"It was the best of show, it was the worst of show." A friend told me she was looking forward to my annual "What was the best thing you saw at CES?" essay. It's a question I get every year. That is, until someone else popped into my office this past week and asked, "What's the worst thing you saw at CES?"
So, here's the deal: I'll give you both. I won't identify the perpetrators of "the worst;" that wouldn't be nice, or fair. Instead, I'll share a few examples, and if you're interested enough, I am sure you'll be able to track them down. But first, some atmosphere.
CES is huge: 23 million square feet of expo space and150,000 attendees (annual average over the past decade). I’ve tracked my walking distances for the past few years, and last week my Apple Watch reported my daily average as a smidge over eight miles. And this does not include the distance between venues that are connected via shuttles or monorail. I've learned to wear soft foamy running shoes. This year, CES even added a venue devoted solely to AI. Not that AI wasn't prevalent everywhere else at the conference, but this space was exclusive, with lots of NVIDIA branding.
And each venue has a different vibe. The Venetian Expo focuses on health care and fitness, Eureka Park downstairs is filled with startups, universities, and display space organized by country of origin. Upstairs, serious; downstairs, a blend of genius and sometimes just plain weird. The Las Vegas Convention Center has a lot of auto tech, home entertainment and smart home technology. It has a looser, almost casual vibe – the difference between your older brother's exposed-rafter dormer above the garage and your wallpapered bedroom in your parents' house.
That's not an AI health care robot; it's a massage chair. I'll admit it. I was intrigued. I saw "AI health care robot" and made a beeline for the display. Would it measure my vitals and report them to a distant doctor? Dispense medications or assist with daily care? Transcribe medical notes to speed diagnosis and treatment? No. It's a massage chair, with names drawn from biblical Egyptian royalty, High Renaissance polymaths, and fighter jets of the animal kingdom (Pharaoh, Leonardo, Falcon). I will concede that the model with the scalp and facial massage was intriguing. But an AI health care robot? I don't think so.
The same goes for the AI lighting. Again, maybe I expected more: Lights that would adjust automatically based on voice-activated descriptions ("It is 4 p.m. and cloudy outside, and I need to see if this sweater matches these pants"). Or lights that detect differentiated activity and adjust accordingly – no light for the quick brown fox wandering across the yard, but illumination for the human who comes home. Nope. These were "mood lights" ("Light my room for a party." "Set my Star Wars space."). Nice? Sure. Worthy of the stunning display and high-quality printed materials? Who am I to judge. Forty years ago, CES was about VCRs and microwaves. Maybe we (I) have been spoiled by the medical, farming and fitness tech we (I) see each year.
OK, that really is something. Now I will name names. SeeHaptic, from France. "Remember when, as kids, we used to draw pictures on each other's hands and guess what they were? That's what this does for me," explained a company rep, who shared that she was sighted until she lost her vision when she was 13. SeeHaptic is a belt that places tiny vibrating nodes across your lower back, linked to a pair of smart glasses, which then translate the image haptically, in braille-type fashion, to the small of your back. It not only illustrates what is in front of the user but also how far away it is. As the rep explained to me, a white cane tells you only what is on the ground.
And it wasn't just assistive tech that was impressive. Dr. Twin AI takes a one-time genetic report and uses that as the basis for future medical considerations and advice. Does your genetic marking indicate a predisposition to diabetes? Start that low-carb diet now. How does your genetic makeup correlate with the efficacy of alternative pharmaceutical treatments (experts call this pharmacogenomics)? How can my environmental conditions be predicted to affect my health? (This one won a CES Innovation Award).
Holy smokes, that's not a Bible! With 150,000 people on site, someone is going to take the opportunity to pitch a better life. And not the kind that plugs in and churns code or quantum AI. Heavy-duty, cast-iron, soul-piercing testimony that has you shaking for redemption. Usually outside, on a street corner, accompanied by someone with a megaphone, handing out pamphlets or books. But what's this? Outside the Foundry, the CES venue dedicated to AI, the missionaries were handing out books on AI agents and how to build them! My soul might be dusted with the soot of Las Vegas, but I walked away understanding agentic web searches and antibot detection.
You went to CES and that's all you have for us? OK. I'll get serious. For every head-scratching moment (this was the first year I did not see the U.S. Postal Service—but the U.S. Forest Service was there, as was Kodak), there were the ones that mattered. Like French SeeHaptic, described above. Or Israeli Patternox (discussed previously), which uses AI to detect melanoma without breaking the skin. Or GumAI from Hong Kong, which supports dental care in areas lacking sufficient dental care – not replacing dentists, just helping users improve oral hygiene in a bid to avoid acute conditions. Or a South Korean exhibitor who explained that while most cameras are deployed to track movement, its elder-care cameras detect the absence of movement – watching not for what happens, but for what doesn't. Do I need smart glasses to record my daily walk? Probably not. But can real-time translation apps enable doctors to treat patients who might otherwise need an interpreter? Absolutely yes.
Wait, there’s more. And then more examples of technology used meaningfully. XELA Robotics showed off robotic hands that use unique sensors to convey a sense of human touch. Can this technology be transposed to gloves supporting patients with upper-extremity diabetic neuropathy? Robot and prosthetic designers consistently note the difficulty of replicating hand functions; feet and legs are simple by comparison. Walkasins provide haptic cues for patients with foot neuropathy. Allergen Alert is a pocket-sized lab that can sample food (say, at a restaurant) to check for dangerous allergens. Avacam detects ground movements at the millimeter level and warns of landslides or other events (like an avalanche) before they are visible to the human eye.
So yes, there were massage chairs masquerading as AI health care robots. But for every head-scratcher, there were a dozen devices and applications that genuinely transform lives. The best of CES always exceed the worst by magnitudes and reminds us why we keep going back.