‘Robots are going to be amongst us’: Qualcomm exec says buckle up for the next 5 years. Your car is going to be the first shoe to drop

A future filled with robots that can reason is fast approaching—and it starts with your car, Qualcomm’s executive vice president says.

The U.S. semiconductor giant best known for designing the mobile processors that power most of the world’s smartphones recently announced it would take on Nvidia and AMD in making AI chips. As Qualcomm expands its product portfolio and transforms its culture, Nakul Duggal, the company’s former auto and smart products chief, says AI will usher in a new era for robotics. 

“I think robots are going to become much more pervasive than people think,” Duggal told AI Editor Jeremy Kahn at Fortune Brainstorm AI last week.

Qualcomm is in the process of transforming “the DNA of the company,” said Duggal, who now serves in an executive vice president role. Recently, the semiconductor company has expanded its AI partnerships, integrating Google’s Gemini models to deliver in‑car agentic AI assistants. 

Qualcomm has developed driver‑assistance systems including AI features like lane‑keeping, automated parking, and hands‑free highway assist, as well as voice and in‑car assistants, for major automakers across the world, including Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and General Motors.

The company launched its first driver-assistance stack—a set of software and hardware layers that work together to make the system run—with BMW in September, Duggal said. Its driver-assistance stack is now launched across 60 countries, he added, which took Qualcomm three and a half years. But Duggal has a bigger vision for the tech.

“We will be in 100 countries by the end of next year,” Duggal said.

Duggal pointed to companies such as Waymo and Tesla as examples of development and adoption of autonomous and driver-assisted technology, saying it’s taken about 10 years for the innovations to come to market.

“Ten years is a pretty short period of time for the type of adoption that society has for things like driving, which is all about what you need from a day-to-day perspective: It needs to be safe, it needs to be reliable,” Duggal said. “I think the next five years is going to move even faster.”

Despite safety concerns about autonomous and driver-assisted technology powering Waymos and Teslas, more drivers want the technology. A recent AutoPacific survey polling licensed drivers aged 18-plus who plan to buy new vehicles within three years found 43% want hands-off semi-autonomous driving for highway use—that’s a 20 percentage point increase from 2024.

Duggal explained that to develop tech like this that is regulated and safe demands a foundation of clear, rules‑based guardrails. 

“AI then layers on top” of that structured framework, Duggal said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com