Cisco announced on Monday it will be teaming up with Mercedes Benz, in a deal which will see new Mercedes Benz vehicles arriving at dealerships in the coming weeks equipped with Cisco’s Webex conferencing tools in the dashboard’s touchscreen, in essence turning the vehicles into mobile offices.

Buyers of the new 2024 Mercedes Benz E Class will be able to use the vehicle’s wireless cellular data connection and Wi-Fi network to download the Webex application, so it will appear right on the vehicle’s infotainment touchscreen display, without the need for a mobile phone.

Due to safety concerns the application will only allow audio conferencing while the vehicle is in motion, however once parked users will have access to the full suite of Webex features, including video meetings, automatic transcriptions, content-sharing, and reactions.

Video-conferencing solutions like Webex, Zoom, and Teams, from Microsoft, received a massive boost from individuals shifting to work-from-home during the pandemic. However, since the pandemic lockdowns were lifted, growth for those platforms has slowed, and companies have been actively looking for opportunities to expand.

Zoom managed to ink a deal with Tesla to equip all of the electric carmaker’s vehicles with its conferencing tools, while it is expected Cisco will be announcing additional deals it has negotiated at the MWC telecoms conference this coming week in Barcelona;

Two deals it is expected will be announced will be one with Samsung, to equip its flagship phones with its Webex technologies, and another deal it has hashed out with Intel for private 5G.