From TikTok to Trust: Rethinking How We Talk About Autonomous Vehicles
One of the biggest challenges facing autonomous vehicles (AVs) today isn’t just technical—it’s communicative. The technology is advancing quickly, but public understanding, trust, and adoption are lagging behind. Our applied work through the Autonomous Vehicles & the City Initiative—points to a clear conclusion: how we communicate about AVs matters just as much as how we build them.
At the core of this work is a simple idea: communication needs to meet people where they are. Historically, transportation agencies have relied on formal reports, public meetings, and static outreach. Those still matter. But they are no longer sufficient. As we show in our research with the Mineta Transportation Institute, effective outreach today is multi-channel, combining traditional formats with “snackable,” visually engaging content that can reach broader and more diverse audiences.
This is where things get interesting—and, frankly, uncomfortable for some urban planning and engineering practitioners.
Through our Maker Studio, we’ve experimented with exactly this shift, producing short-form videos and YouTube Shorts that explain AV technology in ways that are fast, visual, and sometimes even humorous (see some examples here). These aren’t just marketing gimmicks—they’re educational tools. The goal is to translate complex systems into something intuitive, relatable, and human-centered.
And that’s the key insight: trust is built through understanding, and understanding is built through translation.
Our work shows that successful communication strategies do three things well. First, they educate and inform—clearly explaining how AVs work and addressing real concerns around safety, cost, and infrastructure. Second, they engage emotionally, using storytelling, real-world examples, and human-centered narratives. And third, they create dialogue, not just one-way messaging, allowing communities to ask questions, provide feedback, and co-shape outcomes.
This is also where longer-form content still plays a critical role. Through our podcasts (like Rewiring the American Edge) we dive deeper—bringing in policymakers, technologists, and industry leaders to unpack the systems-level challenges of automation. If short-form content is the hook, podcasts and long-form discussions are the substance. Together, they form a layered communication ecosystem.
But there’s a tension here. The rise of fast-paced, meme-driven content—what some now call “brainrot”—can drive engagement, but risks oversimplifying complex issues. Our research doesn’t ignore this. Instead, it argues for balance: use these formats to capture attention, but pair them with credible, transparent, and data-driven follow-up. In other words—don’t just trade trust for clicks.
Ultimately, the future of AVs won’t be decided solely by engineers or regulators. It will be shaped by whether people understand the technology, feel comfortable with it, and see its value in their daily lives. That’s a communication challenge. And it’s one we all need to take seriously.
Billy Riggs is a professor at the University of San Francisco and Director of the Autonomous Vehicles & the City Initiative. He is an expert on urban technology, future mobility, and sustainable design, with more than 20 years of experience bridging academia, industry, and government. A global expert on urban technology, future mobility, and sustainable design, he is driven by a vision to shape the built environment for good. His work includes autonomous vehicle research with Waymo and Cruise, sustainable community planning with at the Coast Guard, UC Berkeley and ARUP, and large-scale mobility projects across Europe. He has worked with the Rijkswaterstaat, contributes to CCAM-ERAS, and has led research across European mobility projects such as SHOW, ULTIMO, and Diversify-CCAM.
Contacts:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billyriggs
Publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=szpDThIAAAAJ&hl=en
Personal website: https://williamriggs.com/