CES 2026 doesn’t technically finish till tomorrow, however then if it have been a soccer match, it’d be the type the place the house aspect will get battered 4-0 and the cameras preserve chopping to a stream of season ticket holders slumping in the direction of the doorways with 20 minutes left. An all-timer within the historical past of Client Electronics Present, it has not been.
You possibly can most likely guess why. If CES 2024 and CES 2025 have been characterised by gaming {hardware}’s tightening embrace of synthetic intelligence, 2026 appears to be the 12 months it submitted to a full AI Mind takeover. Sensible, smart equipment has been introduced, however moreso than ever it has been consigned to footnotes, shunted apart so the highlight can stay on dubiously helpful (if not visibly garbage) services and products that make use of the shareholder group’s favorite acronym.
Nowhere was this extra obvious than AMD’s keynote speech, a weird two-hour company carousel of visitor star executives taking turns – like a Gorillaz album produced by Mark Zuckerberg – to run faux interviews with CEO Dr. Lisa Su about all of the cool and positively not made-up issues AI would possibly be capable of do sooner or later. Partway by, a reveal of some precise consumer-grade laptop computer CPUs broke out, the sequence identify of ‘Ryzen AI 400’ evidently having shaped a convincing sufficient disguise to let it slip in amongst all of the Way forward for Expertise backslapping.
Just for about three minutes, thoughts, or a fraction of the time that Dr. Su spent chatting together with her mates. Mates like OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman, whose ChatGPT bot has been busy encouraging suicides, or Trump science adviser Michael Kratsios, who’s demonstrated his dedication to scientific understanding by slashing US analysis funding. “What are the most important issues we should do to get proper, such that we lead in AI?”, Dr. Su asks, met instantly by a basic libertarian dogwhistle about eradicating “regulatory roadblocks to innovation.” Mate, did you see that Ark: Survival Advanced DLC trailer? I am unsure regulation is the difficulty right here.
CES, as a showcase, can rely itself fortunate that this keynote didn’t totally set the tone for the remainder of the proceedings. As a result of right here’s the factor: there have been truly various compelling, fascinating, or in any other case optimistic developments at this 12 months’s occasion. They simply had the oxygen sucked away from them by AI nonsense.
You could have seen me giving the kiss of life to a few of these: Lenovo’s SteamOS model of the Legion Go 2 might be my private spotlight by “Oh that’s neat” metrics, whereas Nvidia’s public launch of DLSS 4.5 upscaling was a pleasing shock. (That one does use machine studying, however in a restricted and just about totally non-problematic means that’s afforded it distance from the present GenAI-will-save-us zeitgeist.) After delays, Nvidia additionally launched G-Sync Pulsar, basically a brand new type of monitor backlight strobing that works with adaptive sync methods to wash up blur and ghosting results in fast-moving video games – even on screens with adaptive refresh charges, which have by no means performed good with earlier makes an attempt at backlight strobing. We’ll see the primary Pulsar-compatible displays on cabinets as quickly as February.
Intel, in the meantime, unveiled their Panther Lake household of laptop computer CPUs. The Core Extremely 3 Sequence, because it’s extra formally known as, wouldn’t have usually been a lot trigger for intrigue, however its advances on the built-in graphics aspect of issues do sound fairly tasty: their Arc B390 GPU is claimed to be 77% quicker than the earlier technology’s Arc 140V. Furthermore, Intel confirmed {that a} Panther Lake chip particularly for handheld PCs is within the works. That’s huge information, as one of many best-performing portables proper now’s the MSI Claw 8 AI+, which occurs to be powered by… the Arc 140V. Promising stuff.
Dell, to their credit score, knowingly resisted “AI PC” branding with their new Alienware methods and displays, with head of product Kevin Terwilliger acknowledging that residence PC house owners are “not shopping for based mostly on AI”. Such heretical proclamations went unheard by different exhibitors lengthy sufficient for Dell to additionally announce the revival of their XPS enterprise laptop computer line, which, when you’ll forgive a short detour from video games {hardware}, is the computing equal of the 1660 Restoration unbanning Christmas. I nonetheless suppose the 2015 mannequin of the XPS 13 is the nicest laptop computer I’ve ever used.
Different area of interest slivers of happiness might be discovered round CES 2026, like mechanical keyboard mainstays Cherry bouncing again from a current manufacturing unit closure with their first line of quick, deterioration-resistant magnetic key change ‘boards. And, after all, there was the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, more likely to develop into the CPU of selection for high-end PC builds when it launches later this 12 months.
Not that you just’d understand it existed, had you solely sat by AMD’s calmly villainous keynote – two hours and this ostensibly flagship chip wasn’t talked about as soon as. Might a few minutes haven’t been shaved off the authoritarian bootlicking phase to make room for an precise product? Was it merely an excessive amount of to ask the man from Jeff Bezos’ rocket firm to share runtime with one thing that the proles may be extra taken with?
Apparently so, and loads of different producers couldn’t assist themselves both. DLSS 4.5 and G-Sync Pulsar, two real makes an attempt at technical problem-solving with sole focuses on making video games higher to play, needed to cohabit an announcement with Dynamic MFG, yet one more model of Nvidia’s lag-inducing AI body technology tech. To not point out, by way of Nvidia ACE, extra experiments within the invariably stilted and awkward world of AI NPCs. The most recent try: including a personality-bereft ‘adviser’ to Complete Struggle: Pharaoh, who’s functionally a VRAM-heavy search engine in a humorous hat.
Intel additionally buried their doubtlessly world-beating handheld APU underneath slides of buzzwords about AI compute energy and no matter a “Hybrid Agentic Planner” is, and whereas Razer had a brand new, Bluetooth-enabled model of their good Wolverine V3 controller, they might have leaned additional into high-concept silliness than another gaming peripheral maker on the present. Headline merchandise primary: Venture AVA, an AI “desk companion” whereby a holographic anime catgirl (or, chillingly, the visage of real-life League of Legends professional Faker) could be made to bark primary FPS techniques at you. Quantity two: Venture Motoko, which might charitably be described as an Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional that appears like a pair of headphones. Its purposes, proven to date solely in closely edited mockup clips, embody summarising the pages of a guide you are studying – conveniently saving you the difficulty of studying a guide – and someway holding and accessing facial recognition information on strangers.
CES has all the time had an excessively formidable, possibly even unhinged power to it, with its flooring stuffed with flying vehicles and sensible bathtubs. However that unintentional comedy quackery has, over the previous few exhibits, been changed by one thing darker. One thing nonetheless based mostly in fantasy overpromising, however now not delivered with the earnest attraction of hopeful inventors. As an alternative, AI is commemorated with the non secular fervour, by individuals who aren’t merely content material with arguing that you want it – the world itself should change round it. Thus, we’ve got a Client Electronics Present the place shopper electronics take a backseat to the wealthy and highly effective standing on a stage, agreeing with one another about how unhealthy authorized safeguards are. If, certainly, these electronics earn a point out in any respect.
