I’ve always found driving a great chance to get away from screens for a while, to forget about emails and do some thinking, or maybe just relax to good music, a podcast or an audio book. But for business folk on the go with endless meetings to juggle, being stuck in the car for four hours in the middle of the day can be a major pain. Or it was until Audi brought the office – and your office meetings – right to your dashboard.
Starting this July, drivers ordering a new A4, A5, Q5, A6, A7, A8, Q8 e-tron or e-tron GT can download the Webex app from Cisco, which enables them to seamlessly switch from Webex meetings on their phone or laptop to a matching setup inside their car. The app is available in the Audi Application Store, which was developed by Harman and VW’s troubled software arm Cariad, and is accessed through an Audi’s infotainment system.
Tests have shown that even talking on the phone while driving can impair your concentration, so having a full-on virtual office meeting on the move sounds like a distraction disaster. But Webex switches to audio-only mode when the car is moving, and AI noise-removal should mean that other meeting participants back in the office can still hear you clearly. When the car is parked up you get the same experience hybrid workers attending a virtual meeting from home would get, including closed captions, and the chance to share content and see who else is on the call.
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The tech isn’t exclusive to Audi; both Ford and Mercedes are also getting their own versions of the Webex app which is designed to capitalize on the spread of super-fast 5G and the massive shift away from the office and to a hybrid work setup that was fastracked by the Covid pandemic.
No doubt many will find this technology useful, and it could lead to improvements in productivity. But it also means we’re seeing work take yet another bite out of our lives, leaving your bathroom shower about the only place left where you know you can’t be pestered with questions about Q1 revenues. For now anyway. There’ll probably be a waterproof app along to fix that soon enough.
