CES 2026: Expect chip wars, new laptops, AI robots and a nod to autonomous driving

The largest technology conference in the world kicks off on Tuesday in Las Vegas, following two days of media previews, which will set the tone for the latest gadgets and robots we can expect to see this year.

Formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, CES, will bring over 4,500 exhibitors, including 1,400 start-ups, as well as leading companies such as Meta, Lenovo, Samsung, Nvidia, among others, to the United States.

Last year, the show brought more than 140,000 people to multiple venues, according to the 2025 numbers. Last year’s CES also began against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, with tariffs dominating the agenda in a new political landscape led by the Trump Administration.

“A year on, the situation still feels fluid. While the event has typically focused on connected devices, it is ultimately about how we interact with them and the content we access,” said tech analyst Paolo Pescatore.

AI in everything and chip wars

Artificial intelligence (AI) will be embedded in nearly everything, as the tech industry continues to develop offerings that consumers will actually want to purchase.

Industry heavyweight Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will be onstage to showcase the company’s latest productivity solutions, AMD CEO Lisa Su will keynote to “share her vision for delivering future AI solutions”.

Expect AI to be discussed in other keynotes, such as those from Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang.

We can certainly expect a chip war, with Intel already unveiling a next-generation Core Ultra platform, “Panther Lake,” meanwhile, Qualcomm announced a next-generation mobile Windows on Arm processor will be the Snapdragon Elite X2.

The laptop battle

This will likely spark a flurry of laptop announcements. LG has already teased 2026 Gram Pro laptops, which the company says include the “world’s lightest 17-inch RTX laptop.”

“If there's one thing I can guarantee, it's that CES 2026 won't be short of laptops. That's mainly due to a new family of chips from Intel, which promise the world for performance - including games - and battery life. But we'll see what the reality is,” said Tim Danton, Editor of TechFinitive.com and author of The Computers That Made The World.

“I'm also expecting a load of interesting new designs, including rollable screens, and with any luck, they should be more repairable than ever,” he told Euronews Next.

Elsewhere, there’ll be gadgets across healthcare, vehicles, wearables and gaming.

Home robots

Sony Honda Mobility is expected to reveal a production version of its Afeela EV. And more unveils around domestic robots are predicted too.

South Korean tech giant LG has already announced it will show off a helper bot named “CLOiD,” which will apparently handle a “wide range of indoor household tasks.”

“You're just going [to] have humanoid robots walking around, doing stuff,” said Ben Bajarin, CEO and principal analyst at Creative Strategies.

“This idea of, call it physical AI, so AI that's not just in software in your computer, but now manifests itself physically, which includes automotive.

“So full-on autonomy, self-driving cars, and then again, autonomous humanoid robots, I think, are going to be the thing where you're just going to see an overabundance of that.”

Samsung is meanwhile going big on OLED, a display technology. The South Korean company says it will integrate this technology into “edge device” concept models to make AI-powered devices look better One example includes an AI OLED Bot, which is a small robot concept that's deployed as a teaching assistant in a university.

Bajarin added that recent fears about the AI boom turning into an overblown bubble have diminished for now.

"I lean toward, this is again, much more of a build-out than a bubble,” he said

“We're sort of early cycle in a massive industrial investment cycle where people just need to lay the ground for the future compute.”