AI in CarPlay

One app, many AIs

Use your own API key from OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini), xAI (Grok), Perplexity, Mistral, DeepSeek, OpenRouter and the other providers built into the app — or the AskWatch+ and Ultra subscription models, which need no key. In the car, the Switch Provider row moves to the next provider you have set up and says which one is answering. With your own key, the model is the one you picked for that provider on your iPhone; on a subscription, AskWatch picks among the included models. A custom server of your own answers in the car when it is the provider selected on the iPhone.

Gemini in CarPlay

Google brings Gemini to CarPlay inside Google Maps, for help while you navigate (rolling out in the US since October 2026), and offers no separate Gemini chat app there. In AskWatch, Gemini is a provider like any other: ask a Gemini model anything by voice, or start a Live Conversation with Gemini, using your own Google AI key or the subscription.

Live Conversation on the road

Live Conversation is a real-time spoken conversation: you talk and the AI answers in its own voice. With OpenAI Live you can cut in while it speaks; the other voices pause the microphone while they answer, so the car’s speakers do not echo back. In CarPlay it runs on OpenAI Live, OpenAI, Gemini and Grok voices with your own key, and on the subscription’s OpenAI and Gemini voices with AskWatch+ or Ultra. When more than one is available, the Switch Live Provider row picks another.

Your home from the driver’s seat

Connect Home Assistant on your iPhone and CarPlay gets three more tabs:

• Favorites — your favourite devices; one tap switches one on or off. Open the garage before you turn into the drive.
• Scenes — your Home Assistant scenes and scripts, one tap each.
• Home — the status of the house (alarm, locks, garage and gate, climate, who is home, temperature) and your rooms with their devices. A lock you tap asks before it changes.

By voice, in the AI-Enhanced (Smart) mode: say “turn on the lights in the living room”, then “turn them off” — the AI keeps the conversation, so it knows what “them” means. In the Direct (Fast) mode, even without an AI key or subscription, simple commands go straight to Home Assistant. Home Status has the AI sum up the house and reads it aloud (it needs an AI key or the subscription), and Broadcast speaks your message on your home speakers: “I’ll be home in ten minutes.”

Routes in Apple Maps

Ask for directions and the AI opens the route in Apple Maps — driving, walking or transit. It can also use where you are when it answers, so “take me to the nearest petrol station” starts from your position. Switch on Location & Maps for AI on your iPhone and choose which AI may receive your location. It needs a model that can use tools, gives 5 free uses, and is unlimited with PRO or a subscription. (OpenAI’s help page says ChatGPT in CarPlay has no access to maps or your live location.)

Notes while you drive

Say “note that I need to call the garage on Monday” and it is saved in your private AskWatch notebook; ask later “what did I want to do on Monday?” and the AI finds it. Saving and editing notes needs a model that can use tools, PRO or a subscription, and AI access to notes, which is off until you switch it on.

Answers that know today

Switch on what you want in Real-Time Context — date and time, weather and forecast, exchange rates, the stocks you follow — and it goes along with your questions whenever the data is available; an Info tab shows weather and markets at a glance. Turn on web search in the iPhone’s CarPlay settings and the Ask AI — Web row searches the web; if the selected model cannot search, another provider you have set up that can takes the question, and if there is none, the answer comes without a search.

Voices and languages

Answers are read in the voice you chose on your iPhone — Apple, OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Azure AI Speech, Grok, Piper or your own text-to-speech server — and if a cloud voice fails, another one takes over. The app is in 33 languages, and you can set the language you speak in separately. A conversation continues after each answer, Repeat Last plays the last answer again, and your conversations with the AI are saved to the chat history on your iPhone.

What it will not do

• No wake word. Apple lets no chatbot app in CarPlay listen for one, so you start AskWatch from the car’s screen — the same as ChatGPT, Claude and the others.
• Not the car’s own controls. Climate, radio and the car’s settings stay with the car and Siri.
• Set up on the iPhone first. Keys, the subscription, Home Assistant, voices and the switches for location and notes are set in the iPhone app; CarPlay uses them.
• The free version has a daily allowance: 3 voice requests a day — in a continuing conversation each answer counts — and 3 Live Conversations. PRO is unlimited.

How you pay

The app is a free download. For the AI, use your own API key — you pay the provider for what you use and AskWatch adds nothing to it — with PRO as a one-time purchase, or subscribe to AskWatch+ or Ultra and use the included models without any key.

Questions people ask

The same app on your other devices

• ChatGPT on Apple Watch — the largest line-up, and Live Conversation on your wrist.
• Gemini on Apple Watch — Google’s models, including Gemini Live.
• All platforms — iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, Apple TV and CarPlay, with your keys carried over.

Download AskWatch on the App Store