What We’re Anticipating at CES 2026

CES 2026 doesn’t formally begin till Jan. 6, however if you happen to’re an everyday Gizmodo reader, you already know that it has unofficially began. Like yearly, corporations begin dripping out teasers and partial product bulletins on the finish of December, weeks earlier than the most important tech present even opens its doorways in Las Vegas. Be positive to observe our CES 2026 stay weblog to see all of the stuff our client tech workforce can be looking at in individual.

I’ve a robust feeling CES 2026 can be much more packed than everyone seems to be anticipating. Six years after the pandemic, it appears to me—based mostly on early bulletins—that the present is lastly roaring again to life. Revitalized by the promise of AI—whether or not automation, generative, agentic, or another sort—corporations are daring to shoot for the moon once more. So what main tendencies are we anticipating from the 12 months’s greatest present for expertise innovation? I’ll finally be unsuitable, however let me peer into my crystal ball and see if I can join some dots.

AI can be inescapable

More than any CES present in previous years, we’ll see AI shoved into each gadget possible. Samsung, LG, Lenovo, Razer—the entire greatest attendees and even the small unknown startups can be boasting about why some type of AI will supposedly make their merchandise higher. Some of the AI functions may legitimately transfer the needle; the overwhelming majority can be AI options for AI options’ sake, overpromising and underdelivering.

As reporters, we’re gonna spend our days at CES 2026 wading by way of the AI minefield of intelligence sprinkled into laptops, cell units, house home equipment, transportation, and extra. The identical means Wi-Fi was added to just about each gadget, AI will wiggle its means in even if you happen to don’t need it.

Do you really want AI in a washer or fridge? How many instances is an enormous electronics firm going to attempt to persuade us at a packed press convention that we’d like some new house equipment to determine learn how to prepare dinner a meal from leftover substances? The most helpful AI features would be the ones that don’t even seem like AI, LLMs, or chatbots working invisibly within the background to make our lives extra handy.

A sea of sensible glasses

If reviewing a bunch of sensible glasses, together with Meta’s Ray-Ban Display, final 12 months signaled something for what to anticipate in 2026, it’s that there can be an avalanche of sensible glasses coming.

As a doable Next Big Thing after smartphones, each firm appears to be attempting to determine learn how to commercialize sensible glasses. How do you stability fashion and utility whereas making it well worth the dear early adopter price and likewise squeeze in AI into them to maintain up with the newest development? Meta may need you considering it’s found out some magic recipe, however in actuality it hasn’t. A single pair of sensible glasses with strong screens, cameras, battery life, audio system, AI, and apps continues to be the holy grail gadget everyone seems to be chasing.

Currently, sensible glasses nonetheless have too many tradeoffs. It’s additionally not clear that buyers even need sensible glasses that do all of it. That’s why we’ve seen so many flavors of sensible glasses—ones with mono and dual-lens waveguide screens, ones with no cameras (for privateness, naturally) in any respect, or easy “AI glasses” that excel finest at taking images and movies and enjoying music like a pair of open-ear headphones. Then, there are video glasses from the likes of Xreal which are bolting on XR features to permit them to supply extra computing-like options that you just’d discover in bulkier XR or VR headsets.

I don’t anticipate any sensible glasses blueprint to emerge by the tip of CES 2026, solely that the number of designs and choices will widen past what we’ve already seen shipped. There can be way more sensible glasses than XR and VR headsets. The metaverse is useless; AI is now the brand new hotness.

TV tech issues once more

Okay, perhaps customers gained’t care in any respect what micro RGB or WOLED means, however TV makers can be pushing arduous to make their newest show applied sciences seem to be must-haves once they ultimately ship in precise flat screens.

Never thoughts that you could be not perceive how backlighting applied sciences work or that your worsening eyesight can’t see the broader dynamic vary, expanded HDR, increased distinction, or elevated brightness. CES 2026 will tout TV tech prefer it has for greater than 50 years. The present merely wouldn’t be the identical if you happen to didn’t fly in to ogle pixels.

