CES 2026: How AI-Powered Wearables Can Rework Health, Healthcare

Tech insiders revealed what’s to return in good devices designed to assist us reside higher and longer

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) returned to Las Vegas final week, bringing greater than 4,100 exhibitors desperate to showcase their tech services and products to greater than 155,000 business attendees, journalists, analysts and content material creators.

Athletech News was on the bottom at CES 2026 to discover probably the most promising devices in health, well being and wellness and take in intel from consultants and panel discussions. And it wasn’t nearly family humanoids, “Truman Show”-sized TV screens and flying vehicles. AI was arguably among the many hottest matters at this yr’s large tech present.

“Three out of of every seven of us will have a neurodegenerative disease by the time we get to our 80s and 90s, yet many of us will live 20 to 30 years longer than previous generations because of breakthroughs we’re having in healthcare right now, so we have to have enabling technologies help to keep our brains (and) bodies healthy, and wearables will be a big part of that,” Stanford University Medical XR analysis and improvements director Walter Greenleaf famous in his introduction to the panel, which targeted on how synthetic intelligence in wearables may very well be used to unravel a number of the world’s most main well being issues

That tech collects the information that makes precision healthcare doable — that’s, if we belief the tech business to maintain our vital knowledge underneath lock and key.

ATN breaks down the highest takeaways from the panel.

Strong Hardware Will Drive More Powerful Software

Before we are able to improve our software program, our {hardware} must be stable — beginning with highly effective sensors.

“The software will be easy,” stated Neuranics chief technique officer Kia Nazarpour. “All of the complex stuff is going to happen at hardware level. If (my) glasses can show exactly what I need when I’m lost, understand more about our health that would not have been possible today, they become natural companions – not (just) chatbots.”

For occasion, what AI can do with electromyography (the measurement of electrical indicators from muscle tissues) will start with the sensor itself.

“We still don’t know where the signals come from, (but) we are starting new ways of looking at muscle activity via sensors,” equivalent to application-specific chips that may sense finger gestures and acknowledge that motion as enter to show an exoskeleton on or off, stated Nazarpour. “How do we co-design software and hardware for the next generation of wearables?”

AI Will Give More Nuanced Context to Health Data

Noise director Swapnil Vats leads improvement on the Luna Ring, which measures and analyzes sleep, stress, coronary heart price and 70 different bio markers.

AI “will help contextualize health for everybody (because) health and fitness are very nuanced… How do you build those nuances into your products and wearables; how do we make more than just a simple tracking device? It should not need me to type 100 times a day (into an app) and give context,” he stated.

For instance, poor sleep will be the results of stress in the course of the first day of the menstrual cycle, or late caffeine consumption with a late exercise. AI could make suggestions based mostly on both situation to offer probably the most focused, customized steering, famous Vats.

Developers “need to build a system that understands more variables,” equivalent to refined modifications in stress and restoration, he provides. “You may not feel what your data (shows),” and AI may also help give higher, extra customized which means to that knowledge.

His firm’s LifeOS, as an example, “can translate biomarkers” whenever you share private context through Siri and different voice assistants.

AI Can Help Us Break Away From Screens

Tech adopters could recall Snapchat’s first foray into wearables with the camera-enabled Spectacles glasses, launched in 2016. The firm is slated to launch Spectacles, the subsequent era of its eyewear that includes augmented actuality, this yr.

Snap Inc. innovation & developer advertising and marketing senior director Resh Sidhu foresees wearable makers will broaden on the tech they’ve been “building quietly…with developers over the past decade.”

“What many people don’t know is we’ve been iterating on (Specs) for five generations … with augmented reality and AI (to create an) incredibly powerful spatial computer that you wear,” Sidhu stated.

She expects that their software program and {hardware} may have purposes not simply in wellness (like serving to individuals meditate extra) and navigation, but additionally in healthcare and “having a connected experience together.” Agentic AI (an autonomous system that may deal with complicated planning, studying and reasoning duties with out fixed enter from a human), will assist individuals do extra and work together with what’s bodily in entrance of them, “without having to reach for a screen,” she stated.

A couple of examples: Previous Specs wearers had been capable of take pictures and movies with out taking out their telephone, and the brand new mannequin will let customers ask for instructions and see digital overlays with real-time navigation.

…But Tech Still Needs To Earn Our Trust

Users’ well being and behavioral knowledge “is so powerful for helping to improve our lives, but it’s also data that can influence (and) sell us things or influence what we do,” Greenleaf famous.

The problem is convincing customers that the business is strolling its discuss in relation to retaining treasured knowledge non-public.

Greenleaf provides that the tech business must construct belief amongst customers, defend knowledge and take accountability: “storing (data) on the cloud has potential, but we should try to do as much of computing on the device.”

“Ultimately, comes down to transparency,” added SuitX co-founder and chief know-how officer Wayne Tung. “We let the users know what data we’re collecting and we take the responsibility to educate the users on what value they get when they give us their data and what are the risks associated. (But) it’s not one solution fits all. Another person might not be willing to share that information.”

“We’re already ahead of the regulatory bodies,” famous Greenleaf. “It’s up to us as an industry (to prevent) any catastrophic issues from coming up.”