Microsoft for automotive

Trusted solutions for the automotive industry

Get started

Change and disruption were the norm

We saw original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers announce investment strategies and product re-alignments across electric vehicle (EV), hybrid, and internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered segments. We witnessed new software-defined vehicle (SDV) platform developments like the introduction of BMW’s Neue Klasse SDV platform, and saw exciting in-vehicle experiences that go beyond traditional screen-projection with embedded and secure vehicle operating systems that offer AI-powered productivity and interactivity as seen with Mercedes-Benz.

There were advances across all areas of vehicle development as the industry grappled with consumer sensitivity around cost, product availability, and a desire for more personalized and connected experiences inside the vehicle.

From hardware to software

As software continues to drive new vehicle development—approaching the scale of billions of lines of code—its importance to vehicle engineering has become critical, even regulated with requirements to maintain software fitness and security over the vehicle lifecycle. Automakers and suppliers are embracing this shift, however, and recognize that with a focus on software and data, they can now offer new products and services that drive unique differentiation and can improve customer value, loyalty, sales, and service. The adoption of cloud and AI technologies has added a force multiplier to this transformation across the entire industry.

While hardware will always be in the mix, we continue to see a focus on reducing the number of vehicle domain controllers and consolidating compute.

Less is more

Less is indeed more, and the goal for automakers when it comes to time to market. With aggressive plans for new vehicle introductions over the next two to three years, OEMs and their suppliers are creating paths to shorten the time it takes to introduce new vehicles and products to market. This is pushing cycles from a typical 48 to 60 months down to 24 to 36 months to remain competitive.

The AI push is real

Across all industries, and especially within automotive, the adoption of AI and AI agents has enabled improvements in design, requirements management, coding, and vehicle engineering functions, leading to enterprise efficiency, rapid innovation, customer satisfaction, and shorter overall development times.

CES 2026—The stage is set

With that said, the stage is now set for 2026 and the annual technology-infused tour de force at CES 2026. For years, CES has been known for highlighting both current and inspiring future technology. This is also true for automotive at CES 2026 as evidenced by the population of exhibitors and attendees over the past few years. It will be interesting to see how that landscape has evolved for this year’s event given the new dynamics at play.

Microsoft for automotive at CES 2026

For the fifth consecutive year, Microsoft will showcase its impact on automotive as the secure technology platform powering the next frontier of automotive innovation. With our cloud and AI solutions, along with our ecosystem of acceleration partners, Microsoft is transforming processes across the automotive “V” model—from requirements and engineering to development and testing.

At CES 2026, we are particularly focused on the transformation within digital engineering, helping our automotive and mobility customers establish strong software capabilities. This includes areas such as SDVs, embedded software, vehicle advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), and autonomy. In addition, meeting OEMs brand differentiation requirements through unique in-vehicle experiences with a focus on the digital cockpit is another core spotlight.

Our customers and partners also seek our differentiation around enterprise-grade security, global-scale cloud, AI copilots integrated across engineering workflows, and an open ecosystem vs. vertically locked platforms. 

At CES 2026, Microsoft and our partners are demonstrating how AI-powered engineering and in-vehicle intelligence are converging to accelerate SDV development and redefine the driver experience.

Digital engineering

Digital engineering demands cloud infrastructure that can scale globally, adapt in real time, and deliver consistent performance across increasingly complex workloads—from AI inference and data-intensive analytics to embedded development and full vehicle simulation. Recent Microsoft Azure innovations remove longstanding compute and operational bottlenecks by supporting heterogeneous architectures such as Arm64, graphics processing units (GPUs), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), enabling end-to-end engineering from chip to cloud. Elastic scaling empowers globally distributed teams with cloud-native CI/CD pipelines and real-time analytics, while high-performance computing accelerates software-defined vehicle (SDV) development through advanced simulation, validation, and software-in-the-loop testing—allowing teams to move faster, validate earlier, and bring intelligent systems to market with greater confidence. 

We shared some exciting new announcements in both digital engineering and in-vehicle innovation below: 

AMD and Siemens: AMD is providing new engineering support for OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers with the AMD VAS stack running on Microsoft Azure, enabling virtualization of development environments. This integration enables systems-level simulation to support earlier engineering validation efforts aimed at improving efficiency, reducing development risks with SDV development, and reducing time to market. Learn more about the AMD announcement.

