CES 2026: Razer’s AI gaming assistant, Project Ava, has a bodily kind now

Making AI companions and assistants really feel extra actual, extra bodily current, has turn out to be one of many defining themes of CES this 12 months. Razer, unsurprisingly, is a prisoner of that second, showcasing a extra tangible model of Project Ava at CES 2026.

For those that want a refresher, Project Ava is Razer’s real-time gaming co-pilot: an AI assistant that primarily acts as a backseat gamer for you. While you’re enjoying, Ava — represented right here by a personality named Kira — provides reside recommendation, ideas, and commentary, overlaid straight in your display as the sport unfolds. It’s teaching, however with a character and a face.

Razer technically confirmed off Project Ava finally 12 months’s CES, however that early demo was nearly aggressively summary. Instead of a personality, it was principally traces of code and system diagrams, with Razer strolling via how the AI processed gameplay knowledge and generated instructions in real-time. Useful, certain, however not precisely one thing you possibly can think about sitting subsequent to you throughout a late-night gaming session.

This 12 months’s model is clearly about making the idea really feel much less like a backend experiment and extra like a presence. Whether that makes having an AI critique your gameplay extra useful or extra annoying is one other query solely.

The new Project Ava {hardware} is a cylindrical desktop gadget with a clear outer shell that shows a full-body, animated character inside. A digital camera is mounted on the prime of the unit, dealing with outward, whereas the bottom encompasses a perforated, patterned platform that offers the character a way of depth. The backside ring glows in Razer’s signature inexperienced and is branded with the corporate brand. Designed to sit down subsequent to a laptop computer or monitor, the gadget capabilities as a devoted show for the AI assistant, conserving it separate from the sport display somewhat than overlaying it on gameplay.

Credit: Chance Townsend / Mashable

The character Razer demoed known as Kira, although she’s removed from the one choice. Other presets embody Zane, a sharply dressed, extraordinarily massive man with an enormous snake tattoo working down his arm. Very a lot the type of character that feels ripped straight from one thing you’d discover on BookTok. According to Razer, these avatars might be customizable, together with the power to create your personal from scratch. The firm has additionally partnered with influencers to supply character likenesses, together with esports professional Faker, signaling that Project Ava is as a lot about character and fandom as it’s about utility.

As with most CES demos, the room was aggressively loud, which made it onerous for the AI to persistently decide up voice instructions. We spent a lot of the demo parked within the Battlefield 6 loadout customization display, asking Kira for recommendation on which weapons and devices would take advantage of sense for the subsequent spherical. Given the circumstances, it labored properly sufficient, and the suggestions had been strong for what they had been (and sure, working frag grenades over stuns for the assault class is the right name).

Outside of gaming, Razer says it is expanded Project Ava’s capabilities past simply backseat teaching. The firm claims the AI can now supply recommendation on non-gaming duties as properly, with Ava nonetheless showing as an on-screen overlay when you work. In observe, meaning Project Ava is inching nearer to the identical general-purpose help different AI instruments promise, however with gamer branding now.

There’s nonetheless no launch date for Project Ava, although Razer says it is focusing on a imprecise someday this 12 months.

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