CES 2025: What to Expect

It’s that time of year when the decorations are packed away, resolutions to be happier and healthier are in full flow, and people return to their desks after a well-earned break over the holidays. For the world of technology, this brings one more inescapable truth: CES is just around the corner.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas has long played a role as the annual curtain-raiser for technology and innovation, and CCS Insight will once again be in attendance covering the event. Here are some of the hot topics we expect to define the show, and things we’ll be looking out for during the week.

Let’s start with the obvious: AI will be a major theme, and we firmly expect it to feature throughout the show. It’s hard to imagine a keynote presentation that won’t reference the term, and we expect it to be smattered liberally across the stands of exhibitors hoping to be the “next big thing” to break out at CES. Some of the earliest opportunities for major announcements here come in the keynote and press presentations on day one, where the likes of AMD, Nvidia and Qualcomm set the stage for the week ahead.

However, we caution that the news flow here may be met with a hint of fatigue from audiences who have been hearing about AI as a revolutionary, transformational technology for several years now. In truth, the actual benefits of AI have failed to come close to the level of hype that’s been generated by the industry, and we continue to advocate for AI storytelling that focuses on genuinely beneficial and useful applications for users.

We hope that CES will provide fertile ground for this narrative and predict that the most likely areas could be smart home integration or improvements in personalized home entertainment, given these usually receive plenty of attention at the show. The smart home category in particular is badly in need of some excitement after some stagnant years in which standards that promised to make it sleek and sexy again have struggled to gain much traction.

Home entertainment remains a cornerstone of CES, with brands like Samsung, LG, Sony and TCL all vying for attention by offering bigger and brighter set-ups. In 2024, mini-LED backlit and QLED TVs dominated the narrative, offering superior brightness and contrast ratios. However, the real showstoppers were concept technologies like LG’s transparent OLED screen — which is unlikely to reach living rooms anytime soon — and it would be no surprise to see a similarly gimmicky idea once again grabbing the headlines.

CES has always been a strong platform for PC and component announcements, and 2025 promises to be no exception. Keynote sessions on the first day of the show from big semiconductor firms will set the stage for breakthroughs in processors, GPUs and other critical hardware, and we expect manufacturers to unveil sleek new designs based on these components, with a focus on performance and efficiency, especially in the gaming and professional segments.

In the sphere of connected devices, we expect to hear little about smartphones — major news here is usually saved for MWC Barcelona in March. One area that’s usually worth watching is wearables, where we often see weird and wonderful ideas emerge. Smart rings had a breakout year in 2024 (see Spotlight: Smart Rings, 2024), and we predict that CES 2025 will see a slew of competitors trying to ride this wave. Established names such as Samsung and Oura have a significant advantage, but it’ll be interesting to see if any newcomers bring truly disruptive ideas to the table.

The virtual and augmented reality space often finds a niche at CES, but this year could mark a turning point for the technology both at this show and more broadly. With the launch of Android XR and Samsung’s imminent entry into the market, the ecosystem is realigning, and we expect that 2025 could well be a year of reckoning and rationalization. We’ll be on the lookout for anything that stands out from the spatial computing companies in attendance, but with major players like Meta and Apple skipping the show, announcements are likely to have a limited impact.

Finally, it must be noted that the automotive segment at CES has grown exponentially in recent years, with a vast amount of floor space now dedicated to electric vehicles, autonomous driving technology and connected car platforms. We expect to hear about progress here from established car-makers such as Toyota, which has a first-day keynote, as well as a swathe of technology companies seeking to demonstrate advancements in connected vehicle systems.

So, taking this altogether, what can we expect? Well, CES is always a melting pot of ideas, with companies of all shapes and sizes seeking to set the agenda for the year to come. This year promises more of the same, with a broad range of segments, speakers and topics to watch. The show remains an important staging post for anyone eager to glimpse the future of technology for the next 12 months and beyond, and CCS Insight will be tracking it closely.