It’s an intoxicating show to watch unfold, packed floor to ceiling with optimism, innovation and, yes, unfulfillable promises. But even the sprawling CES show floor can’t fully capture the seismic shifts in product and policy that will shape our relationship with technology this year.
Here’s our guide to the tech trends we expect to see in 2024.
AI gadgets everywhere
Companies like Intel and Qualcomm are racing to make mainstream PCs designed to excel at AI features, powered by distinct “neural processing units” in their central processing units (CPUs). Microsoft, whose Windows software will run on those machines, recently mandated that new Windows PCs must include a dedicated AI button on their keyboards, for easier access to the Copilot AI baked into Windows 11.
Smartphones, which have for years used machine learning to improve our photos and make phone calls sound better, continue to lean into AI hype. Samsung, for instance, plans to launch new devices “powered by AI” right after CES. More interesting, though, are the upstarts looking past traditional smartphones to envision how a truly AI-first gadget should work.
Humane, a California start-up with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, is gearing up to release an AI-powered pin that engages you in conversations and projects data onto your hand. Another company, Rabbit, plans to show off this month a handheld device that can tackle complicated, multipart voice commands that Siri and Alexa wouldn’t know how to handle.
Even at this early stage, the list of AI-powered products slated for a 2024 debut include cars, robots of all kinds, health and accessibility tools, and even electric bikes. Whether any of this stuff is worth using remains to be seen, but be ready to hear about AI gadgets for the rest of the year — and surely beyond.
A reckoning for ‘spatial’ computing
We’re not saying 2024 is the year everyone will rush to buy their own fancy headset. But it is the year we’ll start to see Big Tech push a more complete vision of what virtual reality, mixed reality and augmented reality will make possible for us.
The elephant in the room is Apple. The company last year offered a first glimpse of the $3,499 headset it hopes will change the way we consume media and get work done. As the company prepares a launch expected before spring, two questions have yet to be answered: Can Apple make a mixed-reality headset that people will want to use? And what happens to the entire spatial computing movement if it can’t?
Of course, Apple isn’t the only company charting a course into “spatial” computing. Samsung and Google announced a partnership last year to work on headsets.
Meanwhile, chipmaker Qualcomm keeps churning out updated versions of its XR processors that offer ever-higher resolutions (to put more detailed images in front of your eyes) and support more cameras (to better track eyes, hands and the world around the wearer) for use by the Samsungs, Googles and Metas of the world — not to mention the many smaller companies itching for a bit of attention in Las Vegas.
The first AI election
We’re not expecting to run into many election officials at the Las Vegas Convention Center, but all the same: Get ready to hear a lot about AI in the run-up to November.
The dire potential of pervasive AI tools in an election year is clear: Misinformation by way of deepfakes, or artificial video and images, and misleading, AI-generated news articles could help deepen political divides, throw campaigns into disarray and poison people’s perception of legitimate reporting.
“Wide-spread circulation of manufactured content may undermine voters’ trust in the broader information environment,” says a white paper produced by researchers at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “If voters come to believe that they cannot trust any digital evidence, it becomes difficult to seriously evaluate those who seek to represent them.”
But some seemingly benign uses of AI could affect the way you hear from — and learn about — lawmakers and candidates.
Projects like Chat2024, developed by a Miami start-up called Delphi, let you pose questions to chatbots based on presidential candidates, trained on their published statements and transcripts of video appearances. And at least one congressional candidate — Shamaine Daniels, a Pennsylvania Democrat — has begun to use an AI robocaller developed by a company called Civox to engage thousands of potential voters in customized conversations.
Home health tech gets more personal
No gadget or AI can replace a qualified human doctor — though we wouldn’t be shocked to hear someone make that claim on the show floor. But of the early crop of health tech products appearing at CES, a surprising number of them promise to help track and tend to your well-being from the comfort of your home.
Withings, which made waves last year when it exhibited a urine analyzer, has developed a multifunction device that lets people take their temperature, check their blood oxygen levels, and measure and store results from a digital stethoscope. Other companies plan to show off surprisingly sophisticated sensors, like wireless ear buds that are said to track a person’s heart health with clinical accuracy in addition to playing podcasts.
Some projects are meant to help people with more personal health issues. One start-up based in Ireland plans to release a wearable sensor that tracks the frequency and severity of menopause symptoms, while another from South Korea claims to have developed a gadget that will increase a wearer’s sperm motility.
How well products like these actually work is nearly impossible to gauge at a trade show, but one thing seems clear: Tech companies are keen to dig into issues that haven’t always received a fair share of the limelight.
Big Tech’s antitrust fallout
We’ll start to see how the ways we interact with tech titans could change in response to antitrust pressure.
Jurors in the Epic v. Google trial, for instance, found that the search giant — which maintains the Android operating system used by billions of mobile devices around the world — operated its Google Play app store as a monopoly.
It’s not yet clear what remedies the court will devise, but it’s possible that Google will have to allow Android users more access to competing app stores. In time, that could mean you’ll have to browse multiple stores to find the software you want to use.
Apple may face a similar fate thanks to the European Commission, which some observers expect to require the company to let users “sideload,” or manually install, apps downloaded from outside the App Store.
Other antitrust cases loom large. The Justice Department and several states are suing Google over allegations that it illegally stifles competition in search, and closing arguments are expected to be heard in May. The Federal Trade Commission is waging a legal battle with Amazon over concerns that the commerce giant harms sellers and shoppers by “depriving them of the benefits of open, fair competition.” (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Spending more time connected to satellites
Satellite phone networks have been around for decades, but the idea of regular folks connecting to satellites only entered the mainstream in recent years with Apple’s iPhone, mostly in case of an emergency. But in 2024, some companies are getting closer to making other kinds of practical satellite connections a reality.
Earlier this month, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the first six satellites designed to double as orbiting cell towers, signaling a potential end to the age of the cellular dead zone.
The idea, as Musk first explained in 2022, is to enable regular smartphones — like those offered by cellular partner T-Mobile — to send and receive text messages from anywhere in the world starting this year. The two companies eventually hope to offer voice calls and even data connections, but probably not until 2025 at the earliest.
Meanwhile, Amazon — which aims to build its own global, satellite-based broadband internet service to compete with Musk’s Starlink — cleared a crucial hurdle in late December when it successfully forged a stable, high-speed data connection between two test satellites. The company plans to build enough of an orbiting fleet over the next several months to start trials with customers possible later this year.
