AutoSens USA 2025 in Detroit brought together a record number of OEMs, Tier 1s, and tech innovators for a week of rich discussion, collaboration, and connection. In this reflection, Rob shares his top takeaways below…
A Balanced, Consistent Year
This year’s Detroit edition of AutoSens was a resounding success, with nearly double the number of OEM and Tier 1 visitors, a bustling exhibition hall, excellent content and discussions, and a whole lot of positivity and fun had by all. But it’s interesting that there were actually no major themes that stuck out to me. Usually there’s a buzz word or two, or some key technology that’s bursting onto the scene that gives me a nice opportunity to pull together my ‘3 key takeaways’, but actually this year the discussions and content felt more balanced and in a way, more consistent.
Complexity Is the Driver
The driver for this need for collaboration is complexity. Safe, reliable ADAS and AVs are complex problems to solve, and there is no simple solution in sight. We heard from several full-stack providers outlining their latest innovations, but we also heard that the automotive industry is always going to follow in the coat-tails of the mobile industry when it comes to connectivity and that provides inherent challenges in keeping pace with the latest 5G, 6G and futureG networks. AI is obviously the buzz word globally right now, but our community has been grappling with and leveraging these technologies for a good while so it doesn’t seem quite so revolutionary in our space. How we can leverage AI with our businesses to help drive faster innovation, testing and get products to market quicker is another question and there are clearly big opportunities here.
Collaboration Is Key
One key feature was collaboration. Whether during the tutorial I attended from Michael Nees of Lafayette College looking at audio for HMI in the cabin, which was a fascinating insight in itself, but the group attending concluded that the route to the best safety across the fleet would necessarily involve some level of standardisation and collaboration between OEMs to help users’ understanding of critical safety messages. Collaboration was a key theme during a panel discussing both the trends in sensor capabilities and resulting sensor stack requirements, and another exploring the evolution of EE architectures as we move more and more towards the SDV model. For the vast majority of OEMs, answers to these questions involve deep and well-thought-out relationships with external suppliers and a collaborative ecosystem of components, data interfaces and software.
Global Challenges, Global Opportunities
And globally, we are facing macro-level challenges whether from trade wars, struggling economies or otherwise, these of course have an impact, but they also create new opportunities because they represent yet more technological challenges to overcome – how to adapt your supply chain, how to become more technology agnostic, and learning about other global segments you may not have previously needed to engage with.
Face-to-Face Still Wins
For us, as organisers of the show, it means two things. Firstly, that problems need solutions, and that’s exactly what our forum is about – helping you find solutions to your challenges. Secondly, bringing people together to talk about these things face-to-face, is still one of the more powerful tools available in business. There’s no substitute. Literally everyone I spoke to was full of enthusiasm for conversations they had had, friends they reconnected with, or new people they met. We came away with a bunch of ideas to explore so we can deliver even more value for our communities, and we can’t wait to get working on these over the coming weeks and months.
Interested in in-cabin monitoring technology?
With a pass to AutoSens Europe, you’ll also get full access to our co-located sister event, InCabin. See the Agenda for InCabin Europe here >>
