be imported to create "a more seamless transition and consistent experience from phone to car," Google said in a blog post this week.

Android Auto currently offers wallpaper support, but the application limits users to a selection of backgrounds preloaded by Google. Users have been asking Google for years to make third-party wallpapers available in Android Auto so that they can use backgrounds stored on their phones while driving. With this update, both the smartphone and the car's central display will share the same wallpaper and stock icon design when this feature is enabled.