Self-driving cars could number 10 million in only four years based on some estimates. Tech and auto giants including Google and Ford, and ride-sharing companies such as Uber are already investing in autonomous vehicles (AVs). Some experts believe the first driverless cars on the road will be robot taxis.
Alphabet subsidiary Google has a big head start in road tests of AVs and has racked up over 1.5 million miles. The company has invested billions of dollars in autonomous car tech.
Google's parent company has spent a lot of money because it is partly an advertising company. If people spend less time driving they could spend more time looking at web content and mobile ads.
The average commuting time in the United States is 50 minutes per day, according to VentureBeat. If consumers daily spent about one hour more browsing the web every day it could monumentally boost Google's revenue.
In the future driverless cars could affect the ad industry in several ways.
For example, streaming apps such as Apple Music, Spotify, and Pandora will have a bigger effect on the radio industry. About 60 percent of vehicles shipped in 2018 could be connected. However, self-driving cars might crush the industry because commuters could use mobile apps to listen to and watch what they want while traveling to work or going on road trips.
In addition, passengers in driverless cars would stop looking at billboards. Therefore, smart billboards would not only be required to send messages but collect useful data as well.
Lexus billboards in Australia are already sending messages to drivers of luxury cars. In addition, Clear Channels is doing experiments on smart billboards that collect data from people who pass the big signs.
Autonomous cars would also give people more time to use mobile apps and play games such as Candy Crush. That would earn more money for mobile publishers, developers, and advertisers.
In related news, a patent published on May 31, Tuesday shows how turning on/off the autonomous mode on Google's self driving cars could be as easy as pressing a button, according to Quartz. A big "ON" button would let the vehicle drive itself.
Here's a video on Uber's self-driving car tests: