GM is rebooting OnStar after 30 years and putting a talking AI at its center

General Motors told an audience in New York on October 21, 2026 that OnStar, offered for 30 years by the company’s own count, is being rebuilt around an AI assistant that owners summon by voice. The wake phrase is “Hey OnStar.” The first car to carry it is the 2027 Cadillac LYRIQ, with more GM vehicles to follow.

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OnStar is not disappearing. GM is changing what it is, from a safety-call and subscription service into what Sterling Anderson, the company’s chief product officer, called “a connected intelligence platform.”

A voice assistant that debuts in the Cadillac LYRIQ

In its release on the OnStar AI assistant, GM says the native assistant arrives in the 2027 LYRIQ by over-the-air update “in the coming months.” Spoken requests can adjust cabin temperature, turn on dome lights, open the glove box or charge port, report tire pressure, range and charging status, map charging stops, and explain warning lights and specific vehicle features. The assistant can also connect the driver to a live OnStar Advisor, so the human service stays in place behind the software.

TechCrunch, reporting from the event, describes the assistant as an in-house GM effort rather than a product built on Google technology. Anderson told the audience, in the words TechCrunch quotes, that “OnStar is now transitioning to be a connected intelligence platform.” The Drive quotes him separately saying, “The intelligence of OnStar will exist everywhere,” meaning in the car, on the phone and in the cloud. The Drive adds that the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 are slated to receive the assistant later, and that customers can still call and speak with a live OnStar representative. GM’s own release lists no vehicles beyond the LYRIQ, so the pickup trucks rest on The Drive’s reporting alone.

Five apps become one, and the cameras that come with it

Starting in 2027, a new OnStar mobile app takes over from the current OnStar Guardian app and the Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brand apps. GM lists Connected Cameras, which record and upload incidents such as a triggered horn honk; OnStar Family, for sharing destinations and alerts; and safety alerts that combine vehicle, weather, road and route data. The apps going away are the brand apps and Guardian. The service they front is the one being extended.

The camera feature carries the most privacy weight. TechCrunch’s coverage of the makeover says the cameras can switch on when the vehicle senses an impending event, such as an aggressive horn honk, and upload footage to the app. GM says features are optional and can be turned off, that owners can manage camera, microphone, location and AI permissions, and that recordings are time-limited and encrypted. According to GM, it cannot access Connected Camera recordings. A GM spokesperson told TechCrunch that third-party sharing is “feature-specific and consent-based, with information shared only as needed to provide requested functionality.” TechCrunch adds that the FTC finalized an order earlier in 2026 barring GM and OnStar from sharing certain data with consumer reporting agencies and requiring explicit consent for some data collection.

Twelve million subscribers and a fleet product

The size of the base explains why GM would keep the name. In its GM Forward overview, the company says OnStar connects more than 12 million subscribers across 22 markets, and that its advisors handle over 20 million calls a year in North America. It calls OnStar a multimodal intelligence platform for vehicles and apps, celebrating its 30th anniversary.

A business product follows the consumer one. OnStar Fleet Intelligence is a platform for monitoring vehicle health, maintenance and fuel or energy use, paired with an OnStar Fleet AI Assistant that answers natural-language questions about fleet data. Neither GM page says what any of this costs, and neither says how current subscription plans change. TechCrunch’s report likewise does not address pricing or tiers.

The 2028 highway feature and a halved development clock

The assistant was one item in a longer program. GM says highway autonomy will debut on the Cadillac Escalade IQ in 2028, with pre-production vehicles testing on closed courses, and plans to extend it to gas-powered models including some full-size SUVs and light-duty pickups. TechCrunch Mobility’s newsletter recap of the week characterizes the feature as hands-off, eyes-off highway driving. GM also says it wants to cut its typical four- to five-year vehicle development timeline in half, using enterprise AI and a unified digital thread across design, engineering and manufacturing.

The competitive pressure is explicit. TechCrunch’s separate report on GM’s compute strategy says the halved cycle is meant to match the two- to three-year pace of Chinese automakers, and puts GM’s capitalized software amortization expense at $866 million in 2025. Anderson, identified there as executive vice president of global product and chief product officer, said GM wants vehicles to be “spaces that understand context, reduce friction.”

As a worked example, GM says it tested more than 300,000 virtual designs for its lithium manganese rich battery before building a physical prototype, and went from first pack concept to formal program approval in one month. A new in-house Central Compute Unit, which GM says offers 40 times the computing power of earlier systems, debuts on the same 2028 Escalade IQ.

The open question is timing for everyone who does not own a LYRIQ: GM named no date beyond “the coming months” for the first car and has not listed which models are next.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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