Our Cars Can Talk: How IoT Brings AI to Vehicles

Abstract--Bringing AI to vehicles and enabling them as sensing platforms is key to transforming maintenance from reactive to proactive. Now is the time to integrate AI copilots that speak both languages: machine and driver. This article offers a conceptual and technical perspective intended to spark interdisciplinary dialogue and guide future research and development in intelligent vehicle systems, predictive maintenance, and AI-powered user interaction. Vehicle maintenance remains largely reactive to this day, often triggered by the dreaded check engine light, sometimes at the worst possible time: in the middle of a busy week, or right before a road trip. However, today's vehicles are equipped with a dense network of sensors that can monitor nearly every aspect of performance in real time.