Robotics, autonomy and AI monetization are key trends at CES 2026, industry analyst says

The key tech trends at CES 2026 will be robotics, autonomy and the monetization of AI, a technology industry investment analyst said on Monday (January 5), ahead of the show's official opening on Tuesday (January 6).

"It's about robotics and autonomous," said Dan Ives, the global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities.

"I think a lot these technologies we're going to see in 2026 and potentially 2027, and I think that it's just showing in terms of this bull market, we're still in the third inning one out in terms of this nine inning game," using a baseball analogy to indicate an early part of the game.

On Monday, a media preview day ahead of the main CES event, Jensen Huang, CEO of AI chip giant Nvidia, said the next generation of the company's chips was in full production and AMD showed off a new higher performing AI chip,

Ives said the early keynote addresses show how far CES has moved towards AI and its monetization.

"I think for years, CES was maybe about talking refrigerators and drones. Now it's about the AI revolution," Ives said. Obviously Jensen (Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA), Lisa Su of AMD and others -- it's really the blueprint for the tech world globally, what it's going to look like in 2026."

CES runs January 6-9 and features thousands of exhibitors across 13 venues and 2.6 million square feet (250,000 square meters), according to the Consumer Technology Association.

Production: Sandra Stojanovic, and Jane Ross/Reuters