How to Use autopilot in a Sentence

autopilot

noun
  • The plane was flying on autopilot.
  • All of those things are kind of on autopilot through this year.
    — Tim Fernholz, Quartz, 17 Sep. 2020
  • Uranus was trying to wake you up from autopilot.
    — Dossé-Via Trenou, Refinery29, 2 Nov. 2025
  • And above all, treat it as a co-pilot, not an autopilot.
    — Tony Bradley, Forbes.com, 19 Sep. 2025
  • Thanks to the autopilot mode, younger children can use this boat with ease, too.
    — Douglas Helm, Popular Mechanics, 3 Aug. 2022
  • Over time, that routine puts us on autopilot.
    — Jolie Kerr, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 June 2026
  • My mind was beginning to be too much for me and my body was on autopilot.
    — Essence, 22 Aug. 2022
  • Let go of life on autopilot and start to take control of your own destiny!
    — Meghan Rose, Glamour, 1 Dec. 2022
  • What used to take hours of manual work now runs on autopilot.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes.com, 15 July 2025
  • The novelty of a road trip brings us out of autopilot.
    — Laura Kiniry, Popular Science, 17 June 2026
  • But don’t go on autopilot and run it through your coffee by mistake!
    — Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2021
  • On the other, the plane was on autopilot almost the whole way.
    — The Economist, 11 June 2020
  • Lyrics that would normally slip through me on autopilot were now barbed and heavy.
    — Ryan Miller, The Atlantic, 10 Apr. 2025
  • The smarter move may be to take ourselves out of the equation and switch on the autopilot.
    — J.j. McCorvey, WSJ, 9 May 2022
  • Japan’s central bank has been largely on autopilot for a few years.
    — William Pesek, Forbes, 17 June 2022
  • Clearly, the team had more work to do on the vessel’s autopilot.
    — Vanessa Minke-Martin, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 Nov. 2020
  • Overcome your worst spending habits and put your wealth goals on autopilot.
    — Serenity Gibbons, Forbes, 22 June 2021
  • Sure-footed, diesel-powered, on autopilot to our port of call.
    — Tribune News Service, cleveland, 21 May 2022
  • The co-pilot quickly turned the autopilot back on.
    — Michael Schneider, Variety, 10 Sep. 2025
  • No matter what our job or level is, every one of us goes on autopilot from time to time.
    — Dede Henley, Forbes, 26 Dec. 2021
  • There was no autopilot with Tony — ever.
    — Julia Moore, PEOPLE, 15 Dec. 2025
  • Another way to think about it is autopilot.
    — Rahul Saluja, Forbes.com, 15 May 2026
  • That which was once autopilot now requires us to keep our hands on the wheel and pay attention.
    — Natasha Preskey, refinery29.com, 3 May 2020
  • On autopilot, your brain lures you into looking at unknowns as a threat.
    — Bryan Robinson, Forbes, 7 Mar. 2025
  • For the first time, conditions were calm enough to rely on the autopilot.
    — Tomas Weber, Rolling Stone, 18 May 2024
  • But not an instrument that was on autopilot.
    — Philip Elliott, Time, 26 Mar. 2026
  • Akopov said the plane's autopilot was taken out by the hail, the Sun reports.
    — Cliff Pinckard, cleveland.com, 1 Aug. 2017
  • Set this system up once, then post on autopilot without losing your tone.
    — Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2025
  • The pilot obliges — and then the co-pilot flips off the autopilot function.
    — Michael Schneider, Variety, 10 Sep. 2025
  • But there's a lot of dangers as well -- autopilot being one of them, doing the same old same old.
    — Gary Graff, Billboard, 2 Feb. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'autopilot.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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