From Devices to Techniques: What CES 2026 Alerts for the Future of Banking

CES is thought for flashy devices and enjoyable shopper expertise. For most banks, CES will not be a must-attend occasion as a result of it doesn’t concentrate on fintech and banking. There is, nevertheless, nonetheless worth in attending the present, as rising applied sciences can sign how buyer expectations and new working fashions are evolving.

U.S. Bank understands this and despatched two executives, Don Relyea, Chief Innovation Officer, and Todder Moning, Head of R&D, Innovation, on a “Future Safari” to take a look at what’s new, what’s subsequent, and what’s doable in relation to implementing applied sciences.

After they returned to the workplace final week, we interviewed Relyea and Moning to unpack what CES 2026 revealed from a banker’s perspective. From embedded AI and robotics to agentic commerce and cross-industry convergence, they spotlight new tendencies, unpack which have been overhyped, and clarify what financial institution leaders ought to be being attentive to over the following 12 to 24 months.

From a banker’s perspective, what alerts did CES ship this yr about the place expertise funding is definitely heading—and which tendencies felt extra operationally actual than hype?

Don Relyea and Todder Moning: Well, it’s secure to say the expertise funding is growing throughout the board. We love taking Future Safaris™ to CES as a result of it’s an effective way to get concepts and see and observe rising tendencies throughout many areas that can permit us to enhance the shopper expertise in addition to combine with different new tech improvements.

Trends that caught out to our staff this yr embody:

Everywhere Intelligence – Embedded in Everything: Artificial intelligence is not a standalone class—it’s being woven into units massive and small, on the edge (on-device) and within the cloud, turning atypical merchandise into sensible, context-aware companions. In phrases of potential monetary implications, customized monetary assistants that perceive habits, spending patterns, and context might dramatically enhance consumer expertise and belief sooner or later. However, elevated reliance on AI raises privateness, bias, and regulatory considerations—particularly as monetary choices grow to be automated.

Digital Health/Wellness/Longevity Tech: Tech that senses, analyzes, and predicts well being was signposted at CES 2025 and carries into 2026 with smarter biofeedback units. We see healthcare as related to monetary providers and actually have a saying: “healthcare is wealth care.” Money is emotional and has impacts on individuals, their households, and companies, each good and unhealthy, and serving to to succeed in higher wealth care outcomes (monetary outcomes) positively impacts individuals’s well being and wellness.

The convergence of AI, wearables, mind interfaces, and different age-tech are going to increase life. There is a chance for banks to weave that right into a extra holistic planning course of for our shoppers. We additionally noticed quite a few wearables and different AI-based improvements that monitor varied metrics and values to tell you about well being dangers or considerations. This is related as a result of there’s a sturdy correlation between bodily well being and monetary well being. These improvements might additionally assist catch pricey medical issues earlier than they happen, saving individuals cash and stress. For instance, transaction metrics might flag early indicators of dementia or an eldercare abuse concern.

Robots for industrial and residential use: The resurgence of robotics was essentially the most seen development at CES this yr. “Embodied AI” or what some name “Physical AI” are catchier names for clever robotics. We’re seeing tons of AI and much more robotics this yr than in prior years, and because the two domains merge extra deeply, a wave of AI-enabled, extra basic goal, and sometimes extra human-like robotics options are rising.

Robots, humanoid, non-humanoid, and robotic exoskeletons that you simply put on are graduating from managed environments to unstructured, real-world contexts—folding laundry, navigating houses, manufacturing and even autonomous autos.

Looking forward: CES exhibits a shift from gadget splendor to system-wide integration—the whole lot is related and clever. AI, robotics and immersive interfaces are converging—not simply making issues “smart” however connecting behaviors, identities and environments.

As CES showcased advances in shopper {hardware}, AI assistants, and related units, what new expectations do you suppose prospects will convey again to their monetary establishments?

Relyea and Moning: You’re hitting on two of the 5 themes about why we wish to take Future Safaris and why CES is among the greatest—what we name lateral and longitudinal. At CES, we’re capable of see many industries and domains in a concentrated period of time. Taking the lateral view, we see what and the way quite a few industries use related applied sciences to do one thing. This is an effective way to gather and curate direct or oblique ways in which you are able to do metaphorically related issues in your future, {industry} and area of curiosity.

