FM Is Leaving The Dashboard. No Worries. AI Needs Us.

It’s a Sunday in the future. More specific, the Fall of 2026. We have left our favorite brunch place, First Watch, where I’ve ordered the same entree nearly every time I’ve been since 2021. My instinct when returning to the car is to turn on the radio and listen to football.

The Tennessee Titans have started the season 6-1. Did I mention this is a future fantasy setting? I get into my new Tesla Model 3 with standard trims, and I reach for the radio to turn on Nashville’s flagship station for the Titans, 104.5 The Zone (WGFX).

Habitual behavior guides my hands to the touchscreen to turn on the radio and hear our Super Bowl-bound team in week eight. My right hand extends the second finger to tap the screen. This is when I remember my listening experience has changed. There’s no FM radio in this car.

The radio industry, working to keep AM radio a standard feature in all new automobiles through the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, was handed another potential setback last week when we learned Tesla will not include FM radio on its 2026 Model Y and Model 3 standard trims.

So, let me get this straight, Tesla. You removed AM radio five years ago. Now you’re deleting FM from your little laptop monitor display? 

The next day, we found out General Motors will begin removing Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from its gasoline-powered vehicles to follow the lead of their EV models, which dropped those phone-projecting features two years ago. GM’s decision is part of a dashboard redesign plan for a “new centralized computing program,” according to this article.

This is not a doomsday warning or a technical guidance piece for the industry. However, it is a reminder that our brands thrive and survive through the power and impact of the message on the audience and consumers.

It might be a DEFCON 4, the condition of precautionary military readiness. However, with the Defense Department rebranding itself, will this acronym change to WARCON?

The Marconi-inspired industry has seen this happen before. It’s why radio remains one of the most resilient mediums of the last century. Let’s recall a more recent time when radio was challenged. COVID.

• The Shock Phase (Spring/Summer 2020): Commutes vanished, and so did in-car listening. Out-of-Home listening, as Nielsen calls it, dropped from 114 minutes per day to 91 minutes in the early months of the pandemic.
• The Adaptation Phase (2020-2021): Radio made some half-time adjustments and watched the At-Home listening explode to all-time highs.
• The Hybrid-Work Phase (2022-2023): Radio listening was like a rubber band. It stretched, but it didn’t break. Out-of-home listening returned, but not to pre-pandemic levels.
• Reset and Endure (2024-2025): Coming out of the pandemic, radio finally realized it was a multi-platform brand available through streaming, apps and smart speakers. Oh, it knew before March 2020, but it hadn’t been tested to see if it could survive the new normal.

The Tesla and GM announcements are flares in the air to warn the radio industry that its strength is in the brands, not the distribution. I could be corny and quote Kevin Costner’s character in Field of Dreams: “If you build it, he will come.”

That line works for brands across all industries. However, radio has a problem. The humans who have made this industry a resilient medium are disappearing from the strategy and execution meetings.

How did I get this far without mentioning AI? Because I want to give you some hope for the future of human connection through audio entertainment. There’s this off-the-chart smart professor at the University of Louisville who made news last month with his AI prediction.

Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy is a leading computer scientist and one of the world’s most recognized voices on AI safety, cybersecurity, and the risks of advanced artificial intelligence. I’m sure asking Google to describe him used two liters of water to answer.

During podcast interviews in September, Dr. Yampolskiy said 99% of the world’s jobs could be automated by 2030 due to AI advances. Make sure your Netflix and Prime accounts remain active, because you’re going to be sitting around watching a lot of movies in five years.

However, there’s good news for radio. Here are the five job categories Dr. Y said will remain active in the AI takeover: (you can read a synopsis here)

1. AI Safety and Alignment Experts

2. AI Hardware Engineers

3. Human – AI Interaction Specialists

4. AI Policy and Ethics Advisors

5. Creative Professionals

Well, look at number five. It’s you, audio content creators, otherwise known as Radio Warriors. Yampolskiy argues that human creativity retains unique cultural and emotional value.

Let’s recap our lead story. I think the Tesla announcement is concerning, and the industry should fight to keep traditional AM/FM in automobiles. Tesla is reducing costs. Is the Tesla R&D department aware that, according to Edison Research’s Share of Ear survey, 51% of its drivers listen to AM/FM radio? The findings are in this Westwood One Audio Active Group® recap by Pierre Bouvard.

However, let’s not pretend Tesla, GM, Ford, or Toyota cares one bit about the survival of Amplitude and Frequency Modulation. It may be a security blanket now, but Dr. Y and other joyful people like him are sending up warning flares.

The distribution and listening methods will change. Look how much has changed in the last decade.

But the creatives who make connections with other humans through their voices, words, meaningful marketing, emotional videos, and community outreach will survive if we put content first.

Here’s a line I used a few years ago, when I was inspired by my Easter bunny cake creation to blog about AI and radio: “Create something AI can’t do right now. Real passion.”