From holographic car displays to AI-powered PCs, tech giants are betting big on intelligence that goes beyond smart
Just when you thought your toaster couldn’t get any smarter, CES 2025 is about to prove you wrong. The world’s biggest tech show returns to Las Vegas from Jan. 7-10, promising to stuff artificial intelligence into literally everything that has a power button.
The AI gold rush remains in full swing: Samsung’s going all-in with its “AI for All: Everyday, Everywhere” vision — including AI fridges that promise to anticipate temperature changes when you’re unloading groceries — because apparently your lettuce needed a smart assistant. LG is getting oddly personal with what they’re calling “Affectionate Intelligence” (yes, really). Even Samsung’s startup incubator is showing off AI everything – from video production to exercise coaching to energy management. The message is clear: if your gadget doesn’t have AI in 2025, does it even exist?
But this year’s real battleground is AI agents. After 2024's mixed bag of AI companions (pour one out for the Humane Pin and the half-baked Rabbit R1), tech giants are betting that what we really want is AI assistants baked into everything we own. The pitch for these empowered AI bots is that you won’t have to open apps for every little task; this tech promises to handle everything from scheduling your day to ordering your coffee, all through natural conversation. Whether they’ll actually deliver this time – or show any actual affection – remains to be seen.
And yes, somehow, the TV industry has found its next revolution: a fancier cable. While the exact specs of HDMI 2.2 are still under wraps, it promises to surpass the impressive 10K resolution and 120Hz refresh rates of HDMI 2.1. Translation: Your movies and games are about to get even prettier, smoother, and more detailed — if you can find any 10K content to actually watch.
On the computing front, Nvidia $NVDA (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang will take the stage for what promises to be another leather-jacketed keynote about next-gen GPUs. Industry leaks suggest the RTX 5090 could be up to 70% faster than its predecessor, which already had “unholy power,” according to one reviewer. Not to be outdone, Intel $INTC and AMD $AMD are also expected to announce chips that will make your current gaming rig feel like a calculator.
Speaking of chips, 2025 is shaping up to be the year PC makers try to convince you that your computer isn’t smart enough. After 2024's first wave of AI PCs with Copilot+ buttons and 16GB RAM requirements, Microsoft $MSFT’s (MSFT) next generation promises even more powerful NPUs and AI features. Dell $DELL, HP $HPQ, and friends are hoping you’ll upgrade your Windows 10 machine (which loses support next year) to a shiny new AI-powered PC. Just don’t expect an immediate productivity boost – studies show current AI PC owners actually spend more time figuring out how to talk to their computers than getting actual work done. But hey, at least you’ll feel fancy while your PC makes you feel technologically illiterate.
The auto industry continues its transformation into a tech show within a tech show. Hyundai’s (HYMTF) Mobis division is set to steal some spotlight with what they’re calling the world’s first full-windshield holographic display. This isn’t just a fancy heads-up display, it’s a screen that spans from driver to passenger, promising to overlay navigation, vehicle info, and safety alerts across your entire field of view. Think Iron Man’s helmet display, but for your car. BMW’s not far behind, planning to debut their own take with something called the Panoramic iDrive display.
About 100,000 tech enthusiasts, industry professionals, and AI chatbots (kidding — that would make it more like 200,000) will descend upon the Las Vegas Convention Center and Venetian Expo for the event. As always, CES promises to show us the future, or at least what tech companies think we’ll buy in the near future.
Whether all these innovations actually make it to market in 2025 is another story entirely, but hey, that’s half the fun of CES.
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