Cerence is continuing to make inroads in the Chinese automotive market. The company has announced that Bean Tech will be using the Cerence ARK platform to develop voice assistants for China’s Great Wall Motors. Bean Tech and Great Wall are strategic partners.

Cerence ARK (AI Reference Kit) debuted in December as a turnkey solution that was designed specifically for Chinese vehicles. The speech recognition platform offers a slew of features like wake words and text-to-speech that reduce the amount of time needed to develop and deploy new voice assistants. Drivers can then use voice commands to control various elements of the car, including the entertainment and navigation systems.   

Bean Tech will handle VUI/GUI design and content and system integration for Great Wall Motors. The Cerence ARK platform offers support for WeChat, and can answer basic inquiries about travel, stock prices, and other subjects.

“We’re innovating to deploy and manage a fully localized voice assistant quickly and efficiently without sacrificing features and functionality,” said Bean Tech CEO Li Peng.

“Cerence ARK offers automakers speed to market to help stay ahead of the competition,” added Cerence SVP and China Region President Charles Kuai.

The news comes shortly after the Geely Auto Group revealed that it would be using Cerence ARK to develop its own in-car voice assistant. Cerence also unveiled a new suite of UX Services to help automakers make improvements to their own in-car platforms.