00:00:02 Voiceover
Welcome to the Empowering Tomorrow's Automotive Software Podcast, brought to you by ETAS, a single source of cutting-edge software and hardware solutions that make automotive embedded systems safe, smart, secure, and sustainable.
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Each episode, we'll be joined by ETAS and industry experts to discuss how electrification, automation, and connectivity are impacting the automotive industry.
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Now, sit back and enjoy the discussion.
00:00:32 Madelyn Downs
Welcome to all.
00:00:33 Madelyn Downs
I am Madelyn Downs.
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I'm responsible for marketing communications in North America at ETAS.
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You know, we are through the first two months of 2025 and the year has started out with a bang, especially with CES to kick us off.
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There has been no shortage of exciting innovations, particularly in the software defined vehicle space and with AI integration.
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We're seeing rapid advancements in the tooling software integration space.
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Today, we'll discuss key highlights, what caught our attention, and the biggest takeaways from this CES and the beginning of the year.
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My guest here joining me is Omar Alshabibi.
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He is the lead product manager at ETAS based in our Waterloo, Canada office.
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He thrives in supporting customers to fix their problems and is passionate about following trends in the automotive industry.
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He too spent the week at CES exploring new tech and connecting with industry leaders.
00:01:28 Madelyn Downs
Omar, welcome.
00:01:29 Omar Alshabibi
Thank you, Maddie, and hi to the listeners and thanks for having me.
00:01:33 Omar Alshabibi
I'm so excited to talk today briefly about what we have learned and observed at CES this year.
00:01:40 Madelyn Downs
Awesome.
00:01:40 Madelyn Downs
Yeah, let's kick it off.
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So my first question to you, what did you find most interesting from CES?
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Was there any news that surprised you or was of note?
00:01:52 Omar Alshabibi
Yeah, so the common theme at CES this year was the AI, as expected, artificial intelligence.
00:02:00 Omar Alshabibi
And it's really interesting to see how different players in different industries
00:02:07 Omar Alshabibi
have advanced or still advancing AI to make it accessible and usable for different sectors, right, such as robotiCES, energy, health, home, smart home, automotive in particular, that's what we focus on.
00:02:22 Omar Alshabibi
It's almost in every sector that it's utilizing advanced computers and powered by AI-based chips.
00:02:29 Omar Alshabibi
So it's everywhere, and we've seen this very obvious at the CES, and it's becoming part of consumers' expectations, to be quite honest.
00:02:39 Omar Alshabibi
It's all about bringing simplicity and efficiency to make complex tasks achievable, less time consuming, and enhancing customer experience and stuff like that.
00:02:53 Omar Alshabibi
So in a nutshell, what the overall theme at CES was the AI, but now
00:02:59 Omar Alshabibi
If you want to jump into automotive, and this is what we focus on as ETAS, and this is what the field and the industry that we serve.
00:03:10 Omar Alshabibi
So there has been almost like more than 50 or 60 announcements from different OEMs, mainly Asian and European OEMs at CES 2025.
00:03:21 Omar Alshabibi
Focusing on software-defined vehicle, advanced digital cockpit, combined with the AI, as we talked about, autonomous electric vehicle, and interesting things that we've observed as well, a lot of partnership discussions between silicon suppliers and OEMs directly to bring in AI and advanced
00:03:45 Omar Alshabibi
functionality into the automotive industry.
00:03:47 Omar Alshabibi
It's not a new, of course, but it, it's taking, gaining momentum and moving forward.
00:03:54 Madelyn Downs
Definitely more prevalent.
00:03:56 Omar Alshabibi
Yeah, exactly.
00:03:57 Omar Alshabibi
Yeah.
00:03:57 Omar Alshabibi
And so for instance, we can see, we've heard like, you know, during the ACES, Toyota and Hyundai are working now with Nvidia.
00:04:05 Omar Alshabibi
And, you know, in terms of, you know, mixing between AI and automotive, we've seen
00:04:11 Omar Alshabibi
NVIDIA kind of stole the spotlight this year at CES with their new announcement regarding the new Thor platform for its advanced AI capability.
00:04:22 Omar Alshabibi
And they talked about functional safety, some of their software components and hardware blocks, that it's ASIL-D and it's targeting automotive applications.
