What we saw at CES 2026

Hello from CES!

IT Brew is on the floor for our last day today and it’s already been an exciting conference.

Here are three highlights from our time here in Las Vegas. More to come.

Robots, robots, robots

It looks like the robotics space is going to see an explosion in development in 2026. There were so many different androids in the main hall and auxiliary sites that it started to feel like B-roll for a Terminator movie.

An increase in consumer robotics could have unintended security consequences. Deral Heiland, an IoT researcher with Rapid7, told IT Brew that some new robots, by virtue of their AI integration and internet connection, could give attackers a way into your systems.

“You buy a device, you put it in your organization or in your home, that device is not standalone,” Heiland said. “At this point it’s part of a massive ecosystem, and if you can control that one device you can potentially gain a foothold into every other device.”

More with Heiland, and on robotics, next week.

AI remains important, but more realistic

We’re a few years into the new AI revolution that began with a bang in late 2022 with ChatGPT, and the technology is settling into a groove. Everything at CES, it seems, is using AI. It’s already commonplace rather than an exciting selling point.

To Dallas Dolen, a technology principal at PwC, that’s a sign of a maturing revolution. But the future is still an open question, especially when it comes to who’ll be in the best position to “win” the AI race.

“The ROI on all the spend, whether it be viewed as terms of time and human capital or actual dollars and cents…we’re going to see the benefit of it in 2030,” Dolen said.”

The AI revolution, investment, and the technology’s applications will be a major part of our CES reporting—stay tuned.

Quantum computing is coming

After decades of research and speculation, it finally feels like quantum computing is on the verge of becoming a reality. Companies are already utilizing the technology for “big picture” work and experiments.

The expansion of AI is putting pressure on power producers, driving a need for energy-efficient solutions. By radically speeding up processing, quantum computing could play a vital role in that movement, according to Murray Thom, VP of quantum technology evangelism at D-Wave Quantum, who told IT Brew that “the world needs revolutionary energy efficiency and compute and that’s what this is, it’s totally unlike anything anyone has ever seen.”

Keep an eye out for our conversation on quantum with Thom.