CES 2024 Recap

CES is officially a wrap! After spending most of last week interacting with innovators from all over the world, we are coming back to work energized with ideas to drive cutting edge innovation with our clients. We are amazed at the groundbreaking feats of engineering & technology, and the endless possibilities that the future will bring to our business and daily lives. From flying cars & other disruptive transportation models, to embedded sensors in clothing fabrics, or innovative ways to produce & harvest energy – the future is here. To that note, below are my key takeaways from this year’s event & what it means for our business:? ?

AI is Everywhere ??: similar to how we saw in Dreamforce and other leading shows last year, AI was a major theme, with a big focus on how it can make technology more accessible and transform our ability to interact with devices & entities in an intuitive and personalized way. Leading retailers are at the forefront of this, showcasing how they are embedding AI across their value chains with automated shopping carts & in-home replenishment, smart check-out lanes, drone delivery or supply chain orchestration.???

? Co-pilots & GenAI companionship ??: to expand on the previous point, the emergence of LLMs and GenAI is pushing companies to embed chatbots across wearables, hardware and appliances – transforming common day-to-day experiences, including activities like recommending a list of groceries for a special event, explaining different driving modes in your car, or assisting with house chores. Big players like across tech, retail, hospitality, and healthcare are driving a people-led, tech-powered approach harnessing these AI companionship models to deliver a customer-centric experience.???

? Sensors (& data) at the core ??: technological breakthroughs in chips, microprocessors & 5G connectivity are unlocking the ability to embed sensors to track and transmit data across a variety of applications, including health & fitness, emotions & reactions, in-store retail execution standards, or driving patterns. Sensor and chip manufacturers are pushing the boundaries of how we can codify data points across our human interactions & environment. With more widespread emergence of these IoT-driven data elements, companies will need to define a clear strategy around their Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to unify structured and unstructured data to drive customer personalization.???

? Mixed reality is the new reality ??: key announcements around immersive headsets or transparent displays are strong indicators of how quickly the AR / VR / XR market is evolving into a new era of spatial computing. With economies of scale democratizing these mixed reality tools, companies will push to embed these solutions into their core operations. Additionally, widespread access to these solutions can help reduce the reliability on more traditional photo & image recognition technologies in lieu of the real-time insights drive through mixed reality scanning. ?

? Mobility & Automotive Technology ??: electric & autonomous vehicles were at the center stage of mobility at CES, with over 250 exhibitors focused on disruptive & sustainable transportation solutions. These innovations showcase the new role vehicles play as cloud-connected, AI-powered vessels that serve as a platform for innovation, connectivity and sustainability. We are already seeing big partnerships between automakers & tech companies emerging to deliver a comprehensive, sustainable, and interconnected mobility experience.?

?? Sustainability to drive scalability ??: the proliferation of energy-intensive innovations, skyrocketing energy prices, and heightened pressure in the electric grid is unraveling a wave of sustainable energy solutions. Technologies such as home backup battery packs, electricity-generating stained glasses, or moisture farming tech to generate water from thin air are just some examples of how innovators are taking steps in the direction to embed sustainability and circular economy principles in the core design process of new products.??

Enabling a future-fit infrastructure : finally, while the future is here, we must be cognizant of the challenges that societies across the world will face with an aging population, including increase in healthcare costs, increased dependency ratio (ratio of retired to working individuals), or reduced productivity. Aware of these, companies across the spectrum are developing solutions like GenAI and mixed reality powered smart homes for elderly care, remote monitoring tools & sensors, non-invasive devices for real-time health diagnostics, or fabrics that reduce fatigue or drive hand stability. These innovations make it clear that our world’s inventors are actively thinking of how to reshape the space, mobility, and healthcare infrastructure to support our aging societies?

? We encourage all of you to look into some of these trends and see how these can impact your individual clients. For us and the work we are doing around front office transformation in the consumer goods space, our clients are leaning on us to help them shape how we can harness these emerging technologies to elevate their capabilities at scale. Some of the common use cases we are tackling include leveraging IR/AR/XR to streamline in-store execution activities like planogram compliance or shelf space detection, embedding sensors in sales rep devices & equipment to passively capture data to create digital in-store maps, or enabling a robust AI-driven engine to harness all the structured & unstructured data coming from sensors, surveys or in-store activities and determine next best actions, order recommendations or supply chain optimization. Overall, our clients are seeking to both deliver on an adaptive and customer centric experience for retailers and consumers alike, while also completely re-shaping the capabilities of their front line personas. As we continue partnering collaborating with our clients on their respective transformation journeys, we must stay tuned on these innovation leaps as they occur, especially as these capabilities become more widely accessible and scalable for large enterprises. ???