00:04:32 Omar Alshabibi
So that's really the interesting things that we've seen.
00:04:35 Omar Alshabibi
In addition to what we have observed that, you know, Asian OEMs
00:04:41 Omar Alshabibi
showcased many innovation at CES 2025, especially when it comes into user experience, engaging between, engagement between the drivers and the vehicle.
00:04:54 Omar Alshabibi
They had a really good presence this year.
00:04:56 Omar Alshabibi
Nice infotainment, cockpit, you know, environment, and of course, you know, almost all the vehicles they have presented was electric vehicles.
00:05:05 Madelyn Downs
Yeah, I noticed that as well.
00:05:07 Omar Alshabibi
Yeah.
00:05:08 Omar Alshabibi
And that is kind of the increasing global presence of automotive OEMs at CES.
00:05:14 Omar Alshabibi
But let's focus on US-based OEMs.
00:05:17 Omar Alshabibi
That was kind of the thing that we've observed that one.
00:05:20 Omar Alshabibi
It was interesting to see how the dynamic is changing and moving from having all the global OEMs presence, but we did not see this year that much of US-based OEMs at CES.
00:05:33 Omar Alshabibi
And like last year and the year before, there was kind of a different thing.
00:05:37 Omar Alshabibi
Yeah.
00:05:38 Madelyn Downs
Definitely.
00:05:38 Madelyn Downs
Yeah.
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More and more, the show is based in the US, but for the automotive space, that's almost the only thing that's part of the US in some ways, for sure.
00:05:47 Omar Alshabibi
Yeah, yeah.
00:05:47 Omar Alshabibi
Of course, but a lot of AI companies were driving the advancement, kind of US-based companies, and you can see this clearly.
00:05:54 Omar Alshabibi
But, you know, for the particular thing is the automotive industry that we have not seen, you know, that much focus of from the North American, US-based OEMs.
00:06:03 Omar Alshabibi
So,
00:06:05 Omar Alshabibi
How does that relate to us, and how do we bring this into ETAS and our journey when it comes into SDV?
00:06:13 Omar Alshabibi
We have showcased our wide range of software-based portfolio, focusing on advancing AI solution.
00:06:22 Omar Alshabibi
And the message we're trying to push for the audience within the automotive ecosystem is that ETAS is paving the road for efficient
00:06:32 Omar Alshabibi
way of enabling and advancing software functionality for HPC and overall E/E architecture through the tooling and middleware capabilities and all the software functionality that could run on ADAS sensors and what have you.
00:06:47 Omar Alshabibi
The good thing that we've also presented our embedded AI coder that has the ability to generate C code from a trained neural networks for embedded systems.
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to improve efficiency, reduce costs, simplify development, improve time to market.
00:07:03 Omar Alshabibi
This goes back again to the overall big theme of AI, how to bring simplicity and efficiency to the consumer and how ETAS is actually bringing that simplicity, efficiency, improve time to market to the automotive market.
00:07:20 Omar Alshabibi
So that kind of the, maybe that was a lot of nutshell here, but this is the, you know, the, yeah.
00:07:25 Madelyn Downs
Yeah, no, thank you, Omar.
00:07:27 Madelyn Downs
No, and that's great.
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I think definitely too, I was able to see that embedded AI coder that we showed.
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And that was really, it was a nice demonstration to really show how we're starting to play in that space.
00:07:38 Madelyn Downs
And like you said, I don't think any other.
00:07:41 Madelyn Downs
I think every other automotive company that showcased and even automotive adjacent company that showcased something at CES talked AI.
00:07:49 Madelyn Downs
And like you said, it's been around now for about a year or so since it's really exploded, I think, but not a day goes by now that I don't either utilize AI in my day-to-day work or at least have a conversation evolving around it.
00:08:01 Madelyn Downs
So definitely, thanks for the insights.
00:08:04 Madelyn Downs
So, the industry, it's still crazy and busy and lots of announcements are coming out.
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So what other big trends have you seen so far in the year and what are things to watch regarding, especially STVs as we get into 2025?
00:08:19 Omar Alshabibi
So what I see, of course, from, you know, listening to the big players and, you know, observing how the automotive ecosystem is moving, there are a few things that
00:08:32 Omar Alshabibi
that we need to watch, and probably some of them is already happening.
