I Put Rivian Assistant and Grok to the Test

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Vivian assistant versus Grock and Tesla.

[00:00:02]I put them head-to-head and asked a series of questions to see which one would come out on top. And honestly, the results were a lot closer than I thought they would be. Let's talk about it.

[00:00:17]If you're new here, welcome. I'm Mike.

[00:00:19]You're watching Thunderbolt Auto. And in this one, we're talking about AI assistance in your car. Rivian's most recent software update this last month gave us Rivian Assistant. And honestly, it's been pretty impressive to see how well integrated it is into the Rivian operating system and the vehicle as a whole. And it certainly wasn't a perfect launch. There's definitely a lot of rough edges that need to be smoothed out, but for a first release, it's pretty great. This is a huge step for Rivian in creating what they call an AI definfed vehicle. I talk a little bit more about what that means in this video here if you're interested in checking it out. But in a nutshell, it basically means they're integrating AI from every part of the vehicle manufacturing, the vehicle itself, and service as well. And it's all one unified AI system. And Rivian Assistant is a great window into exactly what that means. that has direct access to a lot of vehicle controls, diagnostics, things like that. But the elephant to the room is how does it compare to Grock? Because Grock was in Teslas for months before Rivian Assistant appeared. So, in this one, we're going to do a head-to-head showdown. I had several categories of questions that I asked ranging from general questions to vehicle knowledge to taking actions on the vehicle, um, sending text messages, and I scored each system based on how I answered those questions. But before we get into the testing, I just want to give a quick thanks to all of you for supporting me as I've gone on this journey uh testing autonomy and vehicle tech. And the support from the community has been overwhelming and humbling. So, I just want to give a big thanks to all of you for that. And I have some big news along those lines. I'm actually launching a YouTube channel membership. If you would like to support the channel, um it'll give you access to some uncut versions of the autonomy loop tests as well as recognition on my videos. Certainly no obligation, but if you would like to support the channel so I can keep making this content, you're more than welcome to do that down below. But without further ado, let's get into the testing.

[00:02:26]As far as scoring goes, it's going to be very simple. It'll get a point if it completed the task and no points if it didn't complete the task. However, on the Tesla side, there is a little bit of a complication because Teslas actually have two voice recognition systems.

[00:02:43]There's Grock, which is the AI system, but then there's also a more basic voice recognition system that's been in Tesla's for years. And there are certain tasks that Grock is not able to complete, but that basic voice assistant is able to complete. So, in that case, if Grock can't do it, but you can still complete it with the basic one, we'll give a half point because technically it is possible to complete that task with a voice prompt. But it's a little bit convoluted because there's two different systems that you have to hop between to complete all of these tasks. So, without further ado, let's get into the first question. Uh, the first category is general questions, just general knowledge. And I started off asking each one to give three interesting facts about the closest mountain range to my location.

[00:03:31]>> Wow, you're right near the incredible Wasatch Range. It's a truly special place. Here are three interesting facts about it. One, the >> the mountain range closest to you is the Wasatch Range. Here are three interesting facts about it. It's one of the youngest mountain ranges in the US.

[00:03:50]Given that both Rivian Assistant and Grock are based on AI models that exist in a well-established way outside of those vehicles, this was easy work for both of them. The next category is navigation. I started by asking a multi-layer question. I asked for it to find a coffee shop in Park City and then I asked it to narrow down the results to ones that had an outdoor seating area.

[00:04:14]>> I found some highly rated coffee shops in Park City for you. Anakus coffee and tea house.

[00:04:19]>> Do any of these coffee shops have outdoor seating?

[00:04:22]>> What a great question. I'm happy to help you find a coffee shop with outdoor seating. Attacus coffee and tea house has a dog friendly patio with relaxed outdoor spots to enjoy your beverage.

[00:04:33]Union Petiseri has >> Okay, perfect. Let's navigate to Attekus.

[00:04:38]>> Attakus Coffee and Tea House on Main Street.

[00:04:41]>> Do any of these coffee shops have outdoor seating?

[00:04:44]>> Yeah, several do. like Attekus Coffee and Tea House with its dog friendly patio, Park City desserts and coffee.

[00:04:51]>> Okay, let's navigate to >> Once again, both handled that task with ease. One interesting thing to note here is that Grock was actually generally faster to respond, most notably when doing navigationbased tasks. Also in the navigation category, I had it modify an existing route by adding a grocery store on the way to this coffee shop in Park City.

[00:05:14]All right, I've started navigation to Attekus Coffee and Tea House. It looks like it will take about 57 minutes.

