Las Vegas felt, for a few electric days, like a dress rehearsal for tomorrow: towering robot demos rubbing shoulders with countertop frippery that belongs more in a fever dream than a kitchen. CES 2026 served up two moods simultaneously — industrial cheerleading for an AI-driven robotics boom, and a carnival of oddball consumer gadgets that made everyone stop and laugh (or cringe).
A robot renaissance — on display
The big story on the main stages was unmistakable: companies are betting chips, software and reputations on physical AI. Nvidia used its keynote to show off Gr00t, a vision‑language model aimed at translating sensor inputs into body control, and touted Cosmos for reasoning and planning. Jensen Huang’s line — that the humanoid industry is “riding on the work of the AI factories we’re building for other AI stuff” — underlined the industry thesis: language and vision models are the missing brains for general-purpose robots.
Chipmakers didn’t sit this one out. AMD backed Generative Bionics’ Gene.01, a humanoid intended for industrial settings; Qualcomm highlighted Dragonwing chips and VLM work; Google’s DeepMind announced collaboration with Boston Dynamics around Atlas. Startups and legacy robotics firms showed everything from humanoids that dance and box to slow, household assistants that take their time folding towels (LG’s wheeled CLOiD folded one in roughly 30 seconds, according to a demo).
There were also reminders that flashy demos aren’t the same as reliable fielded products. Safety, speed and reliability on messy carpets, around pets and kids, remain major hurdles. Analyst skepticism was audible: robotics hardware and software must bridge a big gulf between show-floor spectacle and useful, everyday operation. Still, the investment is real — and some companies are already selling expensive, capable machines. China’s Unitree put a $70,000 G1 on display; 1X launched the multi-modal home helper Neo last fall at about $20,000.
If you want context for the broader debate about whether AI has reached a tipping point, the conversations at CES echo the industry split captured in recent commentary on AI’s future and limits AI’s Tipping Point: Pioneers Say Human‑Level Intelligence Is Here — Skeptics Say Not Yet.
Weird and wonderful: the gadgets that made people pause
Meanwhile, down the aisles that belong to startups and novelty makers, CES reminded visitors why the show is part trend‑setter, part oddities bazaar. TechCrunch rounded up a parade of the weirdest items:
- Razer’s Project AVA — a 5.5‑inch animated holographic desk companion that watches your screen and offers coaching, organization and advice. It’s flashy and eerie in equal measure.
- An’An, an AI baby panda from Mind With Heart Robotics, designed to provide companionship and reminders for older adults. It uses sensors and an emotional AI that remembers voice and interactions.
- GoveeLife’s Smart Nugget Ice Maker Pro — it’s $499.99 and claims to use AI to prevent noisy freeze cycles by defrosting preemptively.
- Seattle Ultrasonics’ vibrating chef’s knife — a $399 blade that vibrates at 30,000+ Hz to slice with less effort.
- Lollipop Star’s bone‑conduction musical lollipops that pipe music into your skull while dissolving in your mouth.
- Zeroth Robotics’ W1, a WALL‑E‑esque rover that sells for about $4,999 and promises home patrols and campground photography.
- Mira’s Ultra4 Hormone Monitor — an egg‑shaped $249 device for at‑home urine hormone testing.
Some of these products verge on useful; others exist to spark conversation. The line between legitimately helpful tech and glossy gimmickry is thin and often subjective. An’An, for instance, taps into a sincere problem — loneliness and caregiving support for the elderly — but it also raises questions about data, consent and the ethics of synthetic companionship.
Why both the spectacle and the silly matter
CES has always been both predictor and puppet show. The lofty robot announcements matter because they show where infrastructure — chips, training pipelines and VLMs — is converging. Companies are rushing to become the one‑stop ecosystem for robot builders, offering hardware, cloud tools and pre‑trained models. That trend even overlaps with mainstream consumer AI developments: large companies are embedding custom models across devices and services in ways that echo what we saw at CES and in other product roadmaps, including work on custom model integrations for assistants and devices Apple to use a custom Google Gemini model to power next‑gen Siri.
On the other hand, the quirky gadgets puncture hubris. They’re quick experiments in attention economics — affordable, photogenic, sometimes useful and often silly. They keep the show lively and remind engineers to stay curious. At their best, these oddities inspire the next useful idea; at their worst, they’re expensive shelfware.
Walking the CES halls this year felt like watching an industry multitrack its future: one track racing toward industrial robots powered by increasingly capable models, another orbiting the consumer imagination with toys and bedside companions. Both tracks will tug on each other — the chips and software that make humanoids credible will filter down into bedside devices, and consumer tastes will shape what companies build at scale.
If anything, CES 2026 made one thing clear: we’re no longer just dreaming about robots in the house. We’re building the scaffolding. Whether the first wave of helpers will be practical roommates or stylish, over‑priced props remains to be seen — but they’ll certainly be entertaining to watch in the meantime.