It’s time for the biggest technology show of the year. CES 2025 officially kicks off next week, with most of the industry’s biggest names flocking to Las Vegas to unveil new products and demonstrate some of the most exciting technology all year.
CES is traditionally a show about TVs, laptops, and smart home technology. But it’s increasingly becoming a big show for autos, wearables, health technology, and more. Expect one abbreviation to appear frequently in every category this year. That is “AI”. The AI hype cycle is barreling towards 2025, and whether we like it or not, we’re sure to see AI in the next generation of TVs and cars.
The show officially begins on Tuesday, January 7th, but you can expect announcements to start rolling out on Sunday and Monday ahead of the show floor opening and press conference day.
Here are the big beats to expect from the show:
tv set
I foresee two general TV trends at CES 2025. Screens will continue to get bigger and AI capabilities will become increasingly ubiquitous. Consumers have been gravitating toward larger TVs (75-inch and larger TVs) in recent years, so get ready to see giant OLED and Mini LED models from Samsung, LG, TCL, Hisense, and more.
And just about every TV manufacturer will be trying up to 11 AI-powered tricks this year. They already have automatic image and audio settings. But given the popularity of ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and other AI assistants, it’s only a matter of time (perhaps within days) before chatbots make their way onto your next TV.
Expect the hottest news to come from Samsung and LG. However, I’m very curious to see what Panasonic plans to do after its successful return to the US TV market last year.
smart home
CES 2025 will be the year of smart home gadgets. This year, expect an avalanche of new products from companies like Aqara, Nanoleaf, Tapo, Reolink, SwitchBot, Shelly, Lutron, Lifx, Flic, and Cyclc. I’m looking forward to seeing real innovation, products that take smart homes to the next level, especially now that we have the foundation of Matter, a unified connectivity standard that can leverage smart homes.
One area where we expect to see a number of new products with exciting features is smart locks. With the new Aliro standard being introduced next year, this space is ripe for change. Easier, more seamless ways to deal with locks and security are a universal need and can also help bring the benefits of home automation to more people.
We may see more screens than we really want
Another trend we expect to see on the show floor is new ways to control your smart home. Following the success of Amazon’s Echo Hub, a new touchscreen interface connects to smart home devices and provides a way for anyone in your home to control lights, locks, shades, and more without using their phone or smartphone. I think many will appear. voice. We may see more screens than we actually want. Samsung has already teased its new “Screen Everywhere” initiative, which will include touchscreens in all of its home appliances.
Another big theme is robotics. Robot vacuums have been innovating at breakneck speed over the past few years, and many are now capable of sweeping and mopping floors almost completely autonomously. With Ecovacs, Roborock, Dreame, Narwal, and more joining the show, we think we’ll see robot vacuums reach new heights.
Finally, home energy management will be an overarching theme throughout Smart Home at CES. I think most product announcements focus on energy use and conservation, but more importantly, the announcement about a new home energy management system, a platform that leverages AI to adjust how your home uses energy. I think that is what will be done. It helps you both save energy and save money. No matter how fun color-changing lights are, this is one of the most compelling reasons to add connectivity to your home.
– Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
automatic
From a transportation perspective, I think it’s safe to say that this year’s CES will be the sleepiest ever. Most of the world’s major automakers have ignored this announcement, and most transportation-themed announcements have already been made in some form.
Look at Afeela, Sony and Honda’s joint EV project. While updates on pre-orders and customer experience are expected, this is the third time we’ve seen the upcoming vehicle arrive.
However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some interesting news. Honda is preparing to share more details about its Honda Zero lineup, with two new vehicles that certainly fill the bill for a sleek, aerodynamic sedan with cool, cyberpunk-inspired lighting motifs. It’s open to the public.
BMW is another major manufacturer that has big CES plans this year. The German automaker plans to Unveiling the “Neue Klasse” platform It’s something we’ve been teasing for years, including a new panoramic iDrive display and updated operating system.
Indeed, with the threat of tariffs and incentive cuts hanging over the EV market, it’s no surprise to see fewer plug-in vehicles on display at shows. But a number of commercial vehicle manufacturers, including John Deere and Oshkosh, are planning big announcements that will whet the appetite for battery-powered machines.
laptop
The Windows laptop space has seen a flurry of exciting changes over the past year, with Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm all releasing great new mobile CPUs through 2024. We’ll probably see a ton of Intel Arrow Lake chips powering laptops and various products. of new amd products But the real story at CES will likely be about graphics. The anticipated launch of next-generation Nvidia GPUs makes it feel like the entire PC space is about to explode.
We’ll continue to hear a lot of rumors about “AI PCs.”
This year’s show will feature a slew of gaming and content creation laptops built around Nvidia’s new 50-series discrete GPUs. And we hope that means significant performance improvements over the 40 series, rather than just expensive iterative upgrades. Or, your laptop might not need a discrete GPU at all to achieve above-average gaming performance. According to leaks, AMD will feature a powerful new Strix Halo processor with integrated graphics to rival Nvidia’s RTX 4060 GPU. I love top-of-the-line, cutting-edge GPUs (like those ending in 90), but I also love the idea of better performance spilling over into thinner, lighter machines.
The big story may be graphics, but one thing is for certain: we’ll continue to hear a lot of talk about “AI PCs,” and they won’t mean much for anything other than a mundane automatically generated work email. This means that there is a high possibility that you will not have it. A problematic chatbot. Sure, live translation is nifty, but the most interesting AI feature coming to laptops at CES 2025 will be what Nvidia has in store for next-gen DLSS.
– Antonio G. Di Benedetto
game
This CES is shaping up to be a big year for PC gaming. One of the biggest announcements at CES is the next generation of GPUs from both Nvidia and AMD. We expect Nvidia to announce its RTX 50 series graphics cards at a special GeForce keynote on January 7th. Nvidia’s next-generation GPU has been heavily leaked, suggesting it will include new “neural rendering” capabilities and “advanced DLSS technology.” Nvidia could be ready to announce up to five new cards at CES, including the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5070, and even the China-bound RTX 5090D.
AMD may also announce a new RDNA 4 GPU at CES. According to rumors The Radeon RX 9070 XT will be at the show, but it’s more likely to compete with Nvidia’s current RTX 4080 than the upcoming RTX 5080. The RX 9070 XT may also launch with FSR 4, AMD’s latest upscaling technology that is expected to be completely AI. It has been enhanced to more closely compete with Nvidia’s DLSS.
It wouldn’t be CES without new gaming laptops and the latest CPUs from Intel and AMD. According to rumors At CES, we may soon see Intel’s Arrow Lake-H series laptop processors paired with RTX 50 series GPUs in a variety of laptops. If that combination is accurate, we should see a ton of gaming laptops come along with it.
If you’ve been waiting to upgrade your monitor to OLED, expect to find more options during CES. Asus, Samsung, and MSI all announced their first 27-inch 4K OLED 240Hz monitors. MSI is 500Hz 1440p OLED monitorAnd ASRock has even more 520Hz IPS monitor For those who still want to play in 1080p. With new GPUs on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to combine them with next-generation OLED technology.
Finally, if you’re interested in PC gaming but don’t want to spend a lot of money on a dedicated device or gaming laptop, a handheld device may be even more appealing. Lenovo appears to be about to launch its own SteamOS handheld, inviting both Valve and Microsoft to a special gaming handheld event at CES. Microsoft’s “Next Generation Vice President” will be in attendance as it looks like Windows will have to battle SteamOS when it comes to PC gaming on handhelds.
smartphone
CES is no longer a phone show, but I’m going to focus on non-phone shows. I think phones will be in the spotlight this year. Non-phone allows you to do things you would normally do by tapping the phone screen, but not on the phone. Glasses with cameras, gadgets without screens, things like that. We seem to be discovering that perhaps the Phone doesn’t need to do everything under the sun. we can have other Gadgets to use when you don’t need a phone, like a point-and-shoot camera, a small e-ink tablet that runs all your favorite reading apps, and a silicone case that turns your Apple Watch into an iPod. Importantly, it does not completely replace your mobile phone. They just complement it.
Oh, and of course there will be a lot of AI. AI refrigerator, AI roller skates, AI pants, I don’t know. Personally, I’d like to see some AI gadgets that are really useful but not over the top. More meta Raybans, less humane AI pins. I still think phones will remain undefeated as the AI gadget of the future, but I also think there’s room for some things other than phones. I hope so anyway.
wearable
This year looks like it will be another year where smartwatches take a backseat to more niche wearables. I think we’ll see some updated smart rings, but I think smart glasses, AR headsets, and AI wearables will dominate the show floor. Nothing quite like the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, Rabbit, and Humane. Think of the small, established companies showing off newness in this space, as well as the brave startups pushing the boundaries. Either way, smart glasses and AI wearables will gain real momentum in 2024, and that will be reflected at CES 2025.
On the health front, we expect the trends of the past few years to continue. Things like OTC hearing aids, remote health monitoring, and at least some crazy concepts that are almost certainly vaporware. After all, it’s not CES unless a few companies claim to have cracked the code to non-invasive blood sugar monitoring. Speaking of AI, I definitely expect to see more health tech companies embedding chatbots like ChatGPT into their existing devices and services.
In recent years, categories for women such as beauty tech have also been gaining momentum. L’Oréal has been at the forefront of this movement, and it will be interesting to see how the category fares this year after generating so much buzz at the 2024 show.