Amazon is bringing Alexa voice controls to your car, even when it's offline

Amazon's voice-controlled digital assistant, Alexa, may soon have a new home: your car.

The online retail giant announced today at CES 2018 that a partnership with Panasonic will bring its Alexa voice assistant to in-car infotainment systems.

The new interface, Alexa Onboard, works with Panasonic's in-car infotainment Skip Generation IVI platform, announced at CES 2017.

Alexa Onboard essentially makes it easier for drivers to use the Alexa assistant in their home on products like the Amazon Echo, and then move to their cars with all the same functions.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Alexa Onboard is that it includes several offline features. The assistant will be able to change the climate control temperatures in your car, tell you about upcoming appointments, control the car windows, and perform various other vehicle commands.

Alexa Onboard will eventually be made available to other product manufacturers, so expect more infotainment systems to be using it in the near future. For now, Panasonic is one of the first companies to commit to using the new interface.

The announcement of Amazon and Panasonic's partnership is a huge deal in the scope of this week's announcements. Amazon is in the middle of a heated AI battle with Google over making its digital assistant available in more third-party products. The ultimate goal is to have the voice assistants available in a huge swath of products.

Amazon's partnership with Panasonic marks an important next step, giving Amazon the ability to establish a larger footprint in the automotive space. That's something it lacked entirely until today. Whether it's enough to keep Google at bay remains to be seen, but for now, chalk this up as a major victory for Amazon.

For more coverage from CES 2018, click here.