I don't know the fascination with multirotors. Helicopters are way more efficient (with the possible exception of this hybrid design). Coaxial helicopters are the most efficient and fairly compact.
Variable pitch blades allow for autorotation, making them fairly safe in engine out scenarios.
Going further off on tangent, having sensitive gyros and an automatic control system was essential to making quadcopters (drones) feasible because they aren't controllable by humans without it. Now that's practically all that's sold in the hobby area, but those control systems are easily integrated with helicopters, which as I already stated, are way more efficient.
I would think helicopters would be the natural starting point for EV VTOL aircraft. Instant torque adjustment from the motor makes them even higher performing, and it may even be possible to recover power on descent (autorotate).
There's nothing inherently easier regarding autonomous systems either. It's just as trivial to have an autonomous helicopter as a multirotor.
https://special-ops.org/heliwhale-af...st-helicopter/