Guest appearance by Marcel Vigneron,
Top Chef All-Star and Food Network star
Paul Thomas:
Look who we have with us today, let’s give a hand to Marcel Vigneron!
Tanja Rueckert:
Marcel, we’re so happy to have you here. But I must admit, all this talk about cooking is making me hungry! Maybe because I missed breakfast this morning…
Marcel Vigneron:
Tanja, not to worry: I just happen to know a thing or two about cooking! Got you covered. I hope you don’t mind a little steak for breakfast…
Tanja Rueckert:
Well, I’m jetlagged, and in Germany it’s dinner time, so that sounds perfect!
Paul Thomas:
I’m always up for a steak!
Marcel Vigneron:
We happen to have a few juicy ribeyes on hand. Let’s fire these up! By the way, how do you like your steak?
Tanja Rueckert:
Medium-rare, of course!
Paul Thomas:
Sounds good to me.
Marcel Vigneron:
Fantastic.
So, I’m going to be cooking your steak with the help of some cool new technology you saw in the video. It’s cutting-edge stuff, where generative AI meets incredible sensors from across the Bosch world.
Paul Thomas:
And it’s all based on something the 800 Series Induction Cooktop already has built-in: our AutoChef feature.
Marcel Vigneron:
Absolutely, Paul. AutoChef is the basis here. It’s a sensor-based technology that continuously regulates the temperature of your frying pan and adjusts it so you get the best possible result. And now AutoChef is being leveled up with the help of the new Bosch Cook AI. That feature is still in final testing, but I can give you a sneak peek today of how it’s going to work and how helpful it’s going to be for home cooks.
Tanja Rueckert:
We’re always very excited to see AI making life easier. Can you tell us more about how it works?
Marcel Vigneron:
Sure, Tanja, Bosch Cook AI is powered by generative AI, combined with proprietary technologies and processes in the appliances. Basically, you take a picture of your ingredients and tell it what result you want – in this case the degree of doneness for your steak. The algorithm figures out the right heat level and timing and communicates with your cooktop, while giving you precise, live instructions. There’s basically no more guess work. And this Bluetooth meat probe is tracking the temperature of the steak as well. Together, Bosch Cook AI and AutoChef work in concert to lead you to the finish line. It’s that easy!
Paul Thomas:
It sounds fantastic, but tell me the truth – is it really useful for a chef of your caliber?
Marcel Vigneron:
Well Paul, the truth is I’m a huge fan of science and technology and I find it really exciting to see how the latest innovations can take my profession to the next level. And really, that’s why I love Bosch, because I feel like I’m getting a preview of something we’re all going to be using in a few years. You’re the enablers of the future, and it’s cool to be able to play a part in that!
But at the end of the day, even I just need to get dinner on the table sometimes. And it’s great to have a helping hand when my 5-year-old distracts me at the wrong moment…
Tanja Rueckert:
Oh, I know all about that! I wish I’d had something like that when my kids were young – it would have helped me a lot!
Marcel Vigneron:
I hear you! By the way, I wanted to mention to people that if they stop by the Bosch booth this week, they can see me and a few fellow alums from Top Chef: my fellow Food Network star Bryan Voltaggio, and my long-time friend and co-host of Next-Level Chef on Fox, Nyesha Arrington. We have some fun things going on with a “Battle in the Booth” theme and some exciting cooking challenges. If you’re lucky you might even snag a taste…
Looks like it’s done. Let’s see how we did.
Tanja Rueckert:
Oh, it looks perfect! I really think this could be a game changer – it means that anyone can cook an impressive meal for their friends and family. That’s what I call people-centric tech!
Paul Thomas:
And ultimately that’s what we’re aiming for. We want the seamless functionality of our products with their enhanced digital features to empower and enable people. Or as we like to say, “The more you Bosch, the more you feel like a Bosch”!
Marcel Vigneron:
Or in this case “cook like a Bosch”!
Tanja Rueckert:
That’s right, thank you Marcel! Let’s give him a big hand!
So, first we’re combining our software and hardware expertise to unlock groundbreaking functions and unique capabilities. Second, we’re leveraging our software competence to enable hardware to do something revolutionary: we’re helping it evolve.
In the past, if you wanted something more “up to date,” you had to trade in your old product for a newer model. Today, with the right capabilities and the right software, hardware can continue to evolve and gain new functionality long after you bring it home.
Thanks to comprehensive connectivity, many Bosch appliances are now able to gain completely new capabilities via over-the-air updates. For example, we recently added “air fry” and “air sous vide” functions to a range of our connected ovens that didn’t come with them. At no cost to their owners!
Paul Thomas:
Wow, and we’re not only helping our own hardware to evolve. In the mobility domain, our Vehicle Motion Management is enabling many cars to gain new features, functions, and options for personalization long after they leave the dealer’s lot. This pioneering hardware-agnostic software solution manages and coordinates various functions in the braking, steering, powertrain, and suspension systems. Essentially, it allows all these variables to be fine-tuned at the press of a button. By selecting from different driving modes, the car’s characteristics can be intelligently adapted to the driver’s needs or the driving situation.
And Vehicle Motion Management itself is constantly evolving – for example, we’ve recently enhanced it with capabilities to control the vehicle’s movement in all six degrees of freedom. Available as part of a pre-installed package or as an over-the-air update for capable cars, the control in all six degrees of freedom can play a major role in reducing vehicle roll during cornering. This means it can help significantly reduce motion sickness – which, as studies show, not only affects up to one-third of adults, but also disproportionately affects passengers. Since a lot of us are going to be passengers in the self-driving cars of the future, this has the potential to bring increased well-being to hundreds of millions of people worldwide – and to help eliminate a real obstacle on our path to autonomous mobility. Not bad for a little algorithm!
And it’s another great example of how we’re using our hardware-software edge to make a difference in people’s lives. Which brings me to number three. Thanks to our dual-domain expertise, as a matter of principle we offer much more than individual components and piecemeal solutions. Across our diverse areas of business, we specialize in all-in-one systems, intelligent platforms, and even entire ecosystems. And this, as you’ll see, translates into numerous benefits for our customers.
Tanja Rueckert:
Our systems expertise is especially visible – and valuable – in vehicles. I’m sure you’ve heard of how software is enabling greater intelligence, efficiency, safety, and personalization behind the wheel. It’s really a paradigm shift – by the end of this decade, more than 80 percent of new vehicles worldwide are projected to be software-defined, with a market value exceeding a trillion dollars. Bosch is playing a key role in shaping this transition. Here, the combination of our software expertise and our profound knowledge across all areas of vehicle technology enables us to offer a major advantage to automakers. Specifically, it means they get customizable, deployment-ready systems with minimal development times and without the usual compatibility headaches.
When it comes to software-driven mobility, we’re facilitating development from the ground up. Our Eclipse Safe Open Vehicle Core project, S-CORE for short, is an initiative we’re spearheading with our subsidiary ETAS. It aims to create a high-performance middleware platform based on open source. Middleware is basically the central nervous system of software-defined vehicles – it’s responsible for translating between the highly complex and diverse hardware and software components within a vehicle. Together with global automakers, we’re seeking to move beyond current OEM-specific solutions to create a single standard that’s available to all. Ultimately, this will speed up development, lower costs, enhance security, and boost innovation across the entire industry – which in turn means more people will have access to all the benefits software-defined vehicles have to offer.
Paul Thomas:
Our systems expertise is especially apparent at the solutions level. Here, we’re a leading provider of innovative hardware such as electronic by-wire systems, as well as the software that controls their operation and interplay. Soon, we’ll see a market first – with the launch of our true brake-by-wire system which will go into production with one of the world’s largest automakers. By-wire systems are a key technology for tomorrow’s self-driving and software-defined vehicles. And Bosch is quickly establishing itself as the go-to partner: by 2032, we expect to achieve cumulative global sales of more than 7 billion euros with our steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire systems.
When talking about vehicles of the future, of course we also have to talk about AI. At Bosch we’re already using AI to enhance safety and convenience behind the wheel. By 2035, we’re aiming for sales of well over 10 billion euros with AI-based solutions for assisted and automated driving. At our booth, for example, you can see a demonstration of our AI-powered cockpit. This is a truly pioneering system, since it can both hear and see! This is possible thanks to two different language models. One is a text-based large language model, which means you can talk to your vehicle as if it was a person sitting next to you. The other is a visual language model, which means the cockpit can make sense of what it sees via cameras and sensors, inside and outside the vehicle. Together, they unlock some truly next-level functions: for example, the vehicle can automatically search for a parking spot when you arrive at your destination, or generate minutes for online meetings you attend from behind the wheel.
Tanja Rueckert:
As you’ve seen, our ability to bridge the physical-digital divide translates into a wide range of features, capabilities, and systems. It also makes us a preferred partner – for example, in the industrial domain, where we possess many years of experience as both a user and a provider. In fact, here at CES, we’re signing a wide-ranging MoU to explore an initiative to realize the next leap in industrial productivity using agentic AI. To help me tell you more about this exciting collaboration, please welcome to the stage Dayan Rodriguez, corporate vice president of manufacturing and mobility at Microsoft.