I just moderated my second panel at SXSW: Engineering Joyrides with Gretchen Effgen (director of global automotive partnerships at Google), Pankaj Kedia (VP of commercial partnerships at Dolby), and Alan Wexler (SVP of strategy and innovation at GM). It was a lively discussion about what in-car entertainment looks like today and what it’ll be in the future, as more cars develop autonomous capabilities.
The talk followed some news from the three companies. GM a few days ago announced that its electric Cadillac OPTIQ and VISTIQ will feature Dolby Atmos immersive sound, available through Amazon Music. It’s the start of a larger rollout of Dolby’s system as a standard feature in certain 2025 and 2026 Cadillac models, and will be available across Cadillac’s entire 2026 EV lineup.
The Optiq and other GM vehicles will also have Google built in, meaning they’ll come with Google features like Maps, Assistant, Play, and personalized suggestions.
With the software-defined vehicle, cars have the potential to become your living room on wheels. But how will automakers balance cool tech offerings with distracting feature bloat? How much is improving our lives (like Dolby’s sound system), and how much is just frustrating (like everything controlled by a touchscreen)?
This story was corrected to note that the immersive sound is available through Amazon Music.
