GoKawiilLance Whitney/ZDNET
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Siri typically serves as my voice assistant when I'm driving and my iPhone is connected via Apple CarPlay. And that's fine for interactive tasks such as playing music, getting driving directions, setting a reminder, and calling or texting someone. But Siri often stumbles with more complex or challenging questions, the type that you'd usually ask an AI.
With Apple's new CarPlay support for third-party voice assistants, you're able to talk directly and hands-free with popular AI apps. So far, you can chat by voice in the car with ChatGPT and Perplexity AI just as you would at home or elsewhere. That means you can ask them questions, make requests, and engage in back-and-forth conversations.
Also: Google Maps vs. Waze: I compared the two best navigation apps, and this one's better
There is one barrier here. The ChatGPT voice assistant works with CarPlay, no matter your account type -- free, Go, Plus, or Pro. Perplexity, though, is another story. For this, you need the Pro version, which normally costs $20 a month. But there are a few tricks for scoring a free year of Perplexity Pro, as described in this article by my fellow ZDNET writer Artie Beaty.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
Before we get started, here are some preliminaries.
What you need to get started
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