The Big Tech Trends to Follow at CES 2018

When you leave the house, your air conditioner and lights turn off automatically. Then when a motion sensor detects a person in the house, like your house cleaner, it sends an alert to your phone. When you arrive home, a camera recognizes who you are and the door automatically unlocks.
Automated technologies like these will be at the forefront of CES, one of the world’s largest tech conventions, next week in Las Vegas. They underline one major trend: Increasingly, the innovations that are making their way into your personal technology aren’t physical electronics or gadgets at all.
The real star is artificial intelligence, the culmination of software, algorithms and sensors working together to make your everyday appliances smarter and more automated. It is A.I. that is telling the door to unlock when the camera recognizes you, or sending an alert to your phone when sensors detect a person.
“It’s less about the hardware, and more about what’s inside,” Carolina Milanesi, a technology analyst for Creative Strategies, said about the prominence of artificial intelligence and software innovations at CES. For consumers who are dazzled by flashy new devices, A.I. is never as exciting, she said — but it’s the magic that is making hardware evolve.
That artificial intelligence will take center stage at CES also speaks to how the event has changed in the last few years. It has become less of a venue for tech companies to unveil splashy new products like smartphones or computers, and instead has turned into a showcase for nascent technologies.