Automotive screens get seemingly larger every year, but none are as big as the room-size dashboard that BMW used to showcase its next-generation cabin technology suite at CES 2025, with a touchscreen taller than me and a steering wheel the size of a tiny house. Look beyond the size of this ludicrous display and you'll get your best look yet at BMW's new pillar-to-pillar, AI-powered Panoramic iDrive with Operating System X, which will soon be standard equipment on all of the automaker's cars. Â
We first saw the foundations of what would eventually become Operating System X at CESÂ 2023 inside the iVision Dee concept. At the time, however, the augmented reality display and voice assistant tech was overshadowed by the concept's eye-catching, color-changing e-ink paint. In 2024, the vision for a panoramic display was refined in the Neue Klasse sedan and SUV concepts. Today, BMW brings it all together, highlighting the full, production-ready version of its next-generation dashboard.Â
Panoramic iDrive with Operating System X features three display tiers working in tandem, a new design for steering wheel controls and an animated AI voice assistant. Starting from the top down, a 3D head-up display is projected onto the vehicle's windshield and into just the driver's field of view, combining live navigation information like lane guidance and 3D turn previews with advanced driver assistance info.Â
The next tier down is perhaps the most visually impressive: an ultrawide Panoramic iDrive display that stretches from pillar to pillar for everyone in the car to see. Almost identical to the panoramic projector from the Neue Klasse sedan concept, this display combines a digital instrument cluster with speed, range and battery information, stretching to include space for up to six low-distraction widgets that can be customized by dragging and dropping from the main touchscreen. During the presentation, Saturday Night Live's Tim Meadows (the Ladies Man, himself) demonstrated a Now Playing widget for Spotify, air quality, weather tiles and more. The configuration is tied to the driver's BMW account, so shared vehicles can have different setups and themes for different drivers.
BMW executives and comedian Tim Meadows demonstrate Panoramic iDrive's three display tiers.
Lower on the dashboard, the main touchscreen display breaks away from 90-degree angles with a parallelogram shape made possible by OLED technology. Here drivers will be able to handle more robust infotainment functions while swiping between more predictive widgets and detailed 3D maps. Meanwhile, the steering wheel gains contextual illumination for its thumb controls -- for example, lighting up the driver assist button when the feature can be activated on the highway, glowing green when assist is active and disappearing into the glossy capacitive surface when unavailable.Â
It's 2025, so of course there's an AI-powered assistant tying all of this new technology and functionality together. It features large language model voice recognition for natural, conversational commands, appearing as a stylized emoji-like avatar in the Panoramic display when called with the "Hey BMW" hot phrase. Executives used this BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant to call up a destination for navigation and demonstrated its integration with other vehicle systems by activating Sport mode (complete with red illumination, custom sounds and performance monitoring widgets) with a spoken command.
Good Lord, that's a big steering wheel!
Beyond the expected Sport, Efficient and Silent modes, BMW tells us that it will be offering drivers even more customization of the look and feel of Panoramic iDrive via its Personal mode. Expect customizable wallpapers, adjustable color themes and "more opportunities [for BMW] to surprise customers again and again."Â
Not just a conceptual display, BMW says its Panoramic iDrive with Operating System X will be the default and standard technology suite on all of its vehicles starting with the upcoming Neue Klasse sedan and SUV EVs previewed previously. With production of the first Neue Klasse vehicle, the iX3 EV SUV expected to begin this fall, the future is closer than you might think.
