Innovations Unveiled: A Sneak Peek at Las Vegas Tech Reveals from AMD, NVIDIA, Hyundai, and Beyond!

Although the festive season has only just commenced, many of us are already preparing for CES 2025. Shortly after New Year’s Day, several members of the Engadget team will be packing their luggage to travel to Las Vegas, where we will cover the largest annual technology exhibition. As per usual, our inboxes are inundated with proposals from businesses intending to participate, and our schedules are quickly filling with meetings for briefings and demonstrations.

Drawing from our past experiences and recent observations within the industry, it’s relatively straightforward to make well-informed conjectures about what may present itself in January. Over the years, the concentration of the conference has varied from areas such as televisions, automobiles, smart home devices, and personal health, with a few laptops and accessories included. At CES 2025, we anticipate experiencing an even broader integration of AI throughout the exhibition space. However, we are also likely to witness the familiar influx of new processors and their corresponding laptops, along with an assortment of wearables, trackers, bathroom gadgets, and massage chairs. Oh, those massage chairs.

There’s already a considerable amount we know will be showcased, simply by looking at the lineup released by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Alongside a plethora of panels and presentations, we can look forward to keynotes delivered by NVIDIA’s founder and CEO Jensen Huang, Delta CEO Ed Bastian, as well as top executives from companies like Panasonic, SiriusXM, Waymo, and the Volvo group. This collection offers a glimpse into who might make significant announcements during the event.

Indeed, some companies opted not to wait until January to announce their news. For instance, LG continues its yearly practice of previewing its upcoming CES releases weeks prior to the event by revealing the 2025 update for its QNED evo series of LCD TVs. On the other hand, Hyundai Mobis has stated that it will reveal its “Holographic Windshield Display,” which it claims to be a world-first. Hyundai Mobis even shared an image of what its exhibition space at CES 2025 will resemble, in the event that photographs of convention booths spark your enthusiasm.

If you’re already anticipating 2025 and are diligently researching what may be unveiled in January, here’s a preview of what our team expects to encounter at the exhibition.

New graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA

There’s no question that 2025 is set to be a monumental year for PC gamers. NVIDIA is expected to introduce its much-anticipated RTX 5000 graphics cards at CES, while AMD CEO Lisa Su has confirmed we’ll see next-generation RDNA 4 GPUs early next year. Among the two companies, AMD could benefit the most from the upgrade. Its most recent series of Radeon 7000 graphics cards performed adequately in the mid-range segment, but they significantly fell short of NVIDIA’s hardware in terms of ray tracing capabilities, and AMD’s FSR 3 upscaling has additionally struggled to rival NVIDIA’s AI-driven DLSS 3.

“In tandem with a considerable boost in gaming performance, RDNA 4 provides markedly enhanced ray-tracing efficiency and incorporates new AI functionalities,” AMD CEO Lisa Su stated during an October earnings call.

Regarding NVIDIA’s forthcoming hardware, a rumor from the leakerOneRaichu (via DigitalTrends) indicated that the RTX 5090 might be as much as 70 percent quicker than the RTX 4090. (That’s a GPU that I have previously characterized as possessing “unholy power.”) They also point out that other “premium” cards could experience 30 to 40 percent increases in performance. Those enhancements could be sufficient to entice affluent RTX 4090 owners to upgrade, but those with RTX 4070 and 4080 may wish to forgo this generation. For NVIDIA users with RTX 3000 and earlier graphics cards, however, next year might be the ideal opportunity to make a change. — Devindra Hardawar, senior reporter

AI PCs round 2

In the previous year, I forecasted that AI PCs would be the highlight of CES, and that mostly turned out to be accurate. As 2024 progressed, we witnessed even more robust NPUs in chips from Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. Microsoft also intensified its focus on AI PCs with its Copilot+ initiative, which provided a significant promotional boost for artificial intelligence capabilities and high-end specifications (like including a minimum of 16GB of RAM).

Look forward to more of the same ahead of CES 2025, along with even greater AI incorporation across every conceivable product category. This year, notably, PC manufacturers are expected to prepare to capitalize on the imminent end of Windows 10 support next year. Rather than merely upgrading your existing device to Windows 11, companies like Dell and HP would prefer that you purchase entirely new AI PCs with the latest OS pre-installed.

While 2024 was filled with incessant AI PC hype, 2025 could become a year of accountability. Microsoft’s long-postponed Recall feature is gradually being extended to more users, but it’s already revealing some critical security vulnerabilities, such as not adequately removing social security and credit card numbers from screenshots. Additionally, we have found we were largely unimpressed by Apple Intelligence’s image generation functionalities. PC manufacturers have been enthusiastic about hyping the promise of AI-driven features until now, but in 2025 they’ll need to genuinely demonstrate they can meet their extraordinary assertions. — D.H.