With this capability, Siemens will integrate their PAVE360™ digital twin simulation environment into the AMD VAS stack on Azure, providing developer support for AMD compute and graphics technologies. Discussing this and other topics further at CES 2026, Siemens will also feature a panel lineup with President and Chief Executive Officer Roland Busch joined by executives from NVIDIA, Microsoft, PepsiCo, and Commonwealth Fusion. The panel will share a dialog on the impact of AI in transforming the physical world to transform manufacturing, infrastructure, and transportation.

ETAS: As a leading provider of innovative solutions for the development of automotive software, ETAS brings its core calibration suite to Azure, enabling automotive engineers to accelerate SDV development through cloud-based engineering tools. The ETAS toolchain on Azure enables OEMs to move software development activities to start an earlier point in time, a term known as “shift-left,” which enables late-stage vehicle development processes to be performed earlier—saving time, improving quality, and enabling faster iteration cycles. Read the blog to learn more.

KPIT: KPIT will demonstrate their Next-Generation Agentic AI Solution Suite at CES 2026—a flexible, cloud-based tool designed to make vehicle software development faster, more reliable, and cost-effective for automakers. By using advanced AI on Azure, KPIT helps OEMs improve the way they design, and build connected and self-driving vehicles. This technology provides more efficient processes to update vehicle software, diagnose and resolve problems more quickly, and deliver better experiences for drivers, leading to higher quality vehicles and more satisfied customers. Learn more.

Neural Concept: Neural Concept focuses on improving vehicle aerodynamics, a critical factor for enhancing vehicle performance, energy efficiency, and reducing development costs. As development timelines in the automotive industry continue to shorten, the demand for data-driven approaches that complement or replace traditional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) workflows become increasingly important. By utilizing the MIT DrivAerNet++ dataset—which contains 8,000 vehicle designs and extensive CFD information, Neural Concept supports advanced research and development in engineering. These innovations empower automakers to achieve design cycles that are 30% shorter. Learn more about Neural Concept at CES 2026.

PTC: Considering speed to market, PTC announced a collaboration with Lamborghini S.p.A to improve overall product lifecycle through their centralized data foundation that connects design, engineering, and operations with enhanced AI capabilities. Also, through their collaboration with Microsoft, PTC will demonstrate a new engineering change management solution—an AI-powered agent to streamline the engineering workflow that has broad applicability even beyond automotive. Meet PTC at CES 2026. 

Renesas: Continuing with the theme of digital engineering and SDV, Renesas, an advanced semiconductor solutions provider, announced an industry first integration to create a vendor-neutral SDV-as-a-Service platform, powered by Azure along with Visual Studio Code integration, GitHub CI/CD pipelines, and Microsoft Copilot AI. The Renesas RoX DevStudio enables OEMs and other partners with cloud-based tools to architect, develop, simulate, test, and deploy SDV architectures, supporting the entire v-model. Discover more with the Renesas blog.

Digital Cockpit and in-vehicle experiences

The rapidly growing in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) market is transforming with new AI-powered experiences improving driver safety, comfort, and even productivity.

Bosch: In collaboration with Microsoft and NVIDIA, Bosch is introducing in-vehicle cockpit innovation at CES 2026. The Bosch AI cockpit, launched as the “AI extension platform,” will provide compute power to enable AI capabilities on the edge to existing vehicle cockpit systems. This is significant in that automakers can use their existing hardware infrastructure in the vehicle. This new platform is powered by NVIDIA’s Drive Orin system-on-chip (SoC), delivering high-performance with only power and Ethernet interfaces, simplifying electrical and electronics (E/E) infrastructure while supporting modern vehicle computing needs. With this powerful platform and the integration of Microsoft Foundry and specialized cockpit features, Microsoft and Bosch are transforming the car into a mobile office without compromising driver safety. This combination not only enables access to Microsoft 365 applications productivity suite and intuitive voice command, but it integrates intelligently with other vehicle systems to prioritize safety and minimize distraction—like enabling adaptive cruise control while on a Microsoft Teams call—demonstrating a key use case for how AI will revolutionize the cockpit and driving experience. Learn more about Bosch innovations at CES 2026.

Cerence AI and NVIDIA: In another milestone collaboration with Cerence AI, NVIDIA, and Microsoft, Cerence announced Cerence xUI^tm , a new, hybrid, agentic intelligence solution for OEMs to meet rising demand for fast, edge/in-vehicle large language and small language model AI to power new in-car experiences operating in a connected or disconnected state. Cerence xUIalso enables access to Microsoft 365 applications productivity suite with multi-lingual, multimodal conversational language, supporting intelligent multi zonal support, so not only the driver, but also each individual passenger can talk to the car and have access to Microsoft 365 applications, using Microsoft security products and best practices. Learn more at CES 2026.

