CES 2023 Preview
Five questions that we hope CES 2023 will answer
Welcome to the Lab’s coverage of the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), straight from the exhibit halls of Las Vegas. This is the first time since the pandemic started that the entire Lab team will be attending in person, and we are keeping our eyes peeled for any indications of the following five burning questions that every innovation-minded marketer should be asking themselves in 2023.
1. Will CES reclaim its pre-pandemic glory?
Coming back here after two years, the question hanging over many attendee’s mind will be about the event itself. While It looks like the CES organizers are betting big on the post-pandemic bounce: a brand new convention hall has opened its doors at Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), and the show floors are bigger and brighter than ever, the jury is still out on whether CES 2022 will successfully bounce back to its pre-pandemic level and reclaim its glory as the Super Bowl of the tech industry worldwide.
The show floors won’t officially open till Thursday, and for now, things are looking cautiously positive on the surface. Yet, there are already some worrying signs starting to pop up. While the grand opening of the West Hall of the LVCC will no doubt delight many attendees and increase the overall capacity of the venue, we found it has resulted in a largely empty South Hall, which has seemingly been converted into a Covid test site this year. Meanwhile, some expected CES regulars like IBM and Huawei, along with some automakers, seem to be MIA from the show floors this year. The two restaurants near the corridor towards the Venetian Expo venue, which were typically rented out by exhibitors to stage branded experiences during CES, are operating as normal restaurants as of Tuesday night. All these signs could indicate that this CES may not be quite back to its pre-pandemic level. Needless to say, the outcome of this CES will likely serve as a major indicator for other large-scale industry events and conferences as well.
2. Will the metaverse break out of gaming and develop other use cases?
The metaverse hype has been going strong for about 14 months by now, but none of the leaders in the space — from Meta to Roblox to Fortnite — will have a significant presence on the CES show floors this year. After all, CES is a hardware-oriented event, and the metaverse is a mostly software-oriented development at the moment.
Of course, the development of the metaverse will help facilitate the adoption of mixed reality (XR) headsets down the road. HTC’s Vive Focus 3 headset is expected to heavily lean into the metaverse implications when it is unveiled on Thursday, But overall, while the XR exhibitors in the LVCC Center Hall are seemingly happy to be associated with the concept, yet generally falling short of offering any non-gaming use cases of the metaverse in relation to their headsets.
That said, this is still CES, and the metaverse will no doubt be a buzzy concept that many startups in the Eureka Park will be eager to explore. Some of them will no doubt be niche or even end up being vaporware, but the successful experiments are what will help the industry figure out the non-gaming, utility-driven use cases of the metaverse.
3. Will generative AI tools have a strong showing with new use cases?
Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 took the tech and media industry by storm in the last few months of 2022, and they are certainly looking to keep the momentum going in 2023 with a strong showing at CES. Yet, the same issue that metaverse platforms have with CES being more hardware-oriented is also applicable to the generative AI companies. Still, given what a fresh new topic that generative AI has been for recent months, we expect the likes of Google and Amazon to lead the conversation on generative AI tools and the impact they may have on the creative industries.
So far, the most mainstream use case of generative text-to-image tools have been the Lensa app, which charges users to generate AI avatars of themselves based on the selfies they upload. Lensa went viral in early December, and opened the floodgate for many other AI companies to wonder what other monetizable consumer-facing use cases they may develop. Perhaps some interesting examples will emerge from this CES, or at least point us to some new directions to explore.
4. Will the EV ecosystem take over the mobility show floors?
It is no secret that, in recent years, CES has been somewhat transformed into a bit of a high-tech auto show. This development is hardly surprising, considering how much cars have become “computers on wheels” in recent years thanks to the popularization of connected cars. In years past, automakers tended to treat CES as a place to show off their latest concept vehicles, especially those with autonomous driving tech. Yet, at this CES, the focus of the automakers and others in the mobility space may be shifting from the lofty goals of autonomous driving to the more realistic tasks of building an electric car ecosystem.
In 2022, investors are growing impatient with the pace of driverless-car development. In response, auto makers scaled back plans for the technology amid pressure to curb expenses during an economic slowdown. Meanwhile, after years of testing the waters, legacy OEMs plunged headfirst into an EV future with sustainability commitments in 2022. This accelerating pivot has introduced a new level of competition to a market dominated by startups that will likely have a strong showing at this CES. Not only will there be more affordable EV models, we expect to find some interesting solutions to EV charging infrastructure as well.
5. Will the Matter standard inspire new smart home interfaces?
As the first CES following the official rollout of Matter, the interoperability standard for smart home devices, we are keeping a close eye on the smart home space. The arrival of Matter means that smart home startups no longer have to spend time and money building integrations with each platform, and instead focusing on designing their own unique and user-friendly interfaces as key differentiation points from competitors. Logically, the implementation of Matter may encourage some smaller manufacturers and home brands to jump in and start experimenting. And CES may just be the perfect place to announce their entrance into the smart home market.
In addition to the conventional smart home devices — think smart speakers and connected appliances — we may also witness an continued push of digital health devices into the home. Outfitting our homes with biometric sensors that can help ambiently monitor our vitals and track our personal health journey, and Matter should help accelerate this proliferation of digital health devices at home as well.
Thanks for reading! Check back tomorrow to read our first impression of the CES pre-show announcements, and come back early next week for our recap of the biggest trends coming out of this CES.