Earbuds that follow Apple’s lead on hearing health

I’m fully conscious that not every audio brand possesses the capability to develop clinical-grade hearing tests and hearing aid functionalities in their applications. Nevertheless, Apple’s recent enhancement for the AirPods Pro 2 should motivate rivals to provide some version of hearing health options on their flagship devices. Jabra was likely in the best position to achieve this as its parent company, GN, has a wealth of experience in hearing aids. Unfortunately, the firm declared earlier this year that it would no longer produce earbuds.

Samsung and Google could likely incorporate features akin to what Apple developed for the AirPods, considering both companies’ established health platforms. If they proceed, such announcements may not be made at CES, as both firms favor hosting their own standalone hardware exhibitions throughout the year.

This leaves Sennheiser as the largest audio manufacturer that consistently unveils earbuds and headphones at CES. Last year, it presented various new models, including one featuring heart-rate monitoring for physical activities. Furthermore, it already provides hearing support with specialized devices like the true wireless Conversation Clear Plus. Those earbuds are more tailored for hearing than for general media consumption, so it would be fascinating to see Sennheiser integrate some features from that product into its premium Momentum line of earbuds. Perhaps a Momentum True Wireless 4 Pro or Plus might be in the pipeline, but the current model has only been around for nine months.

Of course, there’s ample opportunity for other companies to innovate in this area, and we can expect a plethora of new earbuds in Las Vegas next month. We also generally observe a multitude of assistive technologies and devices debut at CES, from leading accessibility firms.

data-i13n=”cpos:20;pos:1″ href=”https://www.engadget.com/orcam-hear-hands-on-a-surprisingly-effective-voice-isolation-platform-for-those-with-hearing-loss-230243953.html” data-ylk=”slk:like OrCam;cpos:20;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>appreciate OrCam and a variety of lesser-known brands. I merely wish that some of the upcoming technology incorporates more universal hearing aids on the models that the majority of users will prefer. — Billy Steele, senior editor

Vehicle electrification reaches new heights

With the expansion of electric vehicles approaching 10 percent of new models sold in the US, it is easy to overlook that wheeled transportation is not the only mode transitioning to battery-operated systems. Flying taxis have become a highlight at CES over the recent years, showcasing prototype vehicles from major brands like Hyundai throughout the exhibition floor in Vegas.

Admittedly, these creations resemble enormous drones with cockpits more than anything the Jetsons envisioned. Nonetheless, with firms such as Archer Aviation and Joby Aviation committed to actually launching eVTOL services (electric vertical take-off and landing) in 2025, the age of air taxis may have truly arrived. — Sam Rutherford, senior reporter

Enhanced dialog improvement functionalities on soundbars

Regarding the primary features of soundbars, there is not a significant amount of innovation year over year. In fact, Samsung’s most substantial update last year was the inclusion of HDMI 2.1 support in its flagship model, which should have been available already. Manufacturers have also been concentrating on the shift to wireless technology across the board, whether it involves wireless Dolby Atmos or wireless transmission devices. Audio enhancement functionalities represent an area where companies can truly differentiate themselves, with features like Sonos’ TV Audio Swap and Bose’s Personal Surround Sound serving as excellent instances of this. A critical aspect where nearly every manufacturer can enhance is dialog boost, a feature that elevates the volume or distinguishes spoken content from ambient sounds and music for improved clarity.

Sonos achieved a significant advancement in this area on the Arc Ultra, delivering two additional options for its so-called Speech Enhancement. Previously, this only existed as a binary toggle, which is how most brands handle their adaptations of this feature. Not only is the Sonos feature customizable to some extent, but it is also simply superior, partly due to the reengineered design of its new high-end soundbar. This is a clear opportunity for other brands to enhance.

LG and Samsung typically unveil new soundbars during CES, along with numerous smaller companies that are likely to introduce some as well. I would love to witness all of them advancing dialog enhancements substantially and, at the very least, providing multiple choices for how it’s implemented. LG has been utilizing AI Sound Pro from its televisions since 2021, while Samsung features something called Adaptive Sound on its home theater products. I anticipate that both will generally boost the quality of their functionalities, but I’m hoping they’ll broaden the capabilities as well. — B.S.

Update, December 17 2024, 12:40PM ET: This article has been revised to include the companies and CEOs that will be delivering keynotes at the exhibition.

Update, December 20 2024, 11:55AM ET: This article has been modified to incorporate LG and Hyundai Mobis’ announcements leading up to CES 2025.