FORVIA: Building on the existing Microsoft Teams integration work from 2025, Appning by FORVIA collaborates further to bring AI-powered experiences enabled by Microsoft Foundry Tools to the Appning Apps market ecosystem. This collaboration supports advanced conversational interfaces, content, and services for personalized user experiences. Learn more.

TomTom: The location technology experts at TomTom combine their mapping and traffic intelligence data in a unique platform that gives OEMs ultimate flexibility in creating unique, branded, and connected experiences delivered in weeks instead of months. The platform also builds on the Microsoft Cloud and generative AI capabilities into the TomTom AI Agent.

Microsoft for automotive and our partner ecosystem

In addition to the partners making announcements at CES 2026, we will showcase a vibrant partner ecosystem supporting automotive and mobility including:

Microsoft is committed to partnering with OEMs and suppliers to accelerate SDV development, modernize engineering, and deliver intelligent, differentiated in-vehicle experiences. Learn more about Microsoft for automotive.

The post CES 2026: Powering the next frontier in automotive appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

• Toyota is deploying AI agents to harness the collective wisdom of engineers and innovate faster
• BMW Group innovates with Azure for 10 times more efficient data delivery
• How CarMax organized and scaled innovation with Microsoft AI solutions

The platform for AI-enabled innovation

A wave of profound transformation is driving rapid progress in automotive, mobility and manufacturing, fueled by advancements in software and data. In automotive for example, vehicles are now defined as much by their digital as their physical content, a trend further accelerated by advancements in AI. Generative AI and agentic AI are revolutionizing how vehicles are designed, manufactured, sold, and used, including the development of software-defined vehicles (SDV), advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous driving (AD), and in-vehicle customer experiences.

The versatility of software-defined vehicles and AI have been proven to boost competitiveness, operational efficiency and create new revenue opportunities. A key to this acceleration is effectively integrating software-driven product lifecycles into automotive product design and development. Leveraging the Microsoft Azure platform to modernize engineering systems can help navigate this revolution, enabling shorter development vehicle development timelines, reduce cost, and improved quality and collaboration.

Powering change across automotive, mobility, and manufacturing

Microsoft and our partners are enabling transformation across automotive, mobility, and manufacturing in four focus areas:

1. Design and engineering

Addressing the needs for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers to design, build, test, and validate new vehicles, and deliver them to the market.

• Modern design and engineering in the cloud
• SDVs
• Connected fleets and products
• Automated driving
• In-vehicle and digital cockpit

2. Factory

Improving factory utilization through proactive system-wide visibility and management, to enhance workforce efficiency and safety.

• Connected workforce
• Factory process optimization
• Modernized factory edge

3. Supply chain

Building resiliency and sustainability into the extended automotive supply chain to aid in sourcing and selection, shipping, and warehousing.

• Visibility and risk management
• Forecasting and planning
• Warehousing and fulfillment

4. Customer experience

Creating engaging, differentiated services and connected experiences both inside and outside the vehicle to deliver long-term customer value and satisfaction.

• In-vehicle connected services
• Consumer and commercial marketing and sales
• Warranty, service, and repair

Automotive industry highlights for CES 2025

For CES 2025, we are focusing on design, engineering and vehicle experience in automotive. Below is a selection of recent announcements and collaborations, including CES and Microsoft Ignite.

Design and engineering—supporting the automotive development process with engineering and toolchain support, including improvements in requirements and specifications.

• PTC: Integrating AI into their application lifecycle management (ALM) solution, PTC Codebeamer with Codebeamer Copilot, focused on requirements authoring and analysis.
• Siemens: Siemens and Microsoft bring AI-enhanced NX X to Azure for advanced product engineering.
• NVIDIA: Live sessions and showcase at CES.
• Ansys: Meet your engineering goals with the speed and scale of Ansys Access on Microsoft Azure, a new cloud engineering solution for seamless scalability.
• Kontrol, TÜV SÜD, and Ansys: A virtual homologation toolchain to redefine how automotive manufacturers meet global regulatory compliance and safety standards.
• A2MAC1: Providing OEMs with a solution to speed development and meeting sustainability goals through enhanced supplier selection based on sustainability criteria.

Software defined vehicle, automated driving, and engineering toolchain—(SDV), autonomous driving, in-vehicle/digital cockpit:

• Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle: Automotive Open-Source Summit May 2025.
• Blackberry QNX: Accelerating building, testing and development of software defined vehicles in the cloud for automakers.
• Cognata and Ansys: Collaborating on a web-based virtual environment to test and validate automated driver assistance systems, and autonomous vehicle functionalities that mimic real-world conditions.
• dSpace: In collaboration with GitHub on generative AI usage for software-in-the-loop (SIL) testing and virtual electronic control unit (V-ECU) development to aid in more efficient validation pipelines.
• Excelfore: Enhancing long-term product lifecycle management through generative AI supported automotive over-the-air (OTA) campaigns for vehicle software updates and features.
• Harman Automotive: Collaborating on new software products to power the future of Automotive.
• Bosch: For safer roads: Bosch teams up with Microsoft to explore new frontiers with generative AI.

In-vehicle—digital cockpit and advanced AI assistants for driver safety, convenience, and enhanced experience.

• Cerence: Introduces pioneering embedded small language model, purpose-built for automotive.
• TomTom: For specialized areas at CES: Driver Experience, Future of Driving, Orbis Maps and enterprise.
• Pioneer: Connected motorcycle and smart dash with video AI analysis for driver operation support and crash detection.

Security—Vehicle cybersecurity and lifecycle management

• CyberArk & Device Authority: Creation of a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reference architecture for Internet of Things (IoT) security to ensure robust factory and edge environment security, access management, and device lifecycle protection.
• Cymotive Technologies: Announcing a new automotive vulnerability management system available on the Azure Marketplace.
• VicOne: Collaborating to provide developers of vehicle software with proactive security of vehicle firmware to ensure end-to-end protection across the automotive software lifecycle.

New adapted AI models for industry

Adapted AI models, developed in collaboration with industry partners, expand our industry capabilities and enable organizations to address their unique needs more accurately and effectively.

Adaptive cloud

At Ignite 2024, Microsoft made a variety of exciting announcements regarding how customers can gain a competitive advantage with a unified approach to data and AI: collect data from any source, process and analyze that data locally and globally for AI-enabled insights anywhere, and securely share those insights with employees and the ecosystem.

New industry reference architectures—providing a faster path to value

At CES 2025, we are announcing six new reference architectures, and updates to previously released reference architectures. Learn more about our reference architectures.

New AI Agent reference architectures for 2025

• Autonomous vehicle operations 
• Digital cockpit
• Mobility agents 
• Connected mobility
• Software defined vehicle 

Updates to previously released reference architectures

• Azure innovation accelerator
• Digital selling  
• Unified view of the customer  
• Product lifecycle management (PLM) on Azure 

Industry-aligned reference architectures are available through our partner ecosystem and Microsoft Industry Solutions Delivery. They provide essential guidance for engineers and architects to leverage a defined framework, supporting a wide array of scenarios, ultimately providing a faster path to value.

Microsoft in mobility and manufacturing industries

Learn more about Microsoft in Mobility and Manufacturing.

Learn more about Microsoft reference architectures for Mobility and Manufacturing, including our Mobility reference architecture updates for CES 2025.

The post CES 2025: Advancing the future of automotive and mobility appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

This year’s congress event highlighted topics such as autonomy and sustainability with a focus on the reduction of carbon emissions, retail, and the role of governments in developing industrial decision-making. Microsoft provided thought leadership around our role in supporting transformation in the automotive industry.

Our focus encapsulates the entire segment known as “mobility” with a distinct concentration in automotive, mobility, transportation, and logistics, or effectively, the movement of people and goods. Within automotive, we provide the “platform for platform creators” and empower companies to innovate around industry opportunities.  

Accelerating the future of mobility

Transform to smart mobility.

Discover more

Addressing the industry challenges

While these opportunities are expanding, the industry is hyper-focused on the larger challenges that must be addressed to pave the path forward. These include: 

• Technological disruption: The rapid pace of technological advancements and the challenges for companies to stay ahead of the curve. Existing automotive OEMs and mobility companies need to invest in research and development to keep up with evolving customer expectations and industry standards. 
• Regulatory environment: The mobility industry is subject to various regulations and standards related to safety, emissions, and data privacy. Especially as we evolve autonomous systems and connected data. Companies need to navigate these regulations while ensuring compliance and adapting to changing requirements as new standards are introduced and mature. 
• Infrastructure limitations: The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) requires a robust charging infrastructure, while autonomous vehicles rely on extensive sensor networks and high-speed internet connectivity. Expanding and upgrading infrastructure to support these emerging technologies can be a significant challenge and highlight the adjacent industries that are a significant factor in supporting the adoption of future mobility.  
• Shift in consumer preferences: Changing consumer preferences, such as the rise of ride-sharing services and the sharing economy, can disrupt traditional business models in the mobility industry. Companies need to adapt to these shifts and develop innovative solutions to cater to evolving customer needs. 

