How Audi opened a new digital marketplace with in-car experience personalization

Audi AG is a manufacturer of premium vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of parent company the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. 

For several years, Audi has pursued a vision of “a seamless, emotional, and intuitive brand experience” across all touch points. From the moment someone becomes interested in an Audi model, the automaker wants the customer experience — online, offline, in the car, in the myAudi app, everywhere — to be personal.

In alignment with that vision, Audi sought a partner who could help realize an important aspect of that personalization. Audi’s recent models feature at least one display and ambient light. Being able to customize those with visual content and interior light settings gives passengers a new way to personalize the in-car experience.

How do you deliver that kind of in-car content to thousands of vehicles around the world? You build a digital marketplace. That's why Audi needed a partner to manage and develop this use case end-to-end.

Due to Valtech Mobility’s multi-decade engagement with Audi and our joint venture with the Volkswagen Group, Valtech was able to bring:

• Expertise in connected vehicles for service integration.

• Knowledge of in-car application design, development and deployment.

• The capacity to build and operate a platform for that digital marketplace.

The platform we built for Audi, Audi Themes, has three key features:

• Integration with the myAudi app. After a customer registers with myAudi, they can purchase background images and matching ambient light, then activate those purchases in the vehicle.

• Content management. Content creators can upload, edit and distribute products via the browser application tool. This ensures content adapts to current and future generations of Audi infotainment devices.

• The Audi Admin Portal. This gives Audi full control over what third-party content gets published and ensures a person’s driving isn’t impeded by content that violates the terms of use.

We had multiple T-shaped agile teams across Munich, Ingolstadt and Düsseldorf working on this project. Valtech held on-site workshops with Audi to clarify requirements, and we implemented a greenfield approach to the software development process — from user journey and persona creation to UX/UI design on through to integration.

The platform is based on AWS infrastructure, and we set up the infrastructure that delivers and manages the connected services to more than 2 million vehicles.

We built a web portal to create and manage vehicle-specific content, then onboarded and integrated third-party content creators.

We also built an in-car preview experience where users can scan a QR code to buy content via the myAudi app.

The new platform is highly scalable and lays the foundation for a much larger proposition in which third parties can create content specific for Audi customers, Audi can validate that content, and Audi customers can buy and activate those products from within their vehicles.

At the same time, it gives Audi a way to focus on user-centered development, improve the user experience and offer further personalization options that enhance the driving experience.

Key results:

• There are already more than 2 million cars on the platform, with many more coming.

• The number of content creators is growing.

• Themes are already available in more than 35 countries across Europe and North America.

With deep expertise in digital experiences, connected services and in-car personalization, Valtech is uniquely positioned to help mobility leaders like Audi unlock new revenue streams and reimagine the customer experience.

Integration continues across numerous new vehicle models, and Audi is rolling the platform out across several European countries, the United States and Canada.