On the longitudinal view, for those who’re in a spot and time the place plenty of applied sciences, developments, or enterprise fashions are current, it’s a terrific alternative to gauge how every expertise, improvement, or enterprise mannequin is altering over time. This was the financial institution’s fifteenth yr at CES, which permits us to gauge how every expertise or improvement is altering over time. Are robots getting higher and extra helpful, or are they creating slowly (or worse, stalled and in decline)? Is AI advancing and in that case, in what locations and methods? Is a touted expertise delivering in opposition to the hype, or is it prancing round with no actual innovation use. In Texas, we name the latter “big hat, no cattle.”

The large thought is that expertise, design, and experiences are erasing the boundaries and bounds between industries. If one involves count on what’s doable to do in a single {industry}, enterprise, or product, they’ll probably come to count on that for different industries and companies. That’s the sort of meta-trending we attempt to discover after which apply to what which means for banks and monetary providers going ahead.

Customer interactions proceed to grow to be more and more digital and more and more enabled by AI and sensors, and U.S. Bank is at the vanguard of visioning the place tech is headed and what our prospects want from us—as we offer the expertise and steering that make their monetary lives easier and extra handy. We’re proud to have one of many longest operating devoted innovation practices in banking at this time.

AI being embedded in the whole lot goes to boost the bar for shopper expectations of what good is. This yr AI was not entrance and heart at CES, it was embedded and bettering the automation of shopper units in refined and straightforward to make use of and straightforward to entry methods. Think rings, pins, and enterprise card kind components which you can discuss to (which will or might not hook up with different units or the cloud) and ask them to transcribe, translate, make PowerPoints, fill out kinds, handle calendars, and lots of different issues. This goes to boost the expectations of consumers that extra ought to be carried out for them.

Did you discover fintech ideas like embedded finance, identification, or real-time funds displaying up inside non-financial expertise at CES?

Relyea and Moning: Yes, we noticed issues like an AI-enabled oven that helps you grocery store for components.

We noticed a number of biometric cost checkout interfaces. These have been straightforward to make use of and arrange and might be built-in into something requiring identification and funds fairly simply.

We noticed biometric expertise utilizing keyboard habits that might assist flag a big habits change in an worker (for instance), who’s both below duress or as a disgruntled worker might make poor choices impacting the enterprise. Another instance we noticed is asset-tracking expertise that might be used off-grid, to say monitor vehicles, railcars, mining tools, and many others.

For the vast majority of financial institution leaders who didn’t attend CES, what’s one rising theme from the present that you simply suppose will influence monetary providers over the following 12 to 24 months, and why?

Relyea and Moning: I’d say the embedding of AI into units and what has began occurring in agentic commerce. Devices of all kinds are displaying indicators of changing into commerce orchestrators and brokers for purchasers—and it’s a brief bounce from there to having units grow to be a sort of buyer. Many of the issues we see at CES include subscriptions—as an illustration, the longevity mirror I used got here with an annual subscription for you and your loved ones to make use of its AI knowledge and fashions. You can think about that many of those month-to-month or annual subscriptions we would have sooner or later. Are you going to handle all of these, or will the system handle it for you with restricted spending capabilities you present it?

Tell us concerning the coolest non-banking use of expertise you noticed at CES?

Relyea and Moning: I feel the exoskeletons have been actually cool. Don was capable of put on the leg ones that helped him climb stairs a lot simpler and quicker. I used to be capable of put on one on my again and hips that helped me to choose up a heavy merchandise with ease. I additionally appreciated the sustainable printed battery that was paper skinny. It might be embedded into most something and energy airtags in issues like your passport service, purse, pockets, that sort of factor. And if you throw it away, it’s utterly compostable.

And we at all times love the autonomous mobility work that the large agricultural and development/mining manufacturers present—autonomous combines with autonomous hoppers that maintain tempo with the mix, and AI-assisted and autonomous Bobcats and development excavators. It simply exhibits how autonomous mobility is occurring, even when its tempo is slower than was initially anticipated firstly of the last decade.

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