"Welcome to the Future" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music artist Brad Paisley released in July 2009 as the second single from his album American Saturday Night. It is the twenty-fourth chart single of his career. In July 2009, Paisley played the song at the White House for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. The song was written by Paisley along with Chris DuBois.

"Welcome to the Future" is a mid-tempo song, with a production featuring percussion and steel guitar, with a synthesizer in the intro. The lyrics describe the changes that the narrator has seen in his lifetime, including the advances in technology and inter-cultural relationships.

In the first verse, he tells of how he wanted to be able to watch television in the car as a child, or have his own video game system instead of having to go to the video arcade. The second verse addresses advances in international relationships, by telling of how his grandfather fought against Japan in World War II, but the narrator "was on a video chat this morning / with a company in Tokyo." Verse three addresses the issue of racism after recalling a black friend who had a cross burned in his front yard by the Ku Klux Klan. This verse also alludes to the anti-racism movements of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the line "From a woman on a bus / to a man with a dream."

Paisley told Country Weekly magazine that he was inspired to write the song after hearing the announcement that Barack Obama, whom Paisley endorsed, would become President of the United States and realizing that the first President in his children's lives would be an African American. This thought also led him to include memories of his own childhood in the song, as well as those of his grandparents. As he stated in his performance at the White House: "If you go back in time and tell either me in a line for Pac-Man, or [my grandfather] any of this stuff, that his grandson would be playing in Japan, he would've thought you were crazy...and then, my own children who -- you are the first president they will remember, which is something." Paisley also said that he included the allusion to Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech in the final verse because he thought that King's "dream of racial equality" was realized by Obama's election.

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