Skoda has joined the ranks of car manufacturers offering an enhanced voice assistant in its cars - but rather than choosing some awkward name, it's decided to call it Laura.

Yes, that's right: rather than choosing a name that curtly addresses corporate overlords - like Hey BMW or Hey Google - Skoda has gone about as natural as it possible, but choosing a name that lots of people have.

Hey Laura! Can you hear the collective sigh of everyone called Laura out there? 

Laura speaks six languages - Italian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Czech - as well as different dialects, which is bound to make existing Lauras feel inadequate.

Skoda says that you don't need to let Laura finish the reply either, you can just interrupt to speed up response times, barking new commands. It sounds like a bit of a one-sided relationship - but what will Laura be able to do?

You'll be able to do the sort of things that other digital assistants offer, controlling music, searching for POIs and getting navigation, or placing calls to contacts. Skoda says that Laura is subject to ongoing development and new skills will be added in the future, including controlling other vehicle functions - and all triggered by saying Hey Laura.

Skoda seems to have a bit of a thing about Laura. That's the name given to the second-gen Octavia in India and one of a number of girl's names that have been used by Skoda - aside from Octavia, there's also Fabia - but we doubt there are many girls out there called Roomster, Superb or Yeti. We're guessing that Laura isn't a common name in Skoda's core markets: in the UK, the Office of National Statistics reports that in baby girls, Laura has slid from 17th most common in 1996 to 168th in 2018. 

Laura will be available on the top-of-the-line Amundsen infotainment system and as it's an online system it will use the embedded SIM to handle the data communication. You'll be able to bark "Hey Laura!" in the new Skoda Kamiq and Scala models.