CES 2022: Key Observations and Takeaways

I have been a regular visitor at CES for over a decade, this one in 2022 was the strangest given its hybrid nature of virtual and physical. The COVID-19 caution was very visible and hence restrictive for good reasons. One thing which jumped out in the growing Venn diagram between consumer and enterprise electronics with use cases blurring. CES has always served as a conduit into the future, some companies may have stretched their innovative products to adapt to the pandemic, those short-lived products and services have clearly outlived that for which most people planned.

I could not walk every single hall this time given it was a quick in and out for me. However, I gathered key themes and observations through walking floors, talking to people, attending sessions, and triangulating them against industry trends.

New Categories

This year we saw large and independent sections for Sports Tech, Food Tech, and Digital Assets. There were also multiple Web 3 companies weaved into several sections and that emerging theme was hard to miss.

The Old Economy vs New Economy Divide

While it was commendable that players from the old economy who occupied prominent spots at CES put up a great show and did have some notable innovative technology on display. The smaller, nimbler, cooler, and emerging companies stole the attention. At least for the physical part of CES I attended, there was not much visible interest from people to flock to the iconic brands of the last century, hallway conversations also made it obvious that the audience was not here to visit the old economy players many of who have talked about digital transformation and emerging themes for years but have been somewhat slower to depart from their older business models.

Metaverse

Nothing surprising to see the Metaverse buzzword play out at CES, but I came back with mixed feelings about the space. Almost everyone wants participation, a piece, and stake a claim to the Metaverse while many were unclear on its definitions, value chain, returns, and monetization potential through sound economic logic. It also solidified my thesis that short-term investment lies in the plumbing and infrastructure of the Metaverse as use cases, applications, and technology mature.

There was an era when every Big Data player rebranded themselves as AI, which is now the case with every VR and AR player who has gravitated to the Metaverse branding. The use cases around education, advertising, and gaming were sound, but other business models were misguided, unclear, and evolving. This is an exciting new space with endless possibilities yet will take time to evolve and scale. I did not see a convincing argument for immediate scale or monetization other than people talking about bringing their definition of Metaverse to life at CES 2022.

Robotics

One of the most exciting developments was in robotic automation, it has come a long way with widespread scale visible on the horizon. There were robotic waiters and servers, robotic nurses, self-propelled wheelchairs, self-driving tractors equipped with AI, etc. The home automation with domestic helpers also saw some cool technology with solutions like Samsun’s Bot Handy which can now move around household objects applying the appropriate level of force with use cases such as cleaning rooms, sorting clothes, and moving dishes, etc.

3-D Printing

3-D printing has been around at CES for several years, they have now morphed into multiple decoupled segments as key capabilities e.g., manufacturing, suppliers, real estate, medical tech, and software, etc. Based on my observations, many of the 3-D printing companies have become ancillary capabilities across industries and cannot be considered a standalone hit at CES anymore.

The value equation in this space also appears to have migrated to the very big e.g., 3-d printers which can print massive structure likes houses, etc., or the very small e.g., medical use cases at nano or atomic scale with everything between trending to commoditization and in a boring space. General audiences found the old economy players trying to say and message more of the same from their prior years while traffic was higher to the newer, smaller companies bringing in differentiated technologies.

One of the bigger themes in 3-D printing was oriented towards solutions that could alleviate the global supply chain issues and multiple innovative solutions were displayed. Differentiated technology in the hands of well-capitalized players is finally showing the promise and move forward from the $5 3-D printed toy from prior years.

Other Notable Themes

Companies have embraced ESG, and many have incorporated these principles into products aligning with the savvy consumers and changing demographics who believe in mitigating the negative impact on the planet.

Cybersecurity for IoT, AI, Payment Tech,?Drones, etc. continues to be hot and is churning out companies at every layer of the stack.

Augmented reality is still developing and will be a few years behind VR in its evolution (but a massive opportunity in the offing). The spatial navigation, depth sensors, etc. are all?12-18 months away from the scale.

Concluding Thoughts

CES is always overwhelming, and we try to juggle sessions, meetings, events and juggle our day jobs so there are always items we skim through superficially and miss. Drones, Health Tech, and TVs were sections I missed and hence I do not have meaningful takeaways from the conference. Should any of you have observed items I might have missed - please do add comments and I would love to learn from your experiences.