Korea Herald correspondent

LAS VEGAS -- Your face is tense and your eyelids droop slightly as you drive to work in the early morning. As drowsiness creeps in, Luna, an AI-powered in-vehicle voice assistant, appears on the heads-up display and asks, "Do you want to stop by a cafe to get a cup of coffee?"

You reply, "Sure, I need my latte." Immediately, the Aura Lighting adjusts the interior lights to create a refreshing morning vibe and your favorite song begins to play from the speakers installed in your seat and headrest to help wake you up. Luna guides the way to your favorite cafe.

This scene shows the vision Harman International, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, showcased at CES 2025, where it unveiled its suite of intelligent, contextual technologies designed to redefine what it means to drive and ride in a car. At its booth opened privately for potential clients, Harman showcased its latest Ready products offering interactive and more personalized driving experiences.

The technology portfolio includes Ready Upgrade, Ready Care and Ready Display, each serving as a "brain," "senses" and "voice," respectively, to make cars not only smarter but empathetic, Harman said. The Ready product lineup integrates connected car technologies, audio systems, cloud services and Internet of Things solutions, while leveraging its popular audio brands such as Harman Kardon, JBL, AKG, Infinity and Revel for more personalized driving experiences.

Luna, unveiled for the first time this year, is an avatar powered by Ready Engage, its new emotionally intelligent AI system. The character personalizes interactions through voice and visuals.

Ready Care constantly monitors the driver's condition, using internal cameras to track eye movements, facial angles and breathing patterns so as to prevent drowsy driving. It assesses the driver's engagement level and uses Luna to refresh the atmosphere and redirect attention when needed, an official at Harman's booth explained.

Harman's Ready Vision Qvue, an award-winning augmented reality windshield display, integrates seamlessly with Ready Engage, ensuring enhanced safety and navigation.

Harman's Ready Display, exhibited at the booth, showed a clear and vivid color display, powered by Samsung Neo QLED. According to Harman, Samsung's advanced display boosted brightness levels, which is critical in automotive environments for optimal visibility in varying light conditions.

"The once traditional powertrain-focused automotive industry is evolving into software-defined vehicles, like smartphones on wheels," Yoon Juno, vice president leading the Harman Business Team at Harman, said.

"What differentiates Harman from its competitors is its collaboration with Samsung. There are no global automotive electronics companies that have a parent company of such scale as Samsung."

Harman's operating profit continued to grow to surpass the 1-trillion-won ($702 million) mark in 2023, marking this milestone for the first time since joining Samsung in 2017.

In the latest organizational restructuring in December, Samsung changed the name of its automotive electronics team to Harman Relations Team to support the growth momentum of the automotive electronics arm.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)