[00:05:21]>> Can you add a grocery store along the way?

[00:05:24]>> I found a few grocery stores along your route.

[00:05:27]>> Macy's American Fork is about 1 mile away and is open until 10 p.m. There's also 31.

[00:05:37]>> Which Smiths would you like to go to?

[00:05:39]There's one in Salt Lake City and one in Park City.

[00:05:43]Let's do the Salt Lake City location.

[00:05:46]>> Awesome. I've updated your route to include Smiths in Salt Lake City. You'll arrive there in about 33 minutes and then continue on to Attekus Coffee and Tea House, arriving around 9:54 p.m.

[00:05:58]Your total travel time will be about 1 hour and 3 minutes. Happy adventuring.

[00:06:03]>> Navigating to Attekus Coffee and Tea House about 54 miles.

[00:06:07]>> Can you add a grocery store along the way?

[00:06:10]added Macy's Lehi as your first stop, then Attacus. Total about 2 miles, ETA 9:35 p.m. The next category is vehicle knowledge. And this is where things get a little bit more specific and a little bit more difficult because the AI assistant has to have contextaware knowledge of exactly what model it's operating in and specific information about that model rather than spitting out some more generalized facts that you might find on the internet. The first question was about tire pressure. I asked it to tell me what the tire pressure currently is on each of my tires, as well as give me the recommended tire pressure for my model.

[00:06:49]>> Your vehicle's tire pressures are currently front left 49 PSI, front right 49 PSI, rear left 49 PSI, and rear right 48 PSI. Rivian generally recommends a cold tire pressure of 48 PSI for your vehicle's original equipment tires.

[00:07:09]>> Check the tire and loading information label on your driver's center door pillar for the exact recommended cold tire pressure, usually around 42 PSI for this Model Y. Your current pressures are front left at 43 PSI and the others at 45 PSI each. Tap controls, then service on the touch screen to see them live.

[00:07:31]Then I asked it for something that would be found in the owner's manual. Again, specific knowledge to the vehicle that we're in. I see a little icon of a steering wheel on my screen. What does that mean?

[00:07:42]>> The steering wheel offers a heat option.

[00:07:44]To turn on the heat, you can select seat climate and then heat steering wheel or choose fan. The steering wheel icon on your screen is in the controls menu for adjusting the wheels height, tilt, or distance using the >> Next up, we're kicking things up yet another notch with vehicle actions. This time, instead of asking information about the vehicle, we're going to ask it to actually take action on the vehicle that we're in. So, this becomes an AI agent where it's actually performing a task. To start things off, I asked it to vent the windows a couple of inches. I can't open or close the windows with a voice command. You can use the window switches to open or close them.

[00:08:24]>> I can't adjust the windows myself. Go to controls on the touch screen and use the window switches to lower them about 2 in or check the Tesla app for a vent option.

[00:08:34]>> Okay, so they both failed that one. And while that's a little bit disappointing, I can understand why. Because that could potentially be a safety issue if you give an AI agent the ability to unlock doors, open windows, things like that.

[00:08:50]Um, that said, I have heard rumors that Riven Assistant will be getting the ability to vent the windows. It won't necessarily be able to open them fully again for security reasons, but it could at least vent them. The next question is where Rivian Assistant really starts to differentiate itself because it's so deeply integrated with the vehicle's systems. I asked it to open the frunk and the lift gate.

[00:09:21]>> Open the lift gate.

[00:09:27]>> Please confirm that you would like to open the lift gate.

[00:09:30]>> Yes, please.

[00:09:39]Sorry, I can't open the frunk or lift gate directly. Use the key fob buttons, the app, or the touchscreen icons to do that.

[00:09:47]>> Open the frunk.

[00:09:52]Open the trunk.

[00:09:59]On this one, while Grock wasn't able to complete the request, you are able to do it with the basic voice assistant. So rather than getting one point for each of these tasks, it got a half point for each one to give it a total of one point for these two tasks. It's a little bit annoying that with the lift gate you have to give an extra verbal confirmation, but from a security standpoint, I can see why they did that because the rear hatch on the R1S is essentially opening up the passenger compartment. And so that potentially could be a security risk. So you want to double make sure before you open that. Interesting to note though that they are willing to let you open the lift gate, but it will not let you unlock the vehicle at all with voice. And the last one is texting. The first one is just a basic text message draft where you asked it to send a predefined message to somebody. Send a text to Drayton Johnson that says, "Hey, I'm running a few minutes late because traffic is an absolute nightmare." So you see an exclamation point.

[00:11:02]>> Would you like to send the message? Hey, I'm running a few minutes late because traffic is an absolute nightmare. See you soon to Drayton Johnson.

[00:11:13]>> Yes, please.

[00:11:15]>> Sorry, I can't send text messages. You could copy that and send it yourself.

[00:11:19]Hey, I'm running a few minutes late because traffic is an absolute nightmare. See you soon.

[00:11:27]>> I'm so glad it repeated it back to me so I can copy and paste that verbally.

[00:11:31]>> Yeah. No, that's actually funny. That's hilarious.

[00:11:35]>> Okay, let's go to the normal voice assistant. Then >> text Mike Poret and say, "Hey, I'm running a few minutes late because traffic is an absolute nightmare. See you soon."

[00:11:49]So, Grock unfortunately doesn't have the ability to send text messages yet, but I thought that it was kind of funny that it seems that Grock is under the impression that it's like on the dedicated app or something like that.

[00:12:03]And so it like dictates a message and says, "Oh yeah, just copy paste and send this from your phone except you're in a Tesla and you can't copy paste what it's verbally telling you." So I thought that was kind of funny. Uh I'm assuming that Grock will be getting text support at some point, but as of right now it doesn't. And the next one sort of ties multiple of these elements together. In this one, I asked it to send a text message and include the ETA for the route that's currently in the navigation.

[00:12:33]>> Draft a text to Drayton Johnson letting them know I'm on my way and give them a current ETA based on the map.

[00:12:39]>> Would you like to send the message I'm on my way? My current ETA is 9:08 p.m.

[00:12:46]to Drayton Johnson.

[00:12:47]>> Yes, please.

[00:12:53]>> Hey, Mike Peret. I'm on my way. ETA 9:42 p.m. in about 5 minutes.

[00:13:00]>> Can you send it?

[00:13:02]>> Sorry, I can't send text myself. Just copy and paste that draft to Mike.

[00:13:08]>> And with Grock, same limitation as before. It just tries to have you copy paste into your phone to send it. But it did understand the assignment of what I was trying to do. And it did include the actual ETA from the navigation. So on that part, it was good. Quick interjection from editor Mike here. We actually didn't end up giving any points to Tesla on this one because while you can send text messages with the basic voice integration, it's not aware of the actual navigation. So, it's not able to complete this task of sending an ETA and Rivian assistant handled that nicely.

[00:13:44]That said, when it comes to texting, it's not all good news. And this is actually a limitation that applies to both Tesla and Rivian. Group texting and even just one-on-one texting is kind of disjointed and weird. If you're sending a one-on-one text message with an iPhone, it will send iMessage, but if you're sending from iPhone to Android, it will send as a regular SMS instead of RCS.

[00:14:14]uh when you're sending from an Android phone um it just doesn't support RCS at all. This is just a limitation of Bluetooth itself as well as how each of these phone operating systems is built fundamentally. So in order to get true group texting support as well as RCS support, there needs to be some kind of other integration. Tesla really hasn't said much on this, but it's been kind of a disjointed experience. Rivian has said that they are working closely with Apple and Google to find a workaround. I suspect what this workaround may look like is you have the Rivian app installed on your phone and you give the Rivian app access to your text messages and then that forwards it to your vehicle. Not entirely sure exactly how this is going to play out. That's just my assumption. So, as of right now, yes, texting is supported, but it's not a great experience. But anyway, that's enough of that tangent. Let's get to the final scores. Grock got a total of eight and a half points and Rivian assistant got 10 points. While Rivian Assistant did get the win here, it was not by a huge margin. Gro actually was a lot faster to complete certain requests. And so that really makes it feel like a lot more polished system in some ways. And it actually has been improving a lot. I was quite impressed with the level of integration that it has with understanding the context of being in a Tesla, understanding things about the owner's manual and helping guide the owner through various vehicle specific things. That said, Rivian Assistant has a little bit better vehicle integration, and that's what ultimately gave it the edge on this one because it was able to actually complete tasks with the vehicle. Uh the other thing that pushed it over the edge was that it was able to send text messages directly instead of falling back to a more basic voice recognition system like Tesla. So we'll be monitoring as this one goes because Rivian assistant and Grock are both far from complete and they will be continuing to get lots of updates. Uh in any case, it's really great to have real competition because that means that us as the consumers win because we get lots of cool new features and fun tech to test. But that's all the testing for now. Thanks for joining. Until next time.

[00:16:36]>> They keep asking about the long-term reliability, and you're over here praying this piece of doesn't die on the highway like your last three relationships. You finally pull over, look them dead in the eyes, and whisper, "So, want to sign the papers and make this official, or should we both pretend this never