2026 Mercedes-Benz CLA Can Recognize Emotions & React Accordingly

The automotive industry is at a point where we’ve moved past cars being gadgets and have turned into personal assistants. From the simple act of responding to queries to planning a trip and giving advice, there’s little the brain in some cars can’t do these days.
 

Naturally, some vehicles are more evolved than others in this respect, and given the wide variety of capabilities, it’s difficult to make up a top of which one is the best. My guess is, though, that you wouldn’t mind me saying that the newly introduced Mercedes-Benz CLA is one of the most advanced.
 
The third generation was presented back in March, 12 years after the model hit the market for the first time. Mercedes advertised it even from the get-go as the cleverest car it ever made, the starting point of a new generation of vehicles.
 
At the center of the car’s ability to interact with the driver and passengers is the latest evolution of the Mercedes-Benz User eXperience (MBUX) system. Born in 2018, the tech is debuting the fourth generation on the CLA, and it supports a new operating system built in-house by the Germans: the Mercedes Benz Operating System (MB.OS).
 
The MB.OS will govern most of the car’s functions, including infotainment, automated driving, body and comfort, driving, and charging. In the MBUX, it is accompanied by the artificial intelligence systems developed by both Microsoft and Google, the first time in the industry both are used at the same time.
 
On top of that, the car will also offer ChatGPT-4o, making the duo of AIs on board a trio. Actually, make that a quartet, as a fourth such technology, the Cerence AI, is also on deck. And this one could just very well be the most insane of them all.
 

We already knew what the Microsoft, Google, and ChatGPT AIs are tasked with in the CLA, but we’re only now learning what Cerence brings to the table. And believe me, the combined power of these four is something else entirely.
 
All these four systems are integrated into something called the MBUX Virtual Assistant. The ChatGPT-4o and the Automotive AI Agent give it the ability to perform multi-turn dialogues, but also to retain context. Depending on the task, the Assistant can automatically switch between AIs to provide the best possible answer.
 
When we’ve first discussed the new MBUX three months ago we hinted that the Assistant can recognize emotions using just the sound and tone of the user’s voice, and react accordingly. More to the point, it changes color to reflect the mood it detects – blue in default mode, green to smile, and orange or red to show anger or sadness.
 
This capability is made possible by the integration of Cerence AI, but it’s not the only thing facilitated by this solution. Thanks to it, the assistant can recognize and communicate in 25 languages, and it responds in a more natural and empathic way.
 
Topping everything off is the Microsoft Bing used for online searches, and Google Gemini with Google Maps, one of the first integrations of Google Cloud’s new Automotive AI Agent for in-vehicle conversation services with Google Maps, which allows the new CLA to answer navigation-related questions.
 
The CLA MBUX runs on a trio of screens collectively known as the Superscreen, powered by Unity Game Engine real-time graphics. The entire setup is connected to the Mercedes Benz Intelligent Cloud, allowing it to be continuously updated over the air.
 

The new CLA will first come to market as an electric vehicle. Two variants of the EQ Technology lineup will do that, both of them packing a new electric drive system: an 800-volt electrical architecture, permanently excited synchronous motors (PSM), an 85 kW lithium-ion battery, and a two-speed gearbox.
 
Although mostly the same in both applications, the powetrain comes with different performance levels depending on model. The entry-level CLA 250+ with EQ Technology, for instance, cranks out 268 horsepower and 335 Nm of torque, and can keep going for as much as 492 miles (792 km).
 
The CLA 350 4MATIC with EQ Technology is good for 349 horsepower and 515 Nm of torque, and it can reach distances of up to 479 miles (771 km) on a single charge of its battery.
 
The lineup of new CLAs will grow later (meaning by the end of this year) with the addition of a 48-volt hybrid that pairs a Miller cycle combustion engine with an electric motor integrated into the transmission. There will be a choice between the front-wheel drive and 4MATIC all-wheel drive, and three power levels will be offered, but Mercedes hasn’t shared details on that yet.
 
The new Mercedes-Benz CLA will be put together in Rastatt, Germany at first, but later the assembly lines at the Beijing Benz Automotive (BBAC) and the Kecskemet facility in Hungary will start doing the same.
 
Pricing for the model has not yet been announced. On the American market, the new CLA is not yet available. The current version, powered by a 2.0-liter inline-four engine, is selling for prices that start at $44,400.