- A new Ford patent describes a system that would play personalized ads inside cars.
- The advertisements would be either video or audio, depending on the location, speed and whether or not people are talking inside the car.
Your eyes are not deceiving you. Ford really has a patent for a system that’s designed to funnel advertisements either to your car’s infotainment screen or to its speakers. As first reported by Ford Authority, everything happens automatically, and depending on the driver’s or passenger’s reaction, the system may decide to play more or fewer ads.
The patent, which was filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in February 2023 but published at the end of last month, describes in detail how the ad-funneling system works, and it’s not pretty.
But before I dive into the details, I’ll just note that even though Ford has this patent, it doesn’t mean it will actually put it to good use. As with many automakers, the blue oval car company is likely adding this patent to its drawer of documents protecting its intellectual property.
Before playing an ad–either video or audio–the system gathers information like the vehicle’s speed, GPS position and the destination that was set into the navigation system. Then, it puts two and two together and comes up with an advertisement from a service provider through the internet.
But here’s where the elephant in the room known as privacy makes its way into the conversation. The system can also monitor the sound levels inside the car and the cadence of a conversation to decide whether an audio ad can be played when there’s a pause in talking or a video ad when the people inside are chatting.
Furthermore, the rate at which ads are played can change depending on the car’s location, like when you’re driving through a school zone, or the driving mode. In off-road or sport mode, the system could limit the number of ads because it assumes the driver wants to focus more on the road.
The good thing–yes, there’s a good thing–is that the system learns to play more or less ads depending on how the users react, either by tapping on the infotainment screen or by voicing their displeasure.
It’s hard to believe such a system will make its way into a series-production vehicle anytime soon, and Ford knows it. In the patent description, the company says “Such systems and methods further provide the opposite force to a user’s natural inclination to seek minimal or no ads.”
This isn’t the first in-car ad-related patent from Ford. Back in 2019, the American automaker filed a patent application for a system that would recognize outdoor billboards and funnel digital copies of them to the car’s infotainment screen, so that the driver or passenger could interact with them–like for ordering takeout or making a doctor’s appointment. Needless to say, that never became reality.
