Urm, some of this isn't the future
My Ford S-MAX can already adjust cabin temperature, phone home, change radio stations/cd and a whole host of other things with spoken voice commands. Admittedly it's not 'conversational English' but even so.
Even the lowly Fiesta can be specced with such an option. Maybe IBM are used to less advanced, more bargain-basement, poorly-engineered cars from Detroit... ;o)