CES 2025: What to look out for at the world's biggest tech show

Other shows may attract larger audiences, but nothing has quite the same impact as CES, which can still call itself the world's biggest tech show. Here’s what’s likely to be on display at CES 2025 in Las Vegas.

CES not only tends to kick off the year, it also sets the agenda for much of it. The products on display in the Las Vegas winter sunshine, whether just about to be released or simply prototypes straight out of the R&D labs, show the directions the tech industry is heading.  

130,000 people attended CES 2024, which confirmed that AI was, indeed, everywhere from televisions to cat flaps; that manufacturers weren’t afraid to launch new devices based around it, even if they weren’t very good (the Rabbit r1 is a stand out example here); momentum grew among OLED TVs; and Apple managed to upstage a whole industry sector by announcing the Vision Pro launch date despite not actually being at the show.

CES 2025 kicks off in Las Vegas on January 7, with the press events being held over the weekend before. Here’s what to expect.

CES 2025 promo

Televisions

Television sets are always one of the standouts of the show and 2025 will be no exception. As always there will be the headline grabbers, the $100k plus folding sets, the modular units and the transparent ones, that are set to appear in approximately no-one’s living rooms as the year unfolds. Below that there has been a steady rise to bigger, but this year this will be replaced by brighter as there is only so big sets can get before we all have to build extensions to house our own personal home cinemas. Brighter OLEDs and more affordable Mini-LEDs look set to dominate proceedings, while there will also be continuing development in AI upscaling and recommendations to be factored in as the battle of the TV OSes starts to take shape. Watch for increased data slurping and associated ad tiers as broadcasters and manufacturers alike increasingly pivot to becoming software companies.

AI

Will be everywhere again, just more so. Soon we’ll get to the point where people stop banging on about AI in their products because AI will be in everything, but not just yet. As with 2024, some of this stuff just seems spurious and more designed to appease investors than entice consumers. Hopes that the addition of AI features in iOS and Android phones will ignite a stampede to the shops for new devices so far seems misplaced. Nevertheless people will keep trying and venture capitalists will treat the sector like a horse race and hope to strike it rich with an outside bet, especially in the realm of cracking the interface question. Following the dismal aforementioned outings of Rabbit and Humane, expect most of the innovation in this area to be corralled into developments in smart glasses and AR.

Computing

Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang, is going to be delivering the opening keynote at the Mandalay Bay on the Monday evening, so its reasonable to expect that we will see a lot of new announcements regarding CPUs, GPUs, and more at the show from all of the major players. It’s widely expected that Nvidia will reveal DLSS 4 and new AI-accelerated capabilities alongside RTX 5090, 5080 and 5070 GPUs; AMD’s Strix Halo is looking speedy; Intel will be looking to turn the business round (again); Qualcomm will be looking to capitalise on an excellent disruptive year; and much more.

The manufacturers will be busy, too. ASUS, for example, is hosting two events, one for its Republic of Gamers line, the other covering AI, dubbed ‘Always Incredible’. We may even see some advances when it comes to laptop form factors. Noted leaker Evan Blass shared images of what looks like a new Lenovo ThinkBook Plus whose display extends upward to reveal more display underneath.

Elsewhere, expect WiFi 7 to make an impact as costs come down and HDMI 2.2 to be announced with a wide range of higher resolutions and refresh rates to be supported with a new cable.

Wearables etc

Phones are seldom part of CES. Big companies like Samsung have phone-focused events elsewhere, and many keep their power dry for MWC Barcelona, which doesn’t take place until early March. So, expect accessory announcements surrounding the likes of Qi2 wireless charging, but that’s about it.

Far busier will be the wearables sector. As already mentioned, smart glasses will dominate, but there’s also going to be a lot of smart rings on show as people look to pile through the door that Samsung and Oura have cracked open. The renewed focus this year is going to be on wellness, with companies looking to leverage public anxiety on everything from general health screening to sleep tracking.

Autos and more

Honda is teasing two prototype vehicles, likely the first vehicles based on its new 0 Series EV platform. CES butts right into the Detroit Auto Show, so Vegas is less about the cars themselves and more about the technology that goes into them. But as manufacturers back away from the likes of Apple infiltrating their systems further with tech such as Car Play and look to re-establish their own software systems, we could see some interesting bits and pieces emerge. 

The big area that could really surprise this year though is robotics, with all those advances in AI really helping push the field forward. How much of it will be usable and practical is another matter though. Most of the companies involved in the field that will be at the show are keeping their wares under wraps in the hope that they will be able to create one of those viral moments once the doors of the LVCC open. After all, this is usually the only show of the year where people will start writing enthusiastically about $13,000 toilets…

tl;dr

• CES 2025 will showcase advancements in brighter OLED and affordable Mini-LED TVs, along with developments in AI upscaling and OS functionalities, shifting from size to brightness in display technology.
• AI will be more pervasive than ever, with new features across devices. However, the hype may overshadow practical applications, as many products struggle to captivate consumers despite significant investment in the sector.
• Expect major announcements from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel regarding next-gen CPUs and GPUs. Special focus will be on Nvidia’s DLSS 4 and AI capabilities, along with innovations in laptop design and WiFi 7 technology.
• The wearables market will introduce a variety of smart glasses and rings, emphasizing wellness and health tracking, capitalizing on growing consumer interest in personal health monitoring.