What to expect at CES 2026: laptops with new chips from Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD, more AI integrations, smart home robotics, smart glasses, and more
Take a wild guess what tech buzzword is gonna color every gadget … Lauren Faith Lau / Bloomberg : Tech Companies Land at Las Vegas Eager to Show AI Transformation Maria Garcia / Implicator.ai : CES 2026's Biggest Story Isn't on the Show Floor Jacqueline Thomas / IGN : CES 2026: What We Expect To See — Updating live. — CES 2026 is nearly here … Kerry Wan / ZDNET : CES 2026 news: Live updates on TVs, smart glasses, phones, and more we've seen so far Gizmodo : Live Updates From CES 2026 in Las Vegas 🔴 Engadget : CES 2026: What to expect when tech's biggest conference starts on January 4 Sabrina Ortiz / ZDNET : The most exciting AI wearable at CES 2026 might not be smart glasses after all PCMag : What We Expect to See at CES 2026 … It's that time again. PCMag is headed to Las Vegas … Kishalaya Kundu / TechSpot : Dell could bring back XPS laptops powered by Intel Panther Lake at CES 2026
Context & Ripple Effects
CES previews have increasingly treated AI as a cross-device product feature: CES 2024’s expected AI PCs, TVs, and appliances were followed by AI-focused TVs and Nvidia-powered laptops at CES 2025. The 2026 lineup extends that arc from individual product categories to PCs, wearables, and home devices.
The notable hardware change is a three-way laptop-chip presence from Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD, alongside smart-home robotics and smart glasses. That makes CES a concentrated test of whether AI features can differentiate several consumer-device categories at once.
First-order effects
- Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD gain a CES venue to position new laptop silicon around AI-capable PCs, while laptop makers must translate chip capabilities into distinct products.
- Smart-home robotics, smart glasses, and other gadget makers face a higher bar to show practical AI integrations rather than feature checklists.
Second-order effects
- Competing PC vendors will be pushed to compare AI functionality across different processor platforms, reinforcing the importance of software support alongside chip specifications.
- AI features spread into categories already highlighted in prior CES coverage—PCs, TVs, and appliances—raising the likelihood of more bundled, cross-device product messaging.
Third-order effects
- If these launches deliver useful experiences, consumer AI may become less a standalone device category and more an embedded layer across personal computing, wearables, and the home.
- The expanding mix of Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD points toward a more heterogeneous AI-PC market, where developers and device makers must accommodate multiple compute architectures.
The trend: CES 2026 is another marker in the shift from AI-branded hardware announcements to AI being positioned as a baseline capability across consumer devices.