According to the Samsung Group and industry sources on Dec. 27, Samsung Electronics has recently agreed with BMW and Japanese electronics maker Panasonic Corp. to jointly develop “intelligent assistants” for smart cars. An intelligent assistant is a system that recognizes the voice of a driver and execute the driver’s voice commands, and is considered to be the brains of self-driving cars. Global IT industry watchers expect that it will evolve to a system that can help the driver make comprehensive judgments by integrating with Internet of Things (IoT) tech. In cooperation with U.S.-based speech recognition technology firm Nuance Communications, the three companies will sharpen the relevant technology to understand the voice of the driver better. Nuance is well-known as the company that created Siri, the voice recognition service of Apple’s iPhone.