Ford and Google partner on connected vehicle experience

Ford has named Google Cloud its preferred cloud provider to leverage Google’s expertise in data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). As part of this new, six-year partnership—and beginning in 2023—Ford and Lincoln vehicles at all price points will be powered by Android, with Google apps and services built-in.

Ford and Google are also establishing a new collaborative group Team Upshift. The team’s projects may include developing new retail experiences when buying a vehicle, creating new ownership offers based on data, and more.

“As Ford continues the most profound transformation in our history with electrification, connectivity and self-driving, Google and Ford coming together establishes an innovation powerhouse truly able to deliver a superior experience for our customers and modernize our business,” said Jim Farley, President and CEO of Ford.

“From the first moving assembly line to the latest driver-assist technology, Ford has set the pace of innovation for the automotive industry for nearly 120 years,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. “We’re proud to partner to apply the best of Google’s AI, data analytics, compute and cloud platforms to help transform Ford’s business and build automotive technologies that keep people safe and connected on the road.”

With Google Cloud, Ford plans to improve customer experience, explore the use of vision AI for manufacturing employee training and implement data-driven business models resulting in customers receiving real-time notices such as maintenance requests or trade-in alerts.