Technology Trends for 2017 Seen at CES

Las Vegas at the start of the year. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world's largest technology festival, is an annual fixture for the home appliance, automotive, IT, and internet industries. For me too, CES has marked the start of the work year for the past seven years. This year, I'll report on the 2017 technology trends seen at CES in two parts.

What is CES?

Let me briefly explain CES again. CES is a massive convention event celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. According to the organizers, it expects over 3,800 exhibitors and more than 165,000 attendees from over 150 countries worldwide, making it a truly massive scale. The venue scale is also massive, with the entire city of Las Vegas serving as the event space. Centered around the LVCC (Las Vegas Convention Center), numerous hotels and event facilities are used as venues, making it impossible to see everything even during the four-day event period.

From Home Appliances to Technology

CES, with its 50-year history as a consumer electronics show, reached a major turning point in 2015. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), which had organized and run CES, changed its name to the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Personally, I'm caught between feelings of "Finally, the time has come" and "It's about time." This is because CES, long dominated by televisions and white goods, has seen its focus shift dramatically in recent years toward emerging technologies like mobile, IoT (Internet of Things), AI (Artificial Intelligence), and AR/VR (Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality).

In particular, recent years have seen connected cars, smart homes, and other IoT-related announcements take center stage, along with the big data, AI, and ML (machine learning) that support them. As the presence of new technologies, which can no longer be discussed as mere extensions of home appliances, PCs, or mobile phones, grows stronger, this change feels inevitable.

What are the trends for 2017?

You've likely already seen many news reports about compelling products at CES, such as attractive gadgets, untipping bikes, and OLED TVs. At Web Dentsu Inc., we will focus not on individual products, but on the major technological trends I sensed at CES.

AI

It's no exaggeration to say AI and ML were this year's stars. While CES hosts numerous keynotes and individual seminars, I believe the opening keynote sets the major theme CES should communicate for the year. This year, that keynote was delivered by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.

Now, do you know NVIDIA? It's a U.S. semiconductor manufacturer. When you think of semiconductor makers, Intel probably comes to mind for many. Intel has also used CES keynotes in the past to introduce the world to IoT. This year, however, NVIDIA took the stage.

The reason is that this year's CES focused on AI and automobiles, specifically autonomous driving and connectivity. NVIDIA originally made its name producing GPUs (semiconductors primarily designed to accelerate computer graphics processing and computational tasks), establishