That’s a wrap!
CES 2026 is over and we’re outta here. You should still expect more articles over the coming days that relate back to who we spoke to and what we saw at CES.
This was the year of “physical AI,” in which companies showed off consumer gadgets, robots, and vehicles that put AI front and center. To pull off physical AI, you gotta have compute. And so it certainly made sense that the two keynotes packed with arguably the most news were from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su.
Robots, and specifically humanoid robots also took center stage, including on the deal flow side of things. Hyundai, which is the majority owner of Boston Dynamics, had an exhibit filled with robots, including its humanoid Atlas. (The line to get into the Hyundai exhibit was never absent, illustrating the interest in robots.)
Finally, as transportation editor I would be remiss not to comment on cars. CES is no longer a U.S. and European car show, a status it enjoyed for about a decade until last year. But that doesn’t mean vehicles were absent. Several Chinese automakers had exhibits, including Geely Holding, even though vehicles from this region cannot be sold in the United States.
There were plenty of transportation-related announcements and displays — even if they weren’t of the passenger car or truck variety. Autonomous vehicle technology was everywhere, lidar companies, startups hawking automated driving software, to industrial applications of the tech, and of course, robotaxis.
Waymo and Zoox both had booths showcasing their respective robotaxis — and the crowds were consistent and large. Will more robotaxi operators set up shop in the Las Vegas Convention Center next year? My guess is yes and I have a few ideas of which ones will be there.
See ya next time.
