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The Consumer Electronics Show (commonly abbreviated CES) is the largest annual trade show for consumer technology in the world. Organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the show has been held every January in Las Vegas since 1998 and routinely draws more than 140,000 attendees and over 4,000 exhibiting companies. CES has served as the launching pad for some of the most consequential consumer electronics products of the past six decades, from the videocassette recorder in 1970 to the high-definition television, the Blu-ray Disc, and a steady stream of artificial intelligence platforms, humanoid robots, and generative AI tools that have come to dominate recent editions.
Since roughly 2017 the conference has shifted its center of gravity toward AI. Once a show defined by televisions and stereos, CES today is the place where chipmakers like NVIDIA reveal new GPU architectures, where automakers preview self-driving systems, where Chinese robotics firms such as Unitree and XPeng Robotics introduce humanoid hardware to a global audience, and where startups in Eureka Park compete for press attention with their first AI-powered products. CES 2025 and CES 2026 in particular have been described by trade publications as turning points: events where AI moved from being one track among many to becoming the organizing theme of nearly every booth, panel, and keynote.
The first Consumer Electronics Show opened on June 24, 1967, at the New York Hilton and Americana hotels in Manhattan. It ran through June 28 and attracted roughly 17,500 attendees and 200 exhibitors. The event was conceived as a spinoff from the Chicago Music Show, which until then had served as the primary American venue for displaying consumer audio and television products. CES was launched by the Consumer Electronics Association, then a division of the Electronic Industries Association, to give the rapidly growing consumer electronics segment its own stage. By the second edition attendance had nearly doubled, and in 1972 CES moved its main venue to Chicago.
From 1978 through 1994 CES operated as two separate shows each year. The Winter Consumer Electronics Show (WCES) was held every January in Las Vegas, while the Summer Consumer Electronics Show (SCES) ran each June in Chicago. The split format allowed manufacturers to introduce holiday season products in the summer and winter clearance models in January.
This era coincided with the explosive growth of home video, personal audio, and the personal computer. The videocassette recorder, the Atari Video Computer System, the Commodore 64, the Nintendo Advanced Video System (a precursor to the NES sold in the United States), the camcorder, and the compact disc player all received major exposure at CES during this period. Attendance climbed past 100,000 by the late 1980s.
By the mid-1990s the dual-show format was straining exhibitors and the Summer CES was suffering from declining attendance. The 1995 Summer show was the last to be held in Chicago. In 1998 CES consolidated to a single annual edition held in January in Las Vegas, a format that has continued every year since. Attendance grew steadily through the 2000s and 2010s, peaking at 184,279 attendees at CES 2017.
CES has been canceled in person only once in recent memory: the 2022 edition was scaled back dramatically because of the Omicron wave of COVID-19, with many major exhibitors withdrawing in the final weeks. CES 2021 had already been held entirely online. The show returned to a full physical footprint in 2023 and continued to grow in 2024, 2025, and 2026.
CES is owned and operated by the Consumer Technology Association, a nonprofit trade association based in Arlington, Virginia. CTA traces its lineage back to 1924, when it was founded as the Radio Manufacturers Association. Over the decades the organization went through several name changes, becoming the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA) in 1995, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) in 1999, and finally the Consumer Technology Association in 2015 under the leadership of long-serving president and CEO Gary Shapiro. CTA represents more than 1,200 member technology companies and uses CES as its flagship event and primary revenue source.
Beyond running the show, CTA conducts industry research, publishes shipment forecasts, and lobbies on technology policy issues including spectrum allocation, autonomous vehicle regulations, and AI governance. The Innovation Awards (described below) are administered by CTA staff in cooperation with an independent panel of industry experts and journalists.
CES occupies multiple venues spread across the Las Vegas Strip and surrounding area. The footprint covers more than 2.5 million net square feet of exhibit space, making it one of the largest trade shows on Earth.