00:08:37 Omar Alshabibi
We see the silicon suppliers, the system on chip silicon suppliers having more influence into automotive landscape and driving technology trends.
00:08:47 Omar Alshabibi
This is true, and this is not new again, but there's a lot of influence happening, especially how you develop, deploy, and drive the market.
00:09:00 Omar Alshabibi
There's always a technology push and market pull, right?
00:09:04 Omar Alshabibi
So we can see there's a balance, there's a lot of technology push from different players here to try to adopt and resolve customers' problems, but also we can see, we can see some market pull which eventually will get bigger and bigger.
00:09:21 Omar Alshabibi
evolution on the silicon suppliers that it's happening to accommodate and support all the requirements for autonomous vehicle and that it's definitely it's coming and how to enable software enabled fleet.
00:09:38 Omar Alshabibi
We talked about AI.
00:09:39 Omar Alshabibi
Now also we need to bring an AI back again into the discussion here.
00:09:44 Omar Alshabibi
It's I see like multi-model AI technology will be advanced.
00:09:50 Omar Alshabibi
and can be utilized in automotive manufacturing, advancing software development through car digitalization and so on.
00:09:58 Omar Alshabibi
So you can pick and choose between text or image to change it to whatever you want, data into an image and stuff like that, which of course this is used in a consumer market in a different industries, but eventually they will be used as a tool to enable the personalization and customer experience when it comes to interface with the VM.
00:10:21 Omar Alshabibi
to advance that SDV functionality and SDV experience.
00:10:26 Madelyn Downs
Yeah, definitely.
00:10:27 Madelyn Downs
That's great insights.
00:10:28 Madelyn Downs
And, you know, obviously us in the industry, when we talk SDV, we always, or at least personally, I can say, I always think of the vehicle itself and building to that proof point, right?
00:10:38 Madelyn Downs
But, you know, the average consumer, the average driver, they don't necessarily care what's under the hood or what computers run the car.
00:10:46 Madelyn Downs
But those multimodal AI technologies will really make the difference and impact
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as we move towards SDV for the end consumer.
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Really that personalization that we always talk about becoming that proof point and really seeing it expand even incrementally as we move towards SDV with the cars that are on the road or just the next generation versus maybe 5 to 10 years out in the market.
00:11:09 Madelyn Downs
All right, awesome.
00:11:10 Madelyn Downs
These are great insights.
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So the final question I wanted to chat with you on is, where do you think we are in our journey towards SDV, becoming more mainstream?
00:11:19 Madelyn Downs
And you know, both, I would love to hear your insights both, you know, on the industry as a whole and for us here at ETAS.
00:11:27 Omar Alshabibi
Yeah, I will start with my personal view and try to link it to what I see how the industry could go.
00:11:33 Omar Alshabibi
Of course, no one has a crystal ball.
00:11:37 Omar Alshabibi
I wish I have it.
00:11:39 Omar Alshabibi
But my personal view on this is that SDV journey has started already, and whether it's partially or gradually, the functionality will be deployed by different OEMs globally, and it will start with, based on the maturity of the solution.
00:11:56 Omar Alshabibi
in focusing on how could you bring in safety, bring in all the sensor fusion into the car, how to enable that interface between, regular interface between the vehicle and the OEM to prove efficiency, increase customer, enhance customer experience, provide that feedback loop between the vehicle and the OEM.
00:12:21 Omar Alshabibi
So that journey has started, it's being implemented, and it's again, it's different from one OEM to another based on needs, market, geographic, and stuff like that.
00:12:32 Omar Alshabibi
This will take, in order to get this into a real solid deployment of SDVs, you need to have a real collaboration from all different industry players, like OEMs, tier 1s, and tier 2s, and all the software providers that we talked about.
00:12:50 Omar Alshabibi
And the key point that I wanted to link between the SDV journey and what we discussed before on the, SDV in general outside the CES, it's how OEMs can differentiate themselves, right?
00:13:04 Omar Alshabibi
What value you're adding into your product, right?
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And how you make the use and interface with your product.
00:13:15 Omar Alshabibi
it's in a different way compared to what you had in the past.
