A Rivian loaner vehicle delivered to a customer this week came preloaded with the company’s unreleased AI assistant, offering the first look at the feature’s menu.
The information was shared on Reddit by user ‘buknaykid’, who reported that a 2025 R1S loaner vehicle they received already has the Rivian Assistant installed.
The user stated that the vehicle is running on software version 2026.03.0 — which was released last month — and with auto-update turned off.
A second user, ‘beeblebrox42,’ corroborated the sighting, confirming the assistant also appeared on their loaner and calling it “SOOOOOOO much better than Alexa.”
The Rivian Assistant is set to replace Alexa — from partner and main backer Amazon — which has served as the default voice assistant in the R1 models since launch.
The Irvine-based EV maker first announced the Rivian Assistant at its inaugural ‘Autonomy & AI Day’ in December 2025, targeting an early 2026 launch.
While the 2026.03 software update began rolling out to owners in February, it did not include the Assistant — focusing instead on Autonomy+, Launch Mode, and Apple Watch support.
The appearance on loaner vehicles — which often run pre-release or slightly ahead-of-schedule software — hints that Rivian may be staging the Assistant for an upcoming update.
Rivian has not regarding the Assistant’s launch date.
Details Seen
A screenshot shared by the Reddit user shows the Rivian Assistant settings panel within the infotainment system.
The interface confirms two wake words — ‘Hey Rivian’ and ‘Okay Rivian’ — alongside toggles for Natural Interruption, which allows the assistant to recognise when a driver is speaking and pause mid-response, and a Keep Listening mode that enables follow-up requests without repeating the wake word.
A Chattiness slider lets users choose between ‘Minimal’ and ‘Normal’ response verbosity.
In the menu, Alexa remains listed as a separate app alongside the Rivian Assistant, suggesting the two systems could coexist during the transition period rather than Amazon’s assistant being removed immediately.
In-House AI Assistant
Rivian announced late last year the debut of its AI assistant, built almost entirely in-house over nearly two years of development.
The assistant runs on Rivian Unified Intelligence (RUI), the company’s model-agnostic AI architecture that combines custom large language models with what Rivian calls an “orchestration layer” — a system designed to coordinate multiple AI models in real time.
Drivers and passengers will be able to use the AI assistant to operate climate controls and handle other tasks contained within the vehicle’s infotainment system.
It will also connect vehicle systems with third-party apps using an agentic framework built by Rivian engineers.
“The beauty here is we can integrate third-party agents, and this is completely redefining how apps in the future will integrate in our cars,” the company’s Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid stated then.
Google Calendar will be the first third-party app to launch within the AI assistant, Rivian said then.
Google x Rivian
The AI assistant will be augmented by frontier large language models — for instance, the Google Vertex AI and Gemini — for grounded data, natural conversation, and reasoning, according to Rivian.
The integration of Google Gemini was first spotted last October.
Images posted on the Rivian Forum showed last year a hidden “Secret VA Debug Menu” inside the infotainment system where “Gemini” is listed as the LLM (large language model) provider, confirming Rivian‘s shift toward Google’s AI technology.
The menu allows developers to “use Gemini for LLM calls,” suggesting Rivian is testing Google Cloud’s generative AI capabilities to power its next-generation voice assistant.
Autonomy Progress
Uber has agreed to invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian through 2031, the companies announced on Thursday.
The ride-hailing company will deploy up to 50,000 R2 fully autonomous robotaxis across 25 cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
An initial $300 million investment from Uber is expected following the deal’s signing, subject to regulatory approval.
However, buried within the deal’s SEC filing was a material disclosure from the Irvine-based EV maker.
Rivian revealed that it no longer expects to reach profitability in 2027 — abandoning a target it had maintained since its first Investor Day in June 2024.
The company stated that it “no longer expects to be adjusted EBITDA positive in 2027 due to an expected increase in R&D spend associated with the acceleration of its autonomy roadmap.”
According to the company’s fourth quarter earnings report, Rivian spent $1.7 billion on research and development in 2025, a 6% increase from $1.6 billion the prior year.
The reversal comes just five weeks after CFO Claire McDonough reaffirmed the 2027 timeline.
