CES 2026 Review: Are We Crossing the Line in Intelligent Systems?

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Global Electronics Association senior representatives were impressed by the sheer volume of advanced technology at CES 2026 in Las Vegas last week.

“I love the energy and the pace of CES,” said Carrie Sessine, the Association’s chief communications officer, in a LinkedIn post after the event. “There’s so much happening that keeps me moving from one idea to the next.”

“I lost count of how many robots I saw at CES this year,” John Mitchell, president and CEO of the Association, wrote on LinkedIn. “Some were taking selfies, inspecting work on vehicles, and others were literally walking alongside people, like colleagues, not machines. At a certain point, you stop laughing and start paying attention.”

These robots were not tucked away as a novelty or a concept demo, he said, but were a very normal presence, and these machines were not asking which problem to solve. “They were already solving one. Helping people. Checking work. Moving through real environments with real purpose.”

Sessine visited sessions on AI marketing and global trade and technology, with one comment that particularly stood out: “In 2026, we can predict unpredictability.”

“I find that applicable far beyond trade or tech, serving as a valuable reminder that as we plan and strategize, we need to leave space for what we cannot anticipate,” she wrote in her post.

Before attending CES, Shawn DuBravac, chief economist for the Association, wrote: “As industrial AI, robotics, and many of the technologies we will see on the show floor, become more capable, the complexity of controlling them should arguably decrease, not increase. The most advanced products shouldn’t demand more attention, more configuration, or more training. They should require less.”

Mitchell said these thoughts hit close to home for electronics manufacturing. “This feels less like automation as a cost play and more like robotics as a partner,” he wrote in his post. “Supporting the workforce. Filling skill gaps. Improving safety and bringing consistency to complex tasks. Not replacing people, but extending what people can do. CES made something very clear for me. Robotics has crossed a line from spectacle to substance. If you design, build, or depend on electronics, this is no longer a future trend to watch. This is already starting to shape how work gets done.”

DuBravac wrote that he would be watching to see which companies “have built enough confidence into their systems to truly delegate control, hiding the complexity of their digital brains behind intuitive, human-centered design. Ultimately, the real test isn’t whether a system can make decisions, but whether people are willing to let it. If a system is truly intelligent, you shouldn’t have to manage it. You should barely have to notice it. The most meaningful interfaces of the future probably shouldn't look anything like a dashboard at all. It should look like trust. I’m looking for early signals of how this shift is emerging.”