00:13:18 Omar Alshabibi
And that is what now it's changing consumer behavior, right?
00:13:25 Omar Alshabibi
I buy a car now that it's actually capable of connecting my phone, interface with the vehicle as if it's my phone, getting all the ADAS sensor data to protect me when I'm driving, having the ability to get a report when my car needs maintenance,
00:13:41 Omar Alshabibi
and sends back information to the OEM to improve the design of my car in the future or fixes things.
00:13:48 Omar Alshabibi
So that kind of thing that it's, it will eventually become a consumer and market expectation to have such functionality in your car when you buy or lease your vehicle.
00:13:59 Omar Alshabibi
So I think that it's what it's going to happen.
00:14:02 Omar Alshabibi
And we at ETAS, we are pushing towards that message and trying to enable our customers
00:14:08 Omar Alshabibi
develop and being efficient and driving all the different software components or building blocks.
00:14:15 Omar Alshabibi
I call them Lego pieces that we have, we've developed and we continue to develop to connect the dots between what OEMs want to offer and what ETAS can offer here and bring that flexibility and increase adoption of software-defined implementation.
00:14:33 Omar Alshabibi
so that's kind of the nutshell what I feel.
00:14:35 Omar Alshabibi
And of course, we'll continue to monitor the market and work with our partners and customers to make this reality and push this forward.
00:14:46 Madelyn Downs
Awesome.
00:14:47 Madelyn Downs
Yeah, those are super valuable insights, great insights.
00:14:50 Madelyn Downs
And that's why, you know, like we talked about at the beginning, you know, your passion for staying on top of these trends and keeping kind of your finger on the pulse there is definitely apparent.
00:14:59 Madelyn Downs
And that is why I was so glad that you could join us today.
00:15:02 Madelyn Downs
This has been great.
00:15:03 Madelyn Downs
These insights have been super valuable.
00:15:06 Madelyn Downs
And, you know, especially like you said, this industry is evolving so rapidly.
00:15:10 Madelyn Downs
And so for you to continue to monitor and for ETAS to continue to monitor and to see where we can support, you
00:15:17 Madelyn Downs
our customers and potential customers as we're on this journey and make this transition, it's been awesome.
00:15:22 Madelyn Downs
So, talking today, talking about AI is everywhere, many global players in the automotive industry, especially at CES, I think everyone is talking AI.
00:15:34 Madelyn Downs
You can't escape it.
00:15:35 Madelyn Downs
Many partnerships were announced and advanced in the industry.
00:15:40 Madelyn Downs
We're working together towards achieving that SDV adoption.
00:15:44 Madelyn Downs
And it's been very interesting for me to see silicon and SOC suppliers becoming more and more integral and influential in the automotive industry, as you spoke about.
00:15:52 Madelyn Downs
So, and like you said, this journey on SDV has already started.
00:15:57 Madelyn Downs
So we will continue to work openly and collaboratively as an industry to continue to push towards mass adoption.
00:16:04 Madelyn Downs
For sure.
00:16:05 Madelyn Downs
So, Omar, thank you for joining us.
00:16:08 Madelyn Downs
Again, loved talking with you, loved chatting with you, and looking forward to continuing our conversations throughout the year.
00:16:14 Madelyn Downs
And I'll turn it back to you.
00:16:17 Omar Alshabibi
Yeah, absolutely.
00:16:18 Omar Alshabibi
And thank you again for having me in this discussion.
00:16:22 Omar Alshabibi
And I look forward to discussing different topiCES in the future.
00:16:27 Madelyn Downs
Awesome.
00:16:28 Madelyn Downs
All right, well, everyone out there in podcast land, thank you for listening.
00:16:32 Madelyn Downs
This now concludes our episode, so please check back soon for a new one.
00:16:40 Voiceover
Thank you for joining this episode of the Empowering Tomorrow's Automotive Software Podcast.
00:16:44 Voiceover
Please leave a comment or review with your feedback or what you'd like to hear in future episodes.
00:16:49 Voiceover
To learn more about automotive embedded systems and ETAS's capabilities,
00:16:53 Voiceover
Visit our website at ETAS.
00:16:55 Voiceover
That's ETAS.com.
