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Artificial intelligence toothbrush. AI sleep mask. AI baby monitoring. Artificial intelligence coffee maker. Cat feeding AI. I have a pen. pin ai. Massage chair with artificial intelligence technology. that Artificial intelligence mirror Who “reads your face.” that I have a refrigerator Who needs to know me better than I know myself. AI smart ring, Smart necklace with artificial intelligence technology, Artificial intelligence headphonesOh my god whatever.
On the first day of my first CES, I started keeping a list in my notes app. Not a list of companies to follow, but of products that have been treated with AI for no apparent reason.
Some products were good. Some were ridiculous. A few of them were really impressive (looking at you, massage chair). But they all suffer from the same problem: Often times, AI doesn’t solve a real problem. It is simply a marketing strategy.
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This was my first time attending a major technology trade show in Las Vegas, and I was expecting to feel overwhelmed. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world gathered in two places in one of the most luxurious cities ever? Yes, I was prepared for sensory overload. But what I didn’t expect was how quickly “artificial intelligence” would start to become startlingly meaningless. By day three, every step became blurred: AI-powered, AI-driven, AI-enabled.
Most of them? Artificial intelligence bullshit.
I found myself oscillating between fascination and exhaustion. Fascination with the sheer ambition and grandeur of the shows promising the key to the future. Exhaustion from the number of times this future seemed like a bullshit solution in search of a problem that didn’t exist, all wrapped up in an LLM.
The problem at CES 2026 wasn’t the AI itself. But to what extent was it applied freely and randomly?
AI fatigue Doesn’t mean we should reject technology as a whole. It’s about seeing something that could be really powerful become a buzzword and get slapped onto any product and device that doesn’t need it. When everything is powered by AI, nothing seems innovative. It’s a check box. state. anticipation. That’s when the fatigue starts.
As a first-time CES attendee, I’ve been waiting for the moment when the hype will finally turn to clarity. Give me evolution! Motivator! Epiphany! A paradigm shift! Something!
And then, unexpectedly, I found it. He was shockingly grounded. Sorry to most models, but I haven’t found clarity in lifestyle gadgets or products promising to reinvent the way I drink coffee, take notes, or sit in a chair. That was in health and medical research, and I think the main difference was that AI wasn’t the headline – it was the infrastructure.
In conversations about Neurological researchFor diagnosis and treatment, artificial intelligence is used to highlight patterns that are too complex for human cognition alone to resolve in a timely manner. I felt real optimism about using AI to analyze brain signals, aid in non-surgical treatments and surgeries, and Moving medicine forward Gradually and responsibly. This is where AI appears to have a positive impact in the real world. The amazing part is that in a room full of products that insist they’ll change our lives, these are the discoveries that are actually focused on helping us live better lives.
Humanity, human consequences and human life are at the forefront of these innovations. Isn’t that something?
Once that clicked, it reshaped my week at CES.
Because, for all the talk of artificial intelligence, robots, and cloning, the most remarkable aspect of CES is the deep, stubborn, glorious humanity at its center. I loved the buzz of the CNET workroom, the crowd of bodies packed shoulder to shoulder in hotel halls, casinos and hallways, the excitement of thousands of journalists and industry professionals coming together in a single moment to glimpse the future of technology. There is something very special about how powerful and impactful these moments of connection are.
It was meeting my coworkers in person for the first time and realizing how much chemistry doesn’t translate over Slack messages. It’s losing at the pool (sorry, Leigh and David), chaotic taxi rides through Vegas (we made it, David and John), laughing over great food, shared exhaustion and the sheer ridiculousness of seeing… AI clones are trying to bring humanity closer together While the real thing stands next to me. The future seems worth caring about.
CES hasn’t made me any more pessimistic about AI — I’ve always thought most of it is bullshit — but I think I’m clearer about how impatient I am for it to lose its unnecessary ubiquity. Unnecessary AI is now crowding out important things. The most compelling technology I saw at CES was, as it turns out, technology that will allow us to communicate more easily, live a little better and focus on humanity. I’ll be waiting for more of that.