If you just bought a Wi‑Fi 7 router, don’t feel bad — the rest of us are in the same boat. Still, CES 2026 made it clear the industry is already sprinting toward the next generation: Wi‑Fi 8 (802.11bn). This year’s show wasn’t about dramatic headline speeds so much as about making wireless connections feel less flaky — especially as homes and devices lean harder on low‑latency, always‑on AI services.
What showed up on the show floor
Asus rolled out a theatrical concept device called the ROG NeoCore — a polyhedral, antenna‑free mockup that, amusingly, was fragile enough to break when handled. The point wasn’t the chassis, though: Asus is pitching Wi‑Fi 8 as a reliability play. The company’s early tests claim up to 2× higher midrange throughput, 2× wider IoT coverage and up to 6× lower P99 latency versus Wi‑Fi 7, thanks to smarter multi‑AP and multi‑client scheduling.
Broadcom used CES to expand its Wi‑Fi 8 catalog as well, unveiling the BCM4918 APU — a system‑on‑chip that pairs CPU grunt with an on‑device neural engine, dedicated network offloads and cryptographic acceleration — plus two new dual‑band radios, the BCM6714 and BCM6719. MediaTek likewise previewed its Filogic 8000 silicon aimed at premium devices. Put together, these chips hint at a future where routers do more than shuttle packets: they steer traffic, run local AI inference and optimize the airwaves in real time.
Why the shift matters (and why it’s not about peak Mbps)
Wi‑Fi 8’s promise isn’t a huge uplick in theoretical top speed. The IEEE’s work on the final standard won’t conclude for a couple of years, and early guidance suggests incremental peak gains. What changes is behavior in realistic conditions: less stuttering when you walk around the house, steadier links for battery‑constrained smart devices, and fewer collisions and interference problems in dense apartment buildings.
Manufacturers are leaning into features such as intelligent spectrum coordination and dynamic scheduling to squeeze more usable performance from existing bands. Broadcom’s APU roadmap adds another wrinkle: routers that can run AI/ML locally to prioritize traffic or run predictive optimizations without always pinging a cloud server.
That capability dovetails with emerging device trends — think local assistants, multi‑device game streaming, and “agentic” app features — and helps explain why faster, more predictable links are suddenly a bigger selling point than headline gigabits.
The messy middle: band choices and consumer confusion
One recurring caveat from the show: not all Wi‑Fi 8 gear will be the same. Broadcom’s new dual‑band chips (2.4 + 5 GHz) join its earlier tri‑band parts (adding 6 GHz), recreating the same product‑stack confusion we saw with Wi‑Fi 7. You can expect premium, tri‑band routers that showcase the full feature set, and more affordable dual‑band devices that hit lower price points but lack parts of the spec. Translating “Wi‑Fi 8” on a box into actual capabilities will require a closer read than past generations did.
When will you actually get one?
Hardware makers told CES attendees to expect first‑generation Wi‑Fi 8 home routers and mesh systems in 2026, with wider adoption through 2027 and standards finalization coming later. Broadcom says its new chips are sampling to early customers with consumer product availability possible by late 2026; MediaTek is aiming at flagship devices later this year as well. History suggests companies will ship products against draft specs first — we saw a similar pattern with Wi‑Fi 7.
So, should you upgrade now?
For most consumers: not urgently. If your current network reliably handles streaming, video calls and gaming, swapping routers this year won’t transform daily life. But if your household struggles with inconsistent coverage, stuttering during cloud‑based games, or dozens of IoT endpoints, Wi‑Fi 8’s focus on reliability and lower latency could be a real improvement.
For device makers, ISPs and anyone building AI‑heavy home services, Wi‑Fi 8 looks like infrastructure that reduces jitter and gives more room for local inference to operate smoothly. That’s the reason companies are already aligning chips, reference designs and router software around on‑device AI and smarter spectrum use — trends that bleed into other corners of the tech world, like Google’s push toward more proactive AI features in apps and services that expect steady, low‑latency links (Google's AI Mode). And for ambitious infrastructure projects that move computing out of traditional data centers, network reliability at the edge becomes even more important — a point underscored by long‑range ideas such as Project Suncatcher that fold connectivity into unconventional architectures.
The CES demos suggest Wi‑Fi 8 will matter less as a spec sheet headline and more as a subtle quality upgrade: fewer freezes, smoother multi‑device behavior, and routers that can think a little. If that’s what your household needs, the next year or two may be the right time to watch for real products — not just pretty prototypes on the show floor.