You'll soon be able to chat with Copilot and attend Teams meetings while driving your Mercedes-Benz — now there's no excuse to miss your meetings

Mercedes-Benz has announced that it's partnering with Microsoft to deliver a suite of productivity features in its cars that will allow drivers to remain connected to work while away from the office. Whether you're driving to work, from work, to the store for groceries, or to dinner with family, there's now no excuse to not attend that Teams meeting in your schedule.

Attending a Teams meeting with your car is quite the flex, and it'll even use the cars built-in camera so that everyone stuck in the office can see how nice of a car you have, subtly reminding them that they probably don't make as much money as you. Mercedes says that this feature abides by safety laws and won't show the driver other people's cameras or shared screens while driving.

"To minimise distraction and maximise safety while driving, the meeting video stream turns off automatically as soon as the camera is activated. As a result, the driver will never see any shared screens or slides – and the camera can be turned off at any time" says Mercedes-Benz.

Mercedes also says it's the world's first car OEM to enable the in-car camera for use with Microsoft Teams, as well as delivering integration with Microsoft Intune that enables the car to be enterprise compliant. "Customers can log in with their business accounts and switch between applications effortlessly, taking productivity while on the move to a new level."

The Meetings for Teams app is built for Mercedes new in-car OS called MB.OS. The Teams app will show the driver their schedule for the day, including any upcoming meetings as well as quick access to frequent contacts should you need to call or message a colleague with your voice while at the wheel.

It's not just Microsoft Teams that is coming to Mercedes-Benz cars either. The company has announced that the cars will also integrate with Microsoft 365 Copilot, letting the driver chat with a generative AI to complete productivity tasks within the Office suite.

"This will be one of the world’s first application of its kind in a car and will help users prepare for upcoming meetings with the aid of advanced AI. Using voice prompts, drivers can summarise emails, retrieve or query client preferences and details, and manage daily tasks without distraction."

Mercedes-Benz says these new features will be available on the new CLA, and will likely trickle down to some older cars with built-in selfie cameras too, though that's not guaranteed. The features will also require an active "Entertainment Package Plus and Data" volume.

Of course, these features are clearly designed for executives who can afford nice cars and to work away from the office on a frequent basis. It's likely not a feature most people would want to have in their car, but if you drive a company car for work, and are away from the office regularly I can see how it might be useful.

That said, most people will likely prefer just using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto and attending their Teams meetings that way. You get most of the same features, just without the ability for it to integrate with the built-in cameras inside the car.