CES Day 0 – Where the buzz isn’t.

CES 2020 gets in tune with reality.

• CES 2020 is unlikely to go down as a vintage year of excitement meaning that half the story is going to about where the buzz isn’t rather than where it is.
• There is very little that is new at CES 2020.
• The trains are still plastered with Google Assistant advertising and the same buzzwords (AI, 5G, Wearables) are being trotted out again meaning that there are two things to pay attention to this year:
• These are:
  • First, the wayside: these are the areas in which interest has been lost.
  • These include augmented and virtual reality, blockchain, drones and autonomous vehicles to name but 3.
  • The main reason for the falling interest is simply that the reality has caught up with the hype meaning that these products will not fulfil their promise for some considerable time.
  • These segments still have potential, but with autonomous vehicles or augmented reality glasses being more than 5 years away puts them is well outside of the long-range planning processes of almost everyone.
  • Hence, the resources dedicated to understanding these trends are declining and are being replaced with a focus on the technologies that are present in the market now.
  • This puts the focus on things like using AI in narrow and well-defined areas, reducing the cost of lidar as well as very specific use devices.
  • Second, more of 2019: The stuff being touted as new at this show is really the old stuff which has been improved to make it much more market-ready.
  • For example, previous years have really talked about what AI will be able to do whereas this year it is all about seeing it deployed.
  • No one is getting excited about having a fluid and contextual conversation with a vehicle which remains but instead the focus is on real products that use the pattern recognition capabilities of deep learning which can deliver proper results.
  • Algorithms that can diagnose breast cancer better than doctors, cameras that can lip read or diagnose glaucoma are some examples of what I expect to see this week.
  • Most of the autonomous vehicle discussion has now moved from cars on the streets in 2020 to how to make lidars smaller better and far cheaper.
  • This is a much more realistic approach to take and one which has some chance of either generating revenues soon or reducing meaningfully the cost to deploy autonomous driving.
  • Similar trends are afoot elsewhere with offerings that aim to tackle real problems that exist today.
  • Good examples of this are Medwand which enables a proper physical (or close approximation) examination to be carried out by a doctor over the internet.
  • Others include products or services that take aim at the No.1 problem with infants which is lack of sleep for both parents and children.
• Hence, the main story of CES is about utilising the limited capacity of AI for real-world applications as well as the falling interest in the technologies that are further away.
• From a new and exciting perspective, this is going to be a dull week but the number of offerings that look ready for the market has increased meaningfully.
• Most of these ideas and products have been around for a long time but there are plenty that are now in their second or third versions with a user experience that is far better and more robust.
• It is on these areas that RFM intends to focus its CES coverage in the coming days.
• Stay tuned.