As Cars Get Smarter, Radio’s Local Advantage Becomes More Important.

As automakers race to add artificial intelligence, personalization, and location awareness to connected vehicles, broadcasters may soon be at a crossroads. The dashboard is becoming more sophisticated than ever, but many of the trends that are reshaping the in-car experience could ultimately play to radio’s strengths.

Connected vehicle analyst Roger Lanctot says discoverability, personalization, local relevance, and location-based advertising are becoming driving dashboard forces as AI is moving from smartphones and computers into vehicles.

“We are entering the world of AI-infused customer engagement,” Lanctot says on BIA’s latest “Leading Local Insights” podcast. He points to the rollout of Google’s Gemini AI assistant in General Motors vehicles as one example of how automakers are beginning to rethink how drivers interact with their cars.

The promise of these systems goes beyond voice commands. Instead, AI is expected to become the layer that connects drivers with navigation, media, information, and services throughout the vehicle experience. For broadcasters, that raises questions about how listeners find radio stations in a dashboard increasingly controlled by software.

Lanctot believes personalization will become a defining feature of future vehicles. Rather than treating every driver the same, Lanctot expects the next phase of connected-car development will be the creation of “personalized media profiles” that are automatically loaded when a driver enters the vehicle.

In practical terms, that means a vehicle could know which stations, podcasts, streaming services, and other audio sources a particular driver prefers and make them immediately available when that person enters the vehicle.

“Here in the DC market, my wife is a WTOP listener and I’m a WAMU listener, and that would happen automatically,” he says, “The implications just radiate out from that — if we have different podcast preferences or other fallback stations we might want to be listening to.”

Yet built-in preference present both opportunity and risk. If stations become embedded within personalized profiles, they could strengthen listener loyalty and maintain a prominent place in the dashboard. But there is also a potential challenge. As vehicles become more automated, broadcasters may increasingly compete not only against other stations, but against every audio source available to the driver.

As automakers tout increasingly advanced infotainment systems, Lanctot also sees basic radio accessibility as a potential risk. “It should be the easiest thing to find,” Lanctot says. But he describes a recent rental-car experience in which he struggled to locate local radio through the vehicle’s interface.

Another issue is how drivers will access content in the future. Today’s vehicle interfaces often require navigating menus or entering station frequencies. Lanctot notes that even some current-generation systems require listeners to know a station’s exact frequency rather than simply requesting it by name. He expects those limitations to fade as AI assistants become more capable. That shift could change how broadcasters think about branding and discoverability. In a voice-first environment, he suggests station brands may become even more important than dial positions.

Why Location Matters

Dashboard access may be a focus today, but more attention may be due on the growing importance of location data. Connected vehicles already know where drivers are. Increasingly, they also know destinations, routes, travel patterns, and frequently visited locations. That information creates opportunities for more relevant content and advertising.

“The car is a uniquely location-relevant advertising area,” Lanctot says. He believes consumers will respond positively when those experiences are useful rather than intrusive.

Radio has spent decades helping local businesses connect with nearby consumers. As connected vehicles become more sophisticated, Lanctot says advertisers may gain new ways to deliver messages based on geography, travel patterns, or proximity to businesses and events.

“We want we want to avoid surveillance marketing, but there are some pleasing experiences,” he says “Advertising on my phone is super-unwelcome because that screen is so tiny. Whereas in the car, you have opportunities to communicate either with video or audio that are less intrusive, distracting and bothersome. And you can have you know full control of those experiences.”