HARMAN Accelerates Delivery of Road-Ready Intelligent In-Cabin Experiences for the Software-Defined Vehicle Era
In today’s automotive landscape, artificial intelligence is no longer a competitive differentiator—it is an expectation. As vehicles rapidly evolve into software-defined platforms, the true measure of leadership lies not in who deploys AI, but in who executes it effectively. Seamless integration, functional safety, lifecycle scalability, and real-world readiness now determine success. Against this backdrop, HARMAN is positioning itself at the forefront of in-cabin transformation by accelerating the delivery of holistic, intelligent, and production-ready solutions for global automakers.
Building on decades of leadership in automotive electronics and connected car technologies, HARMAN—an automotive technology company and subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.—has announced major portfolio enhancements across its award-winning Ready product ecosystem and branded audio offerings. These solutions are available immediately for OEM integration and are designed to reduce system complexity, shorten development cycles, and enable continuous software upgrades throughout the vehicle lifecycle.
As automakers shift to centralized compute, zonal architectures, and software-defined vehicles (SDVs), HARMAN’s latest innovations provide a comprehensive toolkit to help OEMs move faster while managing safety, performance, and cost pressures.
Execution Over Experimentation: The New Automotive Imperative
According to Christian Sobottka, President and Chief Executive Officer of HARMAN’s Automotive Division, the automotive industry has entered a new phase where technology adoption alone is no longer sufficient.
“In the vehicle, AI, machine learning, and other emerging technologies are no longer differentiators on their own,” Sobottka said. “Execution is what wins. What sets HARMAN apart is our ability to orchestrate software, hardware, AI, audio, and visual technologies into holistic, road-ready experiences that meet real consumer expectations.”
Sobottka emphasized that HARMAN’s approach is grounded in production readiness rather than experimentation. By combining integrated product platforms with advanced developer tools, the company helps OEMs address persistent challenges such as system integration complexity, long validation cycles, and rising lifecycle costs. The goal is to enable faster innovation without compromising safety or reliability, allowing automakers to deploy consistent experiences across multiple vehicle platforms and generations.
HARMAN Ready products are already deployed in millions of vehicles worldwide and are trusted by global OEMs for both current production models and upcoming launches. This real-world footprint gives HARMAN a practical advantage as the industry moves toward increasingly software-centric vehicle architectures.
Powering the Software-Defined Vehicle: Faster Development, Safer Validation, Lifecycle Updates
Software has become the primary driver of differentiation in modern vehicles. As automakers consolidate functions onto fewer high-performance compute platforms, they must manage mixed-criticality workloads, ensure functional safety compliance, and maintain rapid update cycles. HARMAN’s SDV toolchain is designed to meet these demands while reducing development friction.
At the core of this offering is the Ready CQuence platform, which supports cloud-native development, testing, and validation across both virtual and physical environments. The Ready CQuence Loop enables OEM engineering teams to accelerate build and test cycles by shifting validation earlier in the development process, minimizing late-stage integration issues.
Complementing this is Ready CQuence Run, described as the industry’s only automotive-grade Type-1 hypervisor specifically designed for mixed-criticality isolation. With deployment across more than 20 million electronic control units (ECUs), the hypervisor enables safety-critical and non-critical applications to coexist securely on the same hardware, supporting the industry’s move toward centralized computing.
HARMAN’s over-the-air update ecosystem further extends the lifecycle value of its SDV platform. With proven fleet update capabilities across more than 80 million vehicles globally, the combination of OTA delivery, Smart Delta updates, and the Ready Link Marketplace allows OEMs to deploy new features, applications, and improvements efficiently. The marketplace currently supports more than 190 apps and vehicle features, with new enhancements for controlled fleet testing and feature discovery.
Together, these tools enable automakers to adopt a “build once, deploy everywhere” strategy—reducing development overhead while ensuring consistent performance across diverse vehicle portfolios.
Personalization as a Brand Signature: Audio Experiences That Adapt
For consumers, personalization is where technology becomes tangible. The in-cabin experience increasingly defines brand identity, and audio remains one of the most emotionally resonant elements of vehicle design. HARMAN’s latest audio innovations focus on orchestrated, multi-user experiences that adapt to individual preferences and driving contexts.
Ready StreamShare introduces a new level of cabin flexibility by enabling up to four personalized media zones within a single vehicle. Using a Bluetooth-enabled hub and ultra-low-latency headphones provided as part of the system, occupants can enjoy individual content without isolating themselves from the cabin environment. The system also supports hands-free conversation and shared listening moments, balancing personalization with social interaction.
Vehicle sound design is another area where HARMAN continues to innovate. HALOsonic Electronic Sound Synthesis allows automakers to create customizable acoustic signatures for their vehicles, reinforcing brand identity in both electric and combustion platforms. New sound instruments and a streamlined tuning workflow make it easier for OEMs to tailor audio profiles across vehicle lines.
HARMAN’s branded audio offerings go beyond traditional speaker systems, integrating coordinated lighting, tactile elements, and AI-driven enhancements to create a premium cabin atmosphere. New features such as Genre Optimizer and Smart Bass Impact use artificial intelligence to adapt sound characteristics in real time, ensuring consistent audio quality regardless of content type or listening environment.
Safety Through Context: Intelligent Awareness Inside and Beyond the Vehicle
As the industry advances toward a Zero Accident vision, safety is increasingly defined by contextual awareness rather than isolated alerts. HARMAN’s Ready safety solutions combine in-cabin sensing, external connectivity, and machine learning to deliver intelligent assistance without overwhelming drivers.
Ready Care provides advanced in-cabin intelligence for driver and occupant monitoring. Capabilities include driver attention analysis, occupant positioning, and even single-heartbeat detection, enabling proactive interventions in critical situations. These features support regulatory requirements while enhancing real-world safety outcomes.
Connectivity plays a crucial role in extending situational awareness beyond the vehicle itself. Ready Connect offers a comprehensive suite of telematics control units supporting 4G, 5G, and satellite communications. Designed for reliability in challenging environments, these systems ensure that drivers and passengers remain connected to emergency services, navigation data, and digital services when they are needed most.
Ready Aware expands safety beyond the cabin through Vehicle-to-Network (V2N) intelligence. Using existing connectivity infrastructure, the system delivers hazard warnings and intersection alerts while minimizing false positives through a machine learning-driven Confidence Engine. Additional capabilities include emergency vehicle detection enabled by acoustic sensing and AI technologies developed in collaboration with Cerence.
Visual Intelligence: Premium Displays Designed for Driver Focus
As screens proliferate in modern vehicles, the challenge is no longer size—it is usability. HARMAN’s visual innovations focus on delivering premium clarity while maintaining a driver-first design philosophy.
Ready Display solutions powered by Samsung Neo QLED technology bring advanced display performance to automotive applications. The platform includes the industry’s first HDR10+ Automotive certified display, delivering exceptional contrast, color accuracy, and brightness. A new value-performance model, NQ1, extends Neo QLED quality to a broader range of vehicle segments, offering superior daylight readability compared to conventional LCDs.
HARMAN’s Ready Vision QVUE windshield display technology further enhances situational awareness without distraction. Designed as a line-of-sight solution, QVUE features gaze-aware brightness adjustment, obstruction detection, and an eMirror Live View to improve visibility during turns. Software tools such as QVUE Canvas and QVUE UI Editor allow OEMs to rapidly configure content and accelerate development, supporting faster time to market.
Built for Scale, Shipping Today
HARMAN’s latest portfolio enhancements reflect a clear strategic focus: delivering production-ready solutions that scale across platforms and evolve over time. Rather than offering isolated features, HARMAN integrates audio, visual, safety, and personalization technologies into cohesive in-cabin experiences that align with modern digital lifestyles.
Backed by deep automotive expertise and the global innovation strength of Samsung Electronics, HARMAN is helping automakers navigate the transition to software-defined vehicles with confidence. Its solutions are not conceptual or future-facing—they are shipping today, with built-in lifecycle upgradability that allows vehicles to improve long after they leave the showroom.
As execution becomes the defining factor in automotive innovation, HARMAN’s ability to deliver intelligent, road-ready experiences at scale positions it as a key enabler of the next generation of connected, personalized, and safe mobility.
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