Mercedes-Benz has signed an agreement with Volcano Engine, a cloud services platform owned by China’s ByteDance, to speed up development of AI based (artificial intelligence) smart services in its vehicles sold in China.

TikTok owner ByteDance originally launched its Volcano Engine unit in 2021 to offer personalised algorithm services to corporate clients.

Mercedes-Benz wants to improve the “digital experiences of its Chinese customers with AI-powered smart cockpits” with features such as virtual assistants becoming increasingly important requirements for new vehicle buyers in the world’s largest market.

Volcano Engine said in a statement the two companies “signed a memorandum of strategic cooperation to work together in areas such as large models, generative AI and big data”. The deal would include the application of ByteDance’s LLMs, the technology that powers generative AI applications like ChatGPT.

This latest deal was expected to improve the response time of voice systems, speed up online information retrievals and “expand the user cases in voice interaction, navigation and entertainment”.

The agreement was seen as an expansion of an existing contract between the two companies with Mercedes-Benz already offering Volcano Engine’s infotainment platform in its Chinese made vehicles.

Earlier this month, the automaker got the go ahead from the Chinese government to conduct Level 4 autonomous driving tests on roads and expressways in Beijing, the first international carmaker to obtain such a permit in the capital.