The LVCC is the show's primary campus and is divided into four main halls.
| Hall | Focus areas |
|---|---|
| Central Hall | Televisions, audio, immersive entertainment, major consumer electronics brands |
| West Hall | Vehicle technology, autonomous driving, advanced mobility, in-car experiences |
| South Hall | Design and source, components, manufacturing services |
| North Hall | Robotics (anchored by the K-Humanoid Alliance Robot Pavilion as of 2026), industrial tech, smart cities |
The West Hall, which opened in 2021 as a major expansion, has become particularly important for the AI story at CES because it houses Hyundai's major presence, the NVIDIA mobility stage, and exhibitors such as Valeo and Zoox. Software providers including DXC, PTC, and Sonatus also showcase autonomous driving platforms and connected vehicle systems in this hall.
The Venetian Expo (formerly the Sands Expo) hosts a second major campus focused on lifestyle products, digital health, and the marquee Eureka Park startup zone. Eureka Park occupies Hall G of the Venetian Expo and at CES 2026 hosted more than 1,400 startups from countries including the United States, France, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan. Eureka Park has become an essential stop for venture capitalists and corporate development teams hunting for early-stage AI, hardware, and biotech companies.
Additional programming spreads across the Encore at Wynn (used for keynotes by companies like NVIDIA), the ARIA Resort & Casino (high-level executive programming), the Mandalay Bay Convention Center (in past years), and various hotel suites used for private demonstrations. CES Unveiled, a media-only press event, traditionally kicks off the week on the Sunday evening before the main show floor opens.
CES is among the largest trade shows in the world by both attendance and exhibit footprint. The following table summarizes recent editions and key historical peaks.
| Year | Attendance | Exhibitors | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 184,279 | ~3,800 | Pre-pandemic attendance peak |
| 2018 | 182,198 | ~4,000 | Near-peak attendance |
| 2019 | 175,212 | ~4,500 | Last pre-pandemic edition at full scale |
| 2020 | 171,268 | ~4,400 | Final in-person show before COVID-19 |
| 2021 | All-digital | N/A | First fully virtual CES |
| 2022 | ~45,000 | ~2,300 | Scaled back during Omicron wave |
| 2023 | ~118,000 | ~3,200 | First major recovery edition |
| 2024 | 138,789 | 4,312 | Record 1,442 startups in Eureka Park |
| 2025 | 142,465 | 4,500+ | Largest post-COVID edition at the time |
| 2026 | 148,000+ | 4,100+ | Largest edition since the pandemic |
More than 55 percent of CES 2026 attendees were senior-level executives, and roughly 6,900 members of the media registered for the show. About a third of attendees travel from outside the United States, making CES one of the most international trade events of the year.
AI was present at CES well before it became a marquee topic. As early as 2010 IBM was demonstrating Watson capabilities at the show, and voice assistants such as Apple's Siri (2011), Google Now (2012), and Amazon Alexa (2014) drove significant CES coverage in the years following their launches. Smart home devices powered by Alexa flooded the 2016 and 2017 show floors as third-party manufacturers raced to integrate the assistant into everything from refrigerators to faucets.
Starting around 2017, CES began designating Artificial Intelligence as one of its formal conference tracks, with dedicated panels, themed pavilions, and industry roundtables. NVIDIA's CES 2017 keynote, delivered by Jensen Huang, focused heavily on autonomous vehicles powered by deep learning and helped establish the company as a perennial CES headliner. By 2019 AI had its own listed conference subtopic ("It's all about the games and AI" was a common headline), and by 2024 CES had effectively become an AI show wrapped around a consumer electronics show.
CES 2024 ran January 9 through January 12 and was widely described as the first "post-ChatGPT" CES. Almost every major exhibitor presented a generative AI angle. Highlights included:
CES 2025 ran January 7 through January 10 and was framed by both CTA and the trade press as the year when AI moved out of the cloud and into the physical world. Jensen Huang delivered the show's first official keynote at the Mandalay Bay Michelob ULTRA Arena to an audience of more than 6,000 people, with overflow rooms across multiple resorts. His 90-minute address covered:
Unitree's $70,000 G1 humanoid robot drew large crowds on the show floor with live boxing and dancing demonstrations, while its 1.8 meter tall H1 platform demonstrated dynamic motions including a backflip. Apptronik exhibited its Apollo humanoid alongside Texas Instruments, demonstrating pick and place tasks and showcasing the robot's friendly cartoon-eye design language.
Qualcomm used CES 2025 to launch the Snapdragon X processor, a more affordable Copilot+ PC chip aimed at the $600 laptop bracket, with a 45 TOPS Hexagon NPU. Multiple PC vendors including ASUS, Lenovo, Acer, HP, and Dell announced expanded Copilot+ PC lineups powered by Snapdragon X, Intel Lunar Lake, and AMD Ryzen AI 300 chips, accelerating the transition of mainstream laptops into AI-capable hardware.
CES 2026 ran January 6 through January 9 and was the largest edition since the pandemic. Scientific American summarized the show's tone with the headline "At CES 2026, AI Leaves the Screen and Enters the Real World." Highlights included:
CNBC reported that humanoid robots quite literally took over the floor of CES 2026, with at least nine commercial humanoid platforms making major debut announcements. The CES Innovation Awards 2026 program recorded record participation, with the AI category submissions up 29 percent year over year, robotics up 32 percent, and drones up 32 percent.
| Year | Product or Platform | Company | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Drive PX 2 with Xavier SoC | NVIDIA | Reference platform for autonomous vehicle deep learning |
| 2018 | Google Assistant pavilion | First major Google booth at CES, 30,000 sq ft footprint | |
| 2019 | Walmart AI replenishment pilot | Walmart | Demonstrated machine learning for supply chain at retail scale |
| 2020 | Samsung Ballie (1st gen) | Samsung | Rolling AI home companion concept |
| 2022 | BMW iX Flow with E Ink panels | BMW | AI-controlled color-changing exterior |
| 2024 | Rabbit R1 | Rabbit | Pocket AI agent device with Large Action Model |
| 2024 | Samsung Ballie (2nd gen) | Samsung | Rolling robot with built-in 1080p projector |
| 2024 | Walmart generative AI search | Walmart | Conversational shopping powered by generative AI |
| 2025 | NVIDIA Cosmos | NVIDIA | Open licensed world model platform for robotics and AVs |
| 2025 | Project DIGITS | NVIDIA | Personal AI supercomputer for desktop developers |
| 2025 | Unitree G1 demonstration | Unitree | First major US showcase of $70k humanoid for hobbyists |
| 2025 | Apptronik Apollo at NVIDIA keynote | Apptronik | American humanoid joins NVIDIA robotics lineup |
| 2025 | Snapdragon X | Qualcomm | Affordable Copilot+ PC chip with 45 TOPS NPU |
| 2026 | Vera Rubin platform | NVIDIA | Successor to Blackwell, in full production |
| 2026 | Boston Dynamics Atlas (production) | Boston Dynamics | First stage debut of commercial Atlas unit |
| 2026 | LG CLOiD | LG Electronics | Home humanoid for laundry, dishwashing, cooking |
| 2026 | NVIDIA Alpamayo | NVIDIA | Open sourced reasoning autonomous vehicle model |
| 2026 | EngineAI T800 | EngineAI | Production humanoid powered by NVIDIA Jetson Thor |
| 2026 | Naqi Neural Earbuds | Naqi | Brain-computer interface earbuds with AI control |
CES keynotes are a leading indicator of which companies are setting the technology agenda each year. Recent keynote speakers include:
| Year | Speaker | Company | Topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Jensen Huang | NVIDIA | AI computing and autonomous vehicles |
| 2017 | Carlos Ghosn | Nissan | Autonomous mobility |
| 2018 | Brian Krzanich | Intel | Data, AI, and immersive computing |
| 2019 | Ginni Rometty | IBM | Watson and enterprise AI |
| 2020 | Lisa Su | AMD | High-performance computing for AI |
| 2022 | Mary Barra | General Motors | Electrification and autonomous mobility |
| 2023 | Carlos Tavares | Stellantis | Software-defined vehicles and AI |
| 2024 | Nicolas Hieronimus | L'Oreal | Beauty technology and AI personalization (first beauty keynote) |
| 2024 | Doug McMillon | Walmart | Generative AI in retail |
| 2025 | Jensen Huang | NVIDIA | Physical AI, Cosmos, Project DIGITS |
| 2025 | Cristiano Amon | Qualcomm | Edge AI and Snapdragon Copilot+ |
| 2026 | Jensen Huang | NVIDIA | Vera Rubin, Alpamayo, robotics partners |
| 2026 | Roland Busch | Siemens | Industrial AI revolution |
The CES Innovation Awards are the show's flagship product recognition program. Administered by CTA, the awards have been given annually since the 1990s and now cover 36 categories spanning consumer electronics, AI, robotics, accessibility, sustainability, smart home, mobility, and digital health.
Products are evaluated by an independent panel of industrial designers, engineers, and journalists on the basis of innovation, functionality, aesthetics, and design. The program produces two recognition tiers:
The CES Innovation Awards 2026 program received a record-breaking 3,600+ product submissions. Selected Best of Innovation winners in AI-relevant categories included the Doosan Robotics / Maple Advanced Robotics Scan&Go autonomous mobile robot system (Artificial Intelligence category), Sixfab's ALPON X5 AI Edge Computer (Enterprise Tech), CT5 INC.'s Zone HSS1 (Artificial Intelligence), the Naqi Neural Earbuds (Accessibility & Longevity), and a Polyu / Widemount Dynamics AI firefighting robot.
Winning a CES Innovation Award has become a meaningful marketing milestone for startups, with many crowdfunding campaigns and Series A pitch decks built around the recognition.
Despite its scale, CES has faced periodic criticism. Apple last had an official booth at CES in 1992 and has not returned, preferring to control its own product launch cadence through company-run events. Google and Microsoft have ramped their presence up and down over the years; in some editions Google has built large outdoor booths and in others has scaled back significantly. Several major automakers and chipmakers also occasionally skip the show in favor of dedicated events.
Critics have long complained that many CES product announcements never ship in the form demonstrated, never ship at all, or ship in degraded form. The Rabbit R1, an Innovation Award honoree at CES 2024 and the breakout consumer story of the show, was widely panned in shipping reviews and became a frequent example of the gap between CES demonstrations and post-launch reality. The dominance of AI marketing at CES 2024, 2025, and 2026 has prompted a backlash from some technology journalists who argue that the AI label is now applied indiscriminately to products that use only minimal machine learning, devaluing the term and confusing consumers.
CTA has expanded its Innovation for All programming to address concerns about gender representation among keynote speakers, accessibility of demonstrations for attendees with disabilities, and the carbon footprint of the show. CES 2021 was held entirely online and 2022 was significantly scaled back, illustrating the show's vulnerability to public health events, although CES recovered fully by 2024.
CTA has run regional and topical extensions of the CES brand. CES Asia operated annually in Shanghai from 2015 through 2019 as a localized version focused on the Chinese consumer electronics market and was discontinued during the pandemic. CES Unveiled events are smaller media-focused press conferences hosted in cities like Paris, Amsterdam, and Singapore in the months leading up to the main January show. CES on the Hill is a small showcase held in Washington, D.C., aimed at federal policymakers and regulators.
For the consumer technology industry, CES functions as both an annual product launch festival and an industry barometer. The themes that dominate CES (smart homes in the late 2010s, electric and autonomous vehicles in the early 2020s, generative AI and humanoid robots in the mid-2020s) reliably preview the next two to three years of consumer product roadmaps. For investors and corporate development teams, the show is one of the most efficient ways to scan thousands of startups and partners in a single week.
For the artificial intelligence community in particular, CES complements research conferences like NeurIPS and developer events like NVIDIA GTC. Where those events emphasize new models and technical papers, CES emphasizes the consumer products and physical hardware that bring AI into everyday use, from laptops with on-device language models to humanoid robots intended for the factory floor and the home.