Choose from Alexa or Google Assistant in your new Mercedes

In the future, it'd be nice to expect our smart home will just know when we're on our way home and prepare for our arrival. In the meantime, voice assistants from Google and Amazon let us control our devices without all of that fiddly button pressing. Mercedes Benz, which already pledged to bake Google's platform into its cars, is getting even more committed to our voice-controlled future. Today, the automaker is announcing that both Google Assistant and Alexa will work on all of its 2016 and 2017 models released in the US.

All you need to get it working is an active Mercedes Me account and a subscription to mbrace, the Mercedes Benz smartphone platform. Then you can simply connect that account to your Google or Amazon credentials on your smartphone and you're all set. Currently, the platforms are only available in the US, although the company has revealed that Europe will get the same features at some point in the near future.