The first iOS 26.4 beta landed earlier this week, and with it came a whole bunch of changes and updates to the iPhone software. One of the updates that slipped under the radar at the time concerns Apple CarPlay, the in-car software that lets you use iPhone apps behind the wheel.
Now, according to the CarPlay Developer Guide, you can use "voice-based conversational apps" in your car. Or, in other words, beta users get the ability to talk to AI chatbots, and utilize a new voice control screen that will provide "visual feedback" for whatever you say to those apps.
AI apps will need to roll out updates to add CarPlay support, but this is obviously a very big deal. Until now, anyone trying to use voice controls in their car had to go through Siri, whereas now they should eventually be able to use the likes of ChatGPT, Google Gemini and more.
Crucially, though, these chatbots won't be able to access any vehicle or phone features. So AI functionality isn't going to change compared to what's already available outside of your car. Likewise, these apps won't have a wake word, so you need to open up the appropriate AI chatbot yourself. Opening up the app will initiate the new voice control screen, which users can customize and enjoy a chatbot experience that's optimized for the car.
Sadly, we can't actually test any of these apps to see how they perform in action. It's up to individual developers to decide whether they want to support CarPlay or not, and that means none of them are available yet.
Hopefully, though, we should see them start to appear in the coming weeks — especially after iOS 26.4 is released to the general public this spring. Until then, though, we're all stuck using Siri for everything. Which is... not ideal.
But in the meantime, Apple has also started supporting video playback on CarPlay, which means iPhone users have plenty to look forward to.
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