# When2Talk: When Should a Proactive In-Car Agent Talk?

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.12503 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.12503/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 54 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Sep 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [CARLA: An Open Urban Driving Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.03938/) (2017)
- [Need Help? Designing Proactive AI Assistants for Programming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04596/) (2024)
- [Assistance or Disruption? Exploring and Evaluating the Design and Trade-offs of Proactive AI Programming Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18658/) (2025)
- [Look Who's Talking Now: Implications of AV's Explanations on Driver's Trust, AV Preference, Anxiety and Mental Workload](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.08878/) (2019)
- [Comparison of Waymo Rider-Only Crash Data to Human Benchmarks at 7.1 Million Miles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.12675/) (2023)
- [What Did My Car Say? Impact of Autonomous Vehicle Explanation Errors and Driving Context On Comfort, Reliance, Satisfaction, and Driving Confidence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.05731/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Proactive in-cabin agents can help passengers understand automated-vehicle (AV) behavior, but communicating every ride event may introduce unnecessary interruptions. We investigated how communication should adapt to event priority and passenger activity. In a mixed-methods within-subject study, 41 participants rode as passenger in a VR simulated fully-automated vehicle. We compared an event-triggered (ET) policy that communicated immediately at every event with a context-sensitive (CS) policy that selected textitImmediate, textitDelayed, or textitSilent communications. CS increased communication appropriateness and substantially reduced perceived interruption. Perceived trust did not differ between policies, although baselines dispositional trust differentiated communication preferences. Findings highlight event consequence, passenger activity, continuing information value, and confirmation need as key considerations for selective in-cabin communication.