DRONES 2022

People assume toys. Hoho, wait. Drones? Serious shit. Disasters, military, fires, delivery, flying warehouses. Drones are business.

November 2017. My prediction on stage: in 5 years, drones are serious business.

Exact Live in the Netherlands. Exact invited me to headline its tech and business event, and in my Tech Talks I interviewed Max Verstappen, F1 driver at Red Bull Racing.

We talked about drones. My words on stage: "I see that many people still think that drones are just gadgets or toys."

"But my prediction is that the coming 5 years they are a must have, for example companies like Amazon who need to deliver parcels with the speed of light."

"Or the Red Cross who need drones to explore disaster areas they can't reach yet," I told him.

Max Verstappen told me Red Bull Racing already flies drones. Cheaper than a helicopter. Swap the battery and go.

2022. Result: drones are business.

Disasters. Red Cross teams map cyclone and flood zones from the air.

Military. 2020, Nagorno-Karabakh. Drones rule the battlefield.

Fires. April 2019, Notre-Dame burns.

Paris firefighters fly drones to see where to aim the water.

Delivery. Zipline flies 200,000 drone deliveries by 2021. Amazon Prime Air takes off in December 2022.

Flying warehouses. Amazon patented one in 2016: an airship full of parcels that launches drones, food delivery included.

My next prediction: a massive rise in military drones the coming 2 decades.

My 2030 forecast: the world spends $150 billion a year on drones and drone services. Read DRONES 2030.

In hindsight, we are all futurists.