CES 2026 showcases an AI-infused future
The year's biggest tech showcase in Las Vegas was dominated by artificial intelligence woven into devices of every kind.
The annual CES technology showcase in Las Vegas opened the year with a sweeping vision of an AI-infused future, as the industry's biggest exhibition was dominated by artificial intelligence woven into devices and products of every kind, from personal gadgets to home appliances, cars and robots.
CES, long the premier stage for unveiling consumer technology, reflected the extent to which AI had become the central organising idea of the industry, with companies large and small racing to demonstrate how they were embedding intelligent capabilities into their offerings.
Exhibits featured AI assistants integrated into an array of products, smart-home systems that could anticipate users' needs, vehicles with increasingly sophisticated autonomous and assistive features, and a proliferation of robots designed for the home, the workplace and beyond.
The emphasis on AI underscored the technology's rapid movement from software into the physical world, as the generative AI boom of recent years gave way to efforts to deploy intelligent systems in hardware and to make them genuinely useful in everyday life.
Alongside the enthusiasm, the show also reflected ongoing questions about privacy, security and the practical value of adding AI to every device, as well as concerns about hype outpacing substance, a perennial feature of the technology industry's cycles.
The themes on display at CES offered a snapshot of where the technology industry believed it was heading, with artificial intelligence as the driving force. As the year began, the showcase signalled that the AI revolution, having transformed software and captured public imagination, was now moving decisively into the devices and systems of daily life, promising, its proponents said, a new era of intelligent technology woven seamlessly into the fabric of the world.