I’ll be paying shut consideration to how a lot AI is compelled into new TVs and the way corporations select to combine AI in there. Google’s Gemini will little question exchange the outdated Google Assistant, however I actually wish to see how a lot AI slop there can be. My guess is that there can be an uncomfortable quantity of AI slop masquerading as utility. More AI screensavers—sorry, canvas artwork. More AI to create faux frames to make watching sports activities and gaming smoother, however visibly uglier when watching films and TV exhibits due to the movement smoothening.

Speaking of upper body charges, I’ve to surprise how excessive TV makers will go along with the refresh charges? 120Hz, 165Hz, and 240Hz already push the envelope for gaming, however don’t be shocked if there are a bunch of TVs with even increased native (and artificially boosted) refresh charges simply to outgun the competitors on a spec sheet battle.

EVs and mobility take over

Everyone is aware of that CES just isn’t a automotive present, however it’s additionally unattainable to disregard all the corridor of EVs, automotive, and mobility tech on the Las Vegas Convention Center. Like a gradual burn, there can be extra of all of it. More EVs with absurd high speeds, longer ranges, and shows plastered inside their interiors; extra e-bikes and e-scooters that blur the road with bikes; and extra wacky prototype flying automobiles and private quadcopters that can promise to hit the skies (however most likely by no means will).

Zooming in additional particularly, my remark is that there can be a development of returning again to bodily and tactile in-car controls. A decade in the past, Tesla made touchscreen dashboards and controls ubiquitous, however carmakers and customers at the moment are realizing that good ol’ buttons by no means wanted to be—and maybe by no means ought to have been—ditched.

Personally, I welcome this return to sensibility. Besides giving automobiles extra differentiation and character, bodily buttons, dials, and knobs are literally extra user-friendly whereas driving. Who may have imagined that turning a dial to regulate quantity or the air conditioner is quicker than tapping a number of layers right into a touchscreen layer?

And after all, like each different linked gadget at CES 2026, I’m positive we’ll see AI crammed into the dashboard in addition to extra guarantees for self-driving tech.

Here come the house droids

It’s not that the sensible house gained’t have an enormous presence on the present—it would—however it’s at the moment being retrofitted with AI, so it gained’t sound groundbreaking. Google Assistant is being changed by Gemini and Alexa with Alexa+. These “upgrades” are totally on the backend, however as we’ve seen testing the early batch of merchandise powered by these extra clever voice assistants, the intelligence half just isn’t fairly there but. When you want customers to make use of two separate modes—one for sensible house controls and one other for extra conversational AI—as you do with Gemini, it’s a sobering reminder that the retrofitting continues to be very a lot a piece in progress.

What needs to be much more attention-grabbing on the sensible house entrance is seeing intelligence merge with robotics throughout the house. I’m, after all, speaking about humanoid robots that may raise issues and do chores, and even beefed-up robotic vacuums that may climb stairs. At CES 2026, we must always have the ability to get a better take a look at a few of these private robots. They gained’t be commercially obtainable at any reasonably priced pricing anytime quickly, however on the very least they need to give us an thought of whether or not we’re actually nearer to the sci-fi dream of getting a real-life C-3PO to do our bidding.

More of the standard client tech

Those are the larger tendencies I anticipate to see at CES 2026. On a pure {hardware} degree, the present can be stuffed with the standard new laptops and PCs, house leisure methods (TVs and audio system), wearables, audio (wi-fi headphones and wi-fi earbuds), cameras, transportation (EVs, e-bikes, e-scooters), and cell equipment and laptop peripherals. A heaven of devices, if you’ll.

By the tip of the present, the Gizmodo client tech workforce can be exhausted and hungry, however we’ll have taken in the entire spectacle of all of it. CES is the perfect place to preview the longer term. Or fairly, concepts of what the longer term appears to be like like.