What I Expect from CES 2023

CES starts later this week. The Consumer Electronics Showcase is the one week every year that almost all tech companies prioritize to get their PR shots out there. Typically, we learn about the products or features set to release the rest of the year.

But in the midst of a significant economic downturn, with the six largest US tech stocks losing over $3 trillion in market cap during 2022, I expect this to affect the volume and variety of announcements – with companies mostly focusing on core consumer product announcements over moonshot ideas.

Nonetheless, I have a few predictions for what we’ll see at CES this year.

AI had a great year, but I don’t think it’ll show up heavily at CES 2023.

I think platforms like OpenAI, Midjourney, and Jasper have all created great announcement/update pipelines that don’t require big PR pushes. OpenAI’s ChatGPT became the fastest app to reach 1 million users in 5 days with minimal PR. Therefore, CES doesn’t need to be as pertinent to their marketing.

Still, a lot of funding has poured into this industry recently ($125M to Jasper and $50M to Runway, for example). And that means they’ll have a presence. Most likely, productivity and process-focused AI programs for white-collared automation will be plentiful.

Metaverse companies need to use CES 2023 as a moment to show us why we should care about the metaverse.

A lot of people and investors are eager to see the metaverse take that next leap in usage. Meta is struggling after a down year in headset shipments, a lackluster Quest Pro release, and the constant critical eye of the media.

HTC Vive will unveil a new headset on January 5th, 2023. This could be momentous in supplanting a duopoly among metaverse device makers. A head-to-head competition between Meta and HTC could be great for this industry in the same way that iOS and Android marked the mobile computing competition.

Overall, we need to see some big ideas and experiences from the metaverse this CES to prove why it's the next great playground for innovators.

Car tech will come out on top again as the most dominant tech category for new ideas at CES 2023.

CES has moved away from the rinky-dink, gimmicky devices over the years – like all of the voice-enabled products – and has become somewhat of a mini car show. I’m expecting to see a lot of car tech again this year.

While the focus for many vehicle vendors may appear to be on parts and other hardware, the growing trend is heading toward the software-defined vehicle where engineers play double duty in hardware and software design fields, using AI and robotics approaches for next-generation vehicles.

Many of the West Hall exhibitors appear to be showing tech related to self-driving and not only in-car infotainment. They include an array of sensors vendors showing off lidar, radar and 3D camera MCUs and related products as the industry continues to weigh ideal sensor fusion concepts. – Fierce Electronics

I’m particularly interested in seeing new forms for in-car infotainment, like the Holoride metaverse Audi has created for their passengers.

Anyways, I’ll keep you updated this week with what I find fascinating from CES 2023.