CES 2026 – Day 1 – What Madhouse?

Floor report – a more sedate experience

• The first day of CES is usually a madhouse, but this year, the frantic mania and scrambling to go places on time has given way to a more sedate back and forth as many participants have chosen not to come and the technology tourists have largely stayed at home.
• The usual indicators corroborate this impression, as there is space on the Monorail, places to sit in the halls, no queues for the bathrooms, plenty of taxis, as well as Ubers that arrive in 5 minutes.
• The geopolitical situation has obviously had some impact, but there are many more Chinese-domiciled companies showing products on the floor than there were last year.
• Most of these are companies that already sell consumer products (such as TVs and routers) into the US market but there also plenty of Chinese exporters, new robotics companies, as well as car makers and component suppliers.
• Hence, I don’t think that the relative peace can all be explained by geopolitics, and there are signs from the keynotes that with all the action being in AI, at the moment, consumer hardware is taking a back seat.
• I think that this points to a steady year for consumer electronics overall, meaning that anyone who wants to make a splash will need to add something extra, which will obviously be created using AI.
• This is the biggest change from 2025 as many of the same products are back, but this time they have been enhanced with AI.
• Typical examples are toothbrushes that detect gum condition and plaque deposits, and lawn mowers that are now much more aware of the lawn and how to cut it effectively.
• Unless the footfall really picks up tomorrow, this sedate experience is likely to be the tone of CES2026.

Autonomous driving returns to life

• In 2025, Jensen caused a mad scramble by saying that autonomous driving was finally here.
• This year, he has said the same thing again, but this time, I see signs that he is closer to the target.
• The automotive hall is replete with autonomous vehicles from many companies that I haven’t heard of, as well as all of the autonomous driving software stack companies that either have stands of their own or are on the stands of their partners and customers.
• This is being driven by the steady increase over 2025 in availability of commercial robotaxi services, where in many, there is now more than one provider.
• These services are still quite limited in the areas within which they operate, but they work pretty well, and crucially, they are generating revenues.
• I think that this has been enabled by the admission that using a map of some description improves performance as does the use of lidars rather than just cameras.
• This is why all of the main lidar makers are back at the show except for Ouster, whose proposition is more about robots and machine automation, meaning that this show is less relevant.
• The net result is that the slow commercialisation of autonomous driving is slowly gathering pace and is getting closer to the point where it is large enough to be relevant.
• However, the fact that the Boring Company still has to use human drivers in the simplest possible driving scenario is an indication that there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome.
• Hence, we are still far away from a fully autonomous vehicle where the passenger can sleep in the back and not fear for his or her life, but progress is being made, and the industry is slowly maturing.
• Autonomous driving also continues to serve as an indicator for the robotics industry, as self-driving vehicles are robots, and this is one of the easier robotics problems to solve.
• Hence, real progress and traction in autonomous driving will serve as an indicator that some of the problems holding up the robotics industry are beginning to be solved.
• Everyone is excited about robotics this year (more on this tomorrow), but this sector remains many years away from any form of commercial volume.