As the tech industry prepares for CES 2025 in Las Vegas next week, several emerging trends are expected to dominate the headlines. With significant developments in AI, automotive tech and computing innovation to look forward to, here are some of the major themes you can expect to see when the show opens its doors on January 7.
Agentic AI
This year’s CES arrives amid growing industry interest in Agentic AI, which Nvidia describes as the next frontier of AI. This technology represents a potentially significant evolution in artificial intelligence, allowing AI systems to act autonomously to achieve tasks with minimal human interaction.
Agentic AI systems can, for example, make decisions based on input data, while automatically adapting to changing circumstances. Such systems could analyze patient data to help doctors make better-informed decisions, or analyze data from sensors to better predict wear-and-tear in mechanical systems.
A recent example of Agentic AI is Google’s Project Mariner – an intelligent agent capable of autonomously navigating and operating various web services. This momentum is expected to gain traction too, as Gartner projects that by 2028, agentic AI could handle 15% of everyday work decisions autonomously.
Automotive Innovation
The automotive sector is also showcasing notable developments in AI integration and interface design. LG’s upcoming “AI In-Vehicle Experience” demonstrates new applications of artificial intelligence in vehicle cabins through its Vision AI solution. The system combines two main components – the Driver Monitoring System (DMS) and Driver and Interior Monitoring System (DIMS).
These technologies offer features including real-time health monitoring through heart rate tracking and facial expression recognition, and the system can also assess driver alertness while providing services such as adaptive routing and road condition updates. These developments could pave the way for advances in vehicle safety and comfort features, although it’s hard to predict when exactly they’ll be integrated into final production units.
Elsewhere, BMW is introducing its Panoramic iDrive display, positioning it as a significant update to standard vehicle interfaces. The system, scheduled to debut in BMW’s upcoming Neue Klasse electric vehicles, features a display that spans most of the dashboard width. By moving driver information to a head-up display and eliminating the traditional iDrive controller, BMW is introducing a new approach to driver interaction.
More than just a concept, this new interface will debut in the second-generation iX3 in late 2025 and the i3 sedan in 2026, before expanding across BMW’s lineup. The company plans to eventually implement this technology across both electric and combustion engine vehicles in future.
Computing Power Advances
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s opening keynote is expected to detail the next generation of GeForce RTX 50 series graphics processors, while rival AMD prepares to showcase its RDNA 4 architecture. Recent developments in the budget gaming segment, including Intel’s Arc B580 “Battlemage” GPU, also suggest potential advances in both performance and energy efficiency.
The integration of neural processing units (NPUs) and AI capabilities in consumer devices was a key theme at last year’s CES, and one which is expected to remain prominent in the year ahead. A growing focus on on-device AI processing in laptops and smartphones shows how manufacturers are exploring ways to enhance device capabilities through dedicated AI hardware.
Display Technology Evolution
Display advancements tend to make headlines at CES, and this year is expected to be no different. TCL’s QD-Mini LED technology, for example, combines quantum dot and mini LED technologies to deliver enhanced visual quality through pixel-level light control, offering improved contrast and peak brightness. In practice, this could bring mini LED TVs closer to the contrast and true black levels of OLED sets than ever before, without any of the downsides like decreased brightness and burn-in concerns.
The company’s Nxtpaper display technology takes a different approach, using a multi-layer screen design that includes circularly polarized light and nano-etching technology to create a paper-like smartphone or tablet viewing experience, with the aim of reducing eye strain. The technology includes features like DC dimming for flicker reduction and automatic color temperature adjustment based on ambient light conditions.
Looking Ahead To CES 2025
As CES 2025 prepares to open from January 7 to 11, the technology industry appears to be focused on practical innovation. The coming week will reveal which of these anticipated trends will materialize into concrete announcements, along with any unexpected innovations that weren’t widely anticipated. We’ll soon see how these developments might shape the year ahead in consumer tech, so watch this space.
