Hyundai Grandeur Gleao AI Voice-Adjusts Climate

When the driver said, “I’m a bit cold,” the air conditioning on the driver’s side increased by 1°C. The vehicle recognized the speaker’s location and adjusted the climate control without being explicitly told, “driver’s seat.” This time, when someone in the passenger seat said, “I’m hot,” the air conditioning on the passenger side decreased by 1°C. When asked, “Match the two-seat air conditioning settings equally,” the system adjusted the wind speed and temperature to be identical. All of this was made possible by Hyundai’s new generative artificial intelligence (AI) agent, ‘Gleao AI.’

On the 28th, I test-drove Hyundai’s new Grandeur, traveling approximately 70 km round-trip from Gangdong-gu, Seoul, to Chuncheon, Gangwon Province. The vehicle drew attention for its new infotainment system, ‘Pleos Connect,’ which is evaluated as targeting Tesla and Chinese electric vehicle models. During the roughly two-hour test drive, I chatted with Gleao.

When I said, “Tell me something funny,” it responded with a witty joke: “What’s the most apologetic animal in the world? ‘Badger’ (Oh sorry).” When asked about the day’s headline news, it summarized the June 3 local elections and the third day of response efforts to the Seo So-mun underground passage collapse. When I said, “I really need to use the restroom,” it introduced more than three nearby public restrooms. I thought that during solo driving, it would be possible to ask trivial questions, engage in discussions, or search for information. However, on sensitive topics like, “Which party should I support in the local elections?” it avoided giving a direct answer, saying, “People may have different thoughts.”

Hyundai’s consideration of safety elements in Pleos Connect stood out. For example, while driving on the highway, functions like folding side mirrors or displaying YouTube or stock market screens were disabled. Even simple functions like adjusting hazard lights or headlights were difficult to operate via voice recognition. At times, this felt like a drawback.

Many customers compared Pleos Connect in the Grandeur to Tesla’s large display. Critics argue that Hyundai is late, as Geely Auto and Tesla have already attempted similar technologies in their electric vehicles for years. Regarding this criticism, Hyundai Motor Company’s Chief Researcher Shin Yong-jin said, “Tesla has almost no physical buttons, but Hyundai left essential physical buttons like media volume for driving. The slim information window in front received positive feedback in user surveys.”

The AI demonstrated high completeness. However, there are still many limitations in hardware operation and response diversity. While it deserves praise as a challenging first step, to meet consumers’ already high expectations, the technology needs to be further advanced by one or two stages.