Qualcomm, Salesforce team up to provide connected automotive experiences

Hot on the heels of revealing the accelerated adoption of its Snapdragon Ride Platform from global automotive companies developing safe and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), Qualcomm Technologies has forged a partnership with Salesforce to develop an intelligent connected vehicle platform for the automotive industry.

The companies said the automotive industry is in the midst of a large transformation, with automakers looking to leverage new digital tools to build revenue streams and enhance the customer experience.

Indeed, a Salesforce report from August 2022 found that as many as 93% of all auto companies agree that first-party data, such as website interaction, in-app usage, and purchase and service history, will help them substantially improve the customer experience.

Based on the Snapdragon Digital Chassis and Salesforce Automotive Cloud, this platform is designed to give automakers, fleet providers, automotive finance groups and other suppliers the technology to design and deliver next-generation, personalised customer experiences that can be updated throughout a vehicle’s lifecycle.

Through this working relationship, Qualcomm Technologies and Salesforce aim to help automakers deliver immersive and personalised experiences that use vehicle and driver data, including fast or real-time alerts, specific offers and predictive services, such as preventative maintenance alerts and on-demand feature upgrades. The platform will be intended to also give automakers the tools to customise service offerings for each user, and then deploy these offerings across all vehicles to build a fleet of dynamically configurable software-defined vehicles (SDVs).

Specifically, the two companies believe that with Salesforce Automotive Cloud and Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon Digital Chassis, automakers will have the tools to better understand customers and their behaviours through connected vehicle and driver data – and build customised experiences that extend an automaker’s brand into the vehicle, helping them stay connected to customers with monetisable connected services.

The platform is also intended to configure vehicle features dynamically to accommodate new connected services, while lowering recurring costs and providing a seamless upgrade path for consumers. It has also been designed to help the automotive ecosystem better connect with customers using intelligent recommendations, and accelerate the development and delivery of third-party mobility services to create new revenue opportunities for transportation and captive finance companies.

The development plans for the intelligent connected vehicle platform include the ability to create a digital twin of the Snapdragon Digital Chassis on Automotive Cloud, providing a 360-degree view of the customer and vehicle for multiple domains through comprehensive driver and vehicle data. Intelligent edge and cloud-driven application programming interfaces have been built to enable the provision of data to and from the vehicle, as well as a library of pre-integrated services for fast or real-time analytics, visualisation and artificial intelligence across sales, service, marketing, dealerships and finance.

“We look forward to extending our growing relationship with Salesforce to help guide automakers through a time of exceptional innovation,” said Nakul Duggal, senior vice-president and general manager of automotive at Qualcomm Technologies.

“Through the combination of Salesforce’s solutions and our Snapdragon Digital Chassis Platform, we look forward to providing automakers with the tools to deliver unparalleled personalised experiences while strengthening relationships with the next generation of automotive customers.”

Alex Dayon, president and chairman of the Salesforce advisory board, said: “The next revolution for the automotive industry is the rise of software-defined vehicles, and the Snapdragon Digital Chassis serves as a strong foundation for them.

“We’re excited to work with Qualcomm Technologies to help automakers deliver this new generation of connected car experiences that will fundamentally redefine how we interact with our cars.”