CES doesn’t start until January, but whispers of potential products and announcements at the biggest annual tech conference are starting to take shape. The CES 2026 exhibition area is officially open from January 6 to 9, although the show begins with events on Sunday January 4 and several press conferences on Monday. As always, product demos, announcements and networking will take place at the Las Vegas Convention Center and nearby hotels throughout the city. As always, Engadget will be covering the event in person and remotely, bringing you news and updates live from the ground.
Clear details and pre-announcements should come out as CES approaches, but for now, we know which companies will be holding press conferences and which technologies will raise their heads at the show.
We already know about it
Press conferences and floor booths are the bread and butter of CES. The Consumer Technology Association has already published a searchable directory of who will be at the show, as well as a schedule of all the official panels and presentations.
On Sunday, January 4, Samsung will kick off CES with “The First Look,” a presentation hosted by TM Roh, CEO of Samsung’s DX Division, about the company’s vision for the “DX (Device eXperience) Division in 2026, and a new AI-driven customer experience.”
That will be followed by several press conferences throughout Monday, January 5. LG held its “Innovation in Tune with You” presentation to share its “vision to elevate everyday life with Affectionate Intelligence” earlier in the day, Intel unveiled its new Core Ultra Series 3 processors in the afternoon, Sony Honda Mobility held a press conference for its first AMD Suno car and AMD will announce AMD’s key CEO. address closing date.
In the week of December 15, CTA added an important note by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang to its schedule. The event will take place on January 5th at 1PM PT and, according to the website, will last approximately 90 minutes. Based on the description in the listing, the presentation will “showcase NVIDIA’s latest solutions that drive intelligence and productivity across industries.”
Finally, on Tuesday, January 6, Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang will host the Lenovo Global Technology Conference at Sphere, using a large and curved screen to share “the company’s commitment to bringing intelligent AI to all by constantly redefining how technology can engage, inspire, and empower.” It is worth noting that Lenovo is the parent company of Motorola, which also makes phones and folders that include AI tools, so it is possible that those devices will also be included in the presentation.
Aside from the official launch of new products and programs, reading the tea leaves of what was announced last year and what companies are reportedly working on, we can make educated guesses about what we might see at CES 2026.
New chips from AMD, Intel and Qualcomm
CES is usually the start of a series of new chip announcements for a given year, and one of the first places new silicon appears in actual consumer products. AMD will likely use its keynote to introduce new versions of its Ryzen chips, including the newly spotted Ryzen 7 9850X3D, which is expected to offer better single-core performance, and the Ryzen 9000G series, which could be built with AMD’s Zen 5 architecture. The company may also use its CES stage to go over its new FSR Redstone AI technology.
Intel has already publicly announced that it will launch its Panther Lake chips at CES 2026. The officially titled Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips fit into Intel’s general “AI PC” push, but are specifically designed for high-end laptops. Based on the October 2025 preview, Intel says the first chip made with its 2-nanometer 18A process will offer 50 percent more processing performance than previous generations and the chip’s Arc GPU, a 50 percent performance bump over the previous generation.
Qualcomm is also rumored to be targeting laptops at the show, building on the work it’s done getting its Snapdragon chips out of phones and tablets and into other types of computers. The company’s Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Premium chips should start appearing in laptops at CES 2026, giving a glimpse of the improved speed and AI performance the company promised in 2025.
Bright, “real” screens.
Sony has announced a range of new Bravia TVs for April 2025, replacing the company’s flagship, rounding out its midrange options and adding a new budget model to the mix. The star of this updated Bravia lineup is the Bravia 9, which features a QD-OLED panel, but Sony seems to be preparing for a new display technology for 2026. In March 2025, Sony introduced a new RGB LED panel that uses Mini LED backlights with red, blue colors to produce brighter, more accurate colors. Unlike QD-OLED, which filters a layer of diodes that emit blue organic light with color-changing quantum dots, Sony’s “General RGB LED Backlight Technology” can light up like a Mini LED panel without needing an additional filter layer or worrying about OLED burnout issues.
The company has already listed the term “True RGB,” which could end up being what Sony calls the new display flavor if it decides to show off at CES. It seems possible, because CES is nothing if not a TV show – it’s a sure bet that we’ll see new TVs from the likes of LG and Samsung in addition to Sony. If the company isn’t introducing new display technology to its TVs, it has a new 240Hz PlayStation monitor coming in 2026 to show off at CES instead.
Sony isn’t the only company to shine with bright screens. Samsung is reportedly pushing an updated version of the HDR10 and HDR10+ standards that may be ready to be demoed at CES 2026. The new HDR10+ Advanced standard will be Samsung’s answer to Dolby Vision 2, which includes support for both tone control and smart features that automatically sync sports and gaming content. Samsung’s take will reportedly offer improved brightness, type-based tone mapping and smart motion smoothing options, among other improvements.
Ballie Watch for 2026
A yellow ball-shaped robot known as “Ballie” has been announced twice, first in 2020 and again in 2024 via a projector. Samsung said the Ballie would go on sale in 2025 at CES last year and then shared in April 2025 that the Ballie would ship this summer with Google’s Gemini. But it’s almost 2026, and Ballie is nowhere to be seen. It is possible that Samsung will make a third attempt to announce its robot at CES 2026, but whether it does or not, robots will still be a big part of the show.
Robot vacuums and mops were very prominent at CES 2025, and it is safe to expect significant improvements in the new models announced at CES 2026. Not all companies will use the retractable arm of the Roborock Saros Z70, but robot vacuums with legs to climb on small ledges such as the Dream X50 may appear similar to the Dream X50. Roborock may also show off its new Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Flow, its first robot vacuum to feature a retractable roller mop.
Besides traversing spaces effectively, improving robot navigation can also be a major concern of the show. Prominent members of the AI industry are shifting their attention from large linguistic models to global models, which aim to give AI a deeper understanding of the physical environment. Those world models could be the key to making robots, bipedal or otherwise, capable of navigating homes and workplaces, and will be a key talking point at CES 2026.
We’ll update this article throughout the month as more rumors emerge and new products are confirmed — stay tuned for future updates!
Update, December 11 2025, 11:03AM ET: This story has been updated to include information that Lenovo is Motorola’s parent company and how the latter may be involved in Tuesday’s presentation.
Update, December 16 2025, 1:33PM ET: This story has been updated to include NVIDIA’s press conference, which was added to the CTA schedule over the past two days.