Enabling innovation

While applicable to all industries, digital transformation, and the integration of digital technology into all areas of business are fundamentally changing how businesses operate and deliver value to customers. The automotive and mobility industry is no different and in fact, is heavily impacted by the move from physical to digital. This intersection of boundaries is also seen as the shift towards a “software culture”, that promises to usher in an unprecedented convergence of people, business, and things that disrupt existing business models and create new revenue opportunities in the movement of people and goods.  

As the industry transforms digitally, there are major trends that are having a significant impact in the areas of customer experience—connected, autonomous, shared mobility, and electrification (CASE), software defined vehicle (SDV), edge-to-cloud environment parity through high-performance computing, and AI. This shift acknowledges the drive by traditional OEMs, new entrant OEMs, mobility service providers, and suppliers to develop new digital and software-driven solutions which cloud platforms can enable. As we engage with automotive and mobility companies, we see similar areas of focus for innovation which include: 

Products and services

Product design and development is the single biggest area in the IT budget of most OEMs in the automotive industry. Companies are tasked with innovating top-line growth while holding the line on costs and the challenge of leveraging a labor pool in transition as skilling adapts to newer technology and techniques required to support innovation. This is also a growth area for many traditional OEMs now expanding into mobility service offerings and capabilities like SDVs to ensure product adaptability and create new business models that help companies drive growth beyond traditional practices. Read how General Motors reimagined its development tool chain process to drive innovation and connect people to things that matter here.  

Factory 

At its core, automotive is a significant manufacturing operation and more than ever has an imperative to improve productivity and adaptability to meet evolving customer demands, mitigate risk, and improve efficiency and sustainability to fuel innovative growth. With data as the new currency, many manufacturers are deploying AI tools, maximizing the value of their data to support the decision-making process. Manufacturers are increasing the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) and operational technology (OT) cybersecurity solutions at the edge, cutting OT cybersecurity breaches in half. Companies with manufacturing operations will also prioritize digital literacy as a key skill set during the talent retention process to support digital transformation and enterprise-wide technology adoption. Read how ZF developed its digital manufacturing platform to reduce production downtimes and optimize inventory. 

Supply chain

The automotive ecosystem and the many players that support it are all linked by an intricate supply chain. The industry is rebalancing its supply chains seeking more resilience to endure future disruptions which now may arise from many different vectors—economic, geo-political, natural, and technological for example. Strategies such as multi-shoring sourcing will enable a more proactive stance against risk in supply reliability. In addition, actively managing carbon footprint as a key metric to execute sustainability initiatives is a goal beyond simply reporting. Read how Daimler Truck North America optimized supply chain processes to reduce downtime. 

Customer experience

OEMs are overhauling marketing, sales, and service processes, with a deliberate shift to centrally managing the complete customer journey and providing additional channels beyond the dealer network. Currently, customer experience projects face highly fragmented data and identity. In marketing and sales, central management of marketing and sales processes requires rapid experience innovation including metaverse. In service, connected vehicle data is utilized to improve traditional vehicle maintenance processes, reduce warranty expenses, and innovate with new business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) offerings like insurance, subscription, fleet, and other services. This is a strong growth area where technology-savvy companies are acting as disruptors to existing business models and are driving innovation leading to new services and business models. For OEMs, it is a focal point for driving deeper customer engagement and building brand loyalty. Read how Porsche Cars North America created an improved service experience for technicians and customers with mixed reality. 

Data and AI

It is said that data is the new currency—at least when it comes to intelligence that is driving innovation, informing on strategy, and powering decision-making. Generative AI and capabilities like ChatGPT have opened a world of opportunity across all the business areas mentioned above. It seems everyone is involved in pilots or projects in one way or another as companies seek real value in deploying them to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Read how Amadeus created personalized, on-demand mobility experiences with AI.

Security

Along with data comes the absolute requirement for data sovereignty and security. The foundation of any data-driven transformation strategy must include security measures to combat cybersecurity threats that not only impact data but also can threaten vehicles, assets, and infrastructure that are becoming increasingly connected. Read how automotive quality control leader Hollen grew its business through enhanced security.  

Microsoft at Automotive News World Congress 2023

We are witnessing a great inflection point in the industry—one that will dramatically evolve the landscape of automotive, future mobility, and related industries and ecosystems. Most importantly, this transformation will impact people. We enjoyed the engagement at Automotive News World Congress 2023 and welcome you to learn more about Microsoft in automotive.

The post Enabling innovation: Microsoft at Automotive News World Congress 2023 appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.