Bentley Moves One Step Into the Future With Adaptive, AI-Generated Music

Even so, over the past few years, I've mostly been using Spotify or Youtube to listen to music in the various cars I've driven, but occasionally I would still get bored with my available selections. And I guess it comes as natural for people to try and match the music they're listening to with their current surroundings. Whenever I'm driving in the mountainside, I tend to switch to Viking music, but I like listening to drum and bass or rock music when I'm driving more aggressively.

But as automotive technology keeps progressing, we get to reap the benefits, and Bentley's newest idea is most intriguing. That's because its upcoming models will be capable of creating their soundtracks based on various driver inputs and driving style. Yes, that's right. The cars of the future will be able to create original music for you to listen to, and that music will be in tune with yourself.

I honestly haven't been as excited about a new feature in cars in a long time. Bentley has partnered with LifeScore, a company that is an industry expert in adaptive music, to bring this idea to life, and I can imagine that driving cars of the future won't be as boring as some people predict today. Various inputs will be analyzed, including engine RPM and acceleration, to develop the composition in real-time.

The composition will be adapted continuously, in direct correlation to what the driver is doing at the given time. If you were surprised to see the AI rapper FNMeka a while back, Bentley's solution feels like an extra added step. I imagine that every car will be creating original music, and you probably won't see two vehicles that sound the same when you're inside.

LifeScore uses well-known musicians, contemporary and classical instruments to create a vast library of sounds at the Abbey Road Studios in London, the United Kingdom. Cutting-edge recording technology has been used for the process, as you might imagine, as more than 50 microphones were required to provide the full sphere surround sound. As a result, we are reaching a level at which music will be engulfing us inside of the cabin, providing an amazing auditory experience along the way.

Working with this initial soundbank library, your Bentley, and hopefully other more affordable cars of the future will be able to create more than 100 billion unique music tracks throughout a 60-minute drive. Let that sink in for a moment, as Bentley points out that this number is greater than that of all the stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

The way this works is that the car works with the building blocks of raw musical material provided by composers and musicians. Using artificial intelligence, the blocks are selected, combined, and arranged to provide the final music in real-time. Given the immense number of possible tracks, the result will never sound repetitive or synthetic.

As you will be driving through town, the music will build and evolve slowly, providing a calming effect and a more relaxing experience all in all. Switching from Cocoon mode to Enhanced, the resulting soundtrack will be more exciting, as the AI will look at your driving inputs to create an experience linked to your way of dealing with the road ahead. This technology will be put to use in Bentley's first full Battery Electric Vehicle, which may go into production as early as 2025.