Digital Transformation

CES 2024 has come to a close, and we’re back with our personal recap of the show as we hit the booths. With so many companies and products on display, it’s hard to cover it all, so we’ve picked 12 key takeaways. We hope you’ll find them useful in your own CES 2024 report.

1. Tech corporatization of traditional companies through digital transformation

Last year, it started with John Deere, and this CES 2024 it was L’Oréal. I think that the steady investment in technology over the past decade, multiple acquisitions, and collaboration with startups have been the driving force behind the explosive response to this keynote. I think that the corporatization of technology by traditional companies such as HD Hyundai and Doosan Bobcat is the need of the hour.

2. AI is everywhere.

There were some GPTs and LLMs as well, but those were driven by interest after ChatGPT appeared, and it seems that the timeframe was too short to actually bring a full-fledged service to CES 2024. This year, some companies showed services or talked about concepts, but I think we still need a little more time to see them at a mass production level, and I think we’ll probably see them next year.

Instead, AI has become a default for most products, and it seems that things that were introduced a few years ago to solve the inherent problems of those products are now commonplace. It’s become a default, and it’s no longer a bragging right? It felt like you had to do it or be left out of the game.

3. Consumer electronics companies choose reality over innovation

There seems to be mixed reviews of global leading consumer electronics companies such as LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics, but based on my experience of attending these companies and overseeing the actual CES exhibition, I think they have made a lot of realistic choices rather than taking on an innovative image. Ten years ago, CES was a place to showcase products that were close to mass production, but just before the coronavirus, it became a race to show more innovation than mass production that year. This part has now returned to its rightful place. Most of the innovative products, such as LG’s transparent OLED T and Samsung’s Bully, have announced plans for mass production this year.

4. Expanding carbon reduction challenges, including new materials and plastic recycling

As the environmental dimension of ESG has emphasized plastic recycling and carbon reduction, we’ve seen more and more companies cite these as their primary business. Large companies are emphasizing these attempts to complete their own closed loop, and Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and Panasonic are all examples of this. However, since many startups are research-based, the fact that there are many startups challenging new materials means that we could have predicted changes in the industry or market expansion within a few years.

5. Robots hide behind B2B or special-purpose, home robotics attempts, but domestic conglomerates recycle

After stealing the spotlight last year, robots have taken a backseat this year. However, special-purpose robots such as lawn mowers, snow shovelers, and products that will be sold in B2B such as cleaning fish tanks or sea pollution, and serving were still trying to carve out a market. In terms of actual robots, Chinese companies are the hidden powerhouses, so the lack of a full-fledged CES penetration from them left me feeling a bit lukewarm. In the case of Korean conglomerates, they came out with Samsung Electronics’ Buli, which is a social robot for the home, and LG Electronics’ unnamed but cute robot, which showed advancements over previous robots by understanding conversations and context based on LLM.

However, Samsung Electronics introduced Buli with the same name three years ago, and LG Electronics introduced a rolling robot at CES about five years ago, but did not release it, but this time they announced its release, so it will be interesting to watch the changes in this market. Amazon is also Alexa-based, but they continue to challenge, so it will be interesting to see how usability can change as Alexa expands to LLM technology, and it started as a robot, but I think it will be an interesting point of view to watch as an adjacent area.

6. Expanding the look and feel of a smart home booth

Last year, it is true that emphasizing MATTER gave considerable strength to smart home, but this year, if you look at the exterior only, the exterior has expanded, as if one side of the first floor of Eureka Hall had booths in the smart home category. However, it was quite a bit less because it was an expansion centered on practicality. It could be seen that MATTER is now being organized in the direction of doing built-in, but the part that MATTER did not actually fulfill what it promised.

And the part that wants to protect their territory in the collaboration of large home appliance companies that have not been unified for the past 10 years… Behind it, it is true that there is still a long way to go considering the burden of rising material costs for home appliance companies, but it was still a feeling that a big change continues.

7. The national pavilions expanded to the first and second floors of Eureka Hall, which became a national anthem

To make a long story short, Korean startups occupied half of Eureka Hall, and some countries (such as Germany) that had previously occupied the first floor moved to the second floor. Whether intended or unintended, the startup space gave off a sense of nationalism. I met a lot of people with negative opinions, but personally, I couldn’t deny that it was an opportunity to see many Korean startups at once, and I was able to see domestic startups that have global competitiveness as quantity makes quality.

8. Expanding connections to food tech, beauty tech, and digital health

Foodtech has been around since last year, and beautytech also had a strong showing this year with big names like L’Oreal and Amorepacific. Digital health has always had the largest number of exhibitors at CES, so there was a wide variety of companies this year. If you look at it from the pharmaceutical/bio industry, their level may be perceived as very low, but from a bio perspective, we eat it as food after animal testing, apply it to our skin, and after this accumulation, it leads to pharmaceuticals, so I was looking forward to the connection between them from a tech perspective.

Of course, it is still in its infancy, and it is true that it is humble compared to the companies appearing at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference held at the same time, but even if you narrow it down to digital healthcare, I felt that it is growing compared to before. Of course, few products have been mass-produced or even FDA approved.

9. Continued expansion beyond electric vehicles, e-motorcycles, and e-scooters to all mobility, including electric heavy equipment and electric boats

Despite Hyundai’s new strategy statement on hydrogen, the mobility shift to electricity continued at CES 2024. Caterpillar, for example, was impressive with its heavy equipment being powered by electricity and its energy-related products being offered as separate solutions.

10. Metaverse shrinks, tends toward industrialization

Metaverse is also organizing a separate zone to attract more companies to participate, but we haven’t seen a breakthrough yet. That said, quantity of challenges creates quality, and as in previous years, there was a steady stream of individual solutions, HMDs, haptic aids, and other peripherals – all of which were buried by Apple’s Vision Pro, of course.

Instead, I was interested in the big players, Dassault (France) and Siemens, who are traditional digital twin powerhouses and are steadily expanding their real-world businesses. Dassault’s display of a digital human may not have been very impressive to the average person, but it gave me a glimpse of the technology, data, and sophistication they have accumulated to collect various biometric information and turn it into a twin.

11. Tech for Humanity, Tech for the Underdog

At CES 2024, technologies that solve humanity’s problems and help people with disabilities are my personal favorites, regardless of their marketability, and I’m glad to see them showcased again this year, and that they won so many innovation awards. I saw robotic arms to replace prosthetic limbs, cosmetics and aids for people with hydrocephalus, wearable robots, devices that produce water from the air, and technology that turns seawater into fresh water with less energy, and I wish them all the best.

12. AI such as GPT was expected, but the challenge of AI chips is significant

The talk about AI chips from big companies such as Qualcomm should be approached as a business, but the challenge for AI chips from startups is that the size of this market is growing regardless of success, and I felt that it will expand to On Device, Edge AI, etc. that I expected in the next year or so, and lead to meaningful services based on GPT. Since CES is a hardware-centered exhibition, it is a challenge to put such AI into hardware and tune the performance. I wonder what will happen next year now that we have warmed up this year.

CES 2024 Recap bonus, the return of China

The second largest attendance at CES 2024 was from Chinese companies. This time, the entire Westgate hall above the LVCC North hall was filled with Chinese companies based in China and Hong Kong, and even some of the booths in the back of the hall. The Chinese exhibitors came out with ready-to-sell products, and many of the booths were sales-oriented, and it was great to see the return of the Shenzhen-branded booths.

Of course, there were no Huawei, DJI, etc. representing China, but Roborax, a robot vacuum cleaner powerhouse, was selling well as if it were not a Chinese company.

I’ve been attending CES for more than 10 years and I feel like every time, it’s a similar show, and sometimes I feel like I can’t feel the innovation, but the experience of seeing, touching, and talking to it is really important. I’ll be back next year.