CES 2026: Bosch is Ready to Bring AI to Your (Likely ICE-powered) Vehicle

Bosch provided updates to its efforts on autonomy and AI at CES, while noting that other recently hyped technologies (EV powertrains) won’t grow quite as quickly as the industry was expecting in previous ears.

January 16, 2026

Sebastian Blanco

Bosch’s AI-powered cockpit uses two language models, one text-based and the other visual to “unlock some truly next-level functions,” according to Paul Thomas, president of Bosch in North America. (Bosch)

CES provided Bosch with another high-profile chance – as it did with its Super Bowl ad in 2025 and a new one in 2026 – to expand its reach with non-industry customers through a livestreamed press conference that touched on power tools and home appliances. Tanja Rueckert, a member of Bosch’s board of management, said during the event that Bosch’s expertise “bridges a gap that many others struggle to cross: the divide between the physical and the digital.” This advantage, she said, has turned the company into an AI leader, with over 2,000 AI patents and a plan to have invested over 2.5 billion euros in AI by the end of 2027.

On the automotive front, Bosch’s efforts to connect the digital and physical worlds can be seen in a meaningful update to its Vehicle Motion Management system. The system now has capabilities that will let it control a vehicle’s movement in six degrees of movement, which should minimize motion sickness, especially in automated driving vehicles. Bosch’s hardware-agnostic software solution manages braking, steering, powertrain, and suspension systems, tuning them to meet a desired driving mode or adapting to the driving situation.

“Since a lot of us are going to be passengers in the self-driving cars of the future, this has the potential to bring increased well-being to hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and to help eliminate a real obstacle on our path to autonomous mobility,” said Paul Thomas, president of Bosch in North America and president of Bosch Mobility for the Americas region.

Bosch will also soon provide an updated electronic by-wire system that will go into production with one of the world’s largest automakers, Thomas said. This will be the first of what Bosch expects will be more than 7 billion euros in cumulative global sales of its steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire systems by 2032.

SDVs will need S-CORE, or something similar

Bosch and its subsidiary ETAS also offered an update to the Eclipse Safe Open Vehicle Core (S-CORE) project. Designed to be an open-source middleware platform for software-defined vehicles, S-CORE can translate communications between wildly different hardware and software components. Rueckert said Bosch is working with global automakers to “create a single standard that’s available to all. Ultimately, this will speed up development, lower costs, enhance security, and boost innovation across the entire industry, which in turn means more people will have access to all the benefits software-defined vehicles have to offer.”

Bosch’s AI-powered cockpit uses embedded AI in the vehicle as well as cloud-based services to connect to other diigtal ecosystems. (Bosch)

That isn’t to say Bosch thinks it will be the only company providing a centralized stack like S-CORE. Thomas told SAE Media that he doesn’t think there will only be one such provider, and that there also won’t be too many. “I don’t think there’ll be one,” he said. “I don’t think there’ll be 10 either. I think it’s too expensive to have 10 solutions. It’s a competitive market out there. You’ll have different OEMs that have different SOCs and different partners that they want to work with. We need to be open to this software-based solution. With S-CORE, whether we work with NVIDIA, whether we work with Qualcomm, or whoever we work with, we’ve got to be able to offer a solution that everyone is able to buy into.”

Thomas said Bosch sees advances with S-CORE happening a bit faster in Europe than in North America, with AI- and autonomy-related factors the driving focus in North America.

“The basic rules-based systems that maybe we grew up talking about three years ago, where you have to teach a car what a dog looks like, or what a fire hydrant looks like, or what a truck looks like, those systems are becoming more antiquated when you have an AI system that’s able to think and create those rules without having to teach it,” he said. “I think S-CORE is the start, and I think there’s a great momentum we’re seeing from partners joining that, but I think there’ll be more than one solution, just because of all the different types of needs that come from the market.”

Bosch is also bringing AI into the cabin with an AI-powered cockpit that uses two language models: a text-based LLM for voice commands and a visual language model that will allow the vehicle to see and understand the world around it using cameras and sensors inside and outside the vehicle.

“Together, they unlock some truly next-level functions,” Thomas said. “For example, the vehicle can automatically search for a parking spot when you arrive at your destination, or generate minutes for online meetings you attend from behind the wheel.”

AI is also part of Bosch’s partnership with Kodiak, which is using Class 8 trucks driven by AI-powered autonomous driving technology to deliver products along a defined route. Bosch is supplying Kodiak with hardware, including cameras and steering controls, and some diagnostic information. The partnership, Thomas said, allows Kodiak to “provide a very robust transportation from point A to point B in a legitimate way that they don’t have to worry about safety or the vehicle not performing properly, because uptimes on these vehicles are super important. The environment it is operating in will teach us a lot about road differentiation and the way the truck has to have different dynamics of the way it’s moving across the road. It’s a good scaling opportunity for commercial applications, especially industrial technology.”

Bosch still expects 70% ICE in 2035

Bosch is continuing its multi-pronged powertrain approach to future vehicles, what Thomas called a “balanced approach to electrification” that includes hybrids, PHEVs and ICE gasoline direct injection options.

“It’s not really a move away from an electrification strategy,” he said. “It’s a change in the way [our customers will] bring electrification to the market.” Thomas said Bosch now expects around 70% of new vehicles in North America in 2035 will have some sort of ICE technology, with around 40-50% of those being ICE-only models, and the rest made up of strong hybrids, mild hybrids, and range extenders. All-electric EVs will make up the other 30%.

“That hasn’t changed much from what I said last year. What’s changed is the ramp-up of electrification based upon consumer demand,” he said. “EVs will still come, but at a pace that’s not the same trajectory that we saw. But the beauty, I believe, is that this balance between ICE, electrification, and smart ways to manage propulsion is becoming very important, and the dynamics between the steering, the braking and the propulsion have to make your vehicle much more efficient. That didn’t change much from what I said last year. We weren’t really changing our strategy. We believe in ICE, we believe in hybrid, and we believe in electrification.”

Thomas said avenues for further ICE improvements might be found in heating the catalyst, targeted injection technology and different compression options. Also, with certain range-extender vehicles, engineers can operate the engine at an optimal RPM that lets the engine perform at its most efficient level. When it comes to ICE, “I don’t think it’s reached its limit,” Thomas said. “It will depend on the cost-benefit ratio, how much more you really want to spend to make that better. The manufacturing base is already in place, so making injectors or rails or high-pressure pumps is something that industrialization is in place for.