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January 6, 2026<\/p>\n
3 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n At CES 2026, AI Leaves the Screen and Enters the Real World<\/p>\n Humanoids, robotaxis and industrial bots dominate the year\u2019s biggest consumer technology show. Their usefulness remains an open question<\/p>\n Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang talks to a robot as he speaks during the Nvidia Live at CES event ahead of the annual trade show CES in Las Vegas on January 5, 2026.<\/p>\n Patrick T. Fallon\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n At the back of a conference hall at the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas, a humanoid robot twitched through a preprogrammed wave for a crowd of cell phone cameras\u2014a classic scene of high spectacle and unclear utility at CES. That\u2019s what this trade show, held every January, does best: it turns prototypes into performances that double as technological predictions. While much of what appears here won\u2019t ever emerge in the real world in a meaningful way, the ideas often do. And at this year’s show, one theme is hard to miss: artificial intelligence is on the move.<\/p>\n Physical AI\u2014the use of automated machines that lift, drive, carry and operate in the same spaces humans do\u2014is everywhere at CES, and the people making it have seemed eager to puncture its mythology. For years, the public-facing story of robotics has been viral athleticism: robot marathons, kickboxing videos. Now even the people who built those humanoids are treating them as a distraction. \u201cWe were doing \u2018YouTube-video parkour\u2019 10 years ago,\u201d said Robert Playter, CEO of robotics company Boston Dynamics, at a CES panel on AI in the physical world. \u201cThe hard stuff is useful work.\u201d In other words: less spectacle, more operation in fields, such as mining, construction and logistics, where the work is repetitive and expensive enough to justify the high costs of automation.<\/p>\n This step toward pragmatism confronts technology companies with a different barrier: trust. In the simpler times of 2022, when ChatGPT was novel, and AI as we know it lived mainly in chat windows, a hallucination was an annoyance. In a driverless car, it\u2019s a different story. \u201cHallucination in motion can be disastrous,\u201d said Jyoti Shah of data processing company ADP at a panel on AI in the physical world.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Mikell Taylor, director of robotics strategy at General Motors, recounted hearing that a Zoox robotaxi recently stopped at a Las Vegas crosswalk and wouldn\u2019t budge, leaving pedestrians confused and guessing. While not catastrophic, the anecdote suggested the urgency of the matter. Physical AI doesn\u2019t just need better sensors; it needs to be legible, with cues easy enough for humans to read. Trust requires robots to be \u201ctransparent in their thinking and transparent in their motions,\u201d said Carolina Parada of Google DeepMind, \u201cso people know what to expect.\u201d<\/p>\n The need for ever better real-time intelligence highlights a less glamorous theme of this year\u2019s CES: computing power. On the hardware side, chip manufacturers characterized an industry that has been running up against physical limitations. Shankar Krishnamoorthy of electronic design automation company Synopsys said the traditional pace of chip development can\u2019t keep up with what modern models demand. \u201cCustomers demand monster chips,\u201d he said, \u201cso we must accelerate innovation cycles by several [times].\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the bill. AI that\u2019s running everywhere, all the time will require massive infrastructure that still doesn\u2019t exist. The scale and speed of today\u2019s AI build-out is already driving up energy consumption and costs, and no amount of chip efficiency can compensate. It\u2019s a constraint that nobody at CES came here to trumpet yet one that low-key governs everything else.<\/p>\n By the end of the day, plenty of the AI talk at CES has felt like a familiar story. \u201cI think innovation is happening\u2014it\u2019s just being overhyped,\u201d one conference attendee told me. \u201cIn a lot of ways, it echoes the IoT [Internet of Things] wave from 2010.\u201d That is to say, some of the hype is real, and only time will tell what sticks. The question at CES this year is whether physical AI becomes another overused label\u2014or whether it becomes a part of our everyday lives. If it does, that robot at Mandalay Bay will eventually have to do more than just wave.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 6, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm At CES 2026, AI Leaves the Screen and Enters the Real World Humanoids, robotaxis and industrial bots dominate the year\u2019s biggest consumer technology show. Their usefulness remains an open question By Eric Sullivan Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang talks to a robot as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[21764,12307,2013,455,1560,550],"class_list":{"0":"post-40603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-ces","9":"tag-enters","10":"tag-leaves","11":"tag-real","12":"tag-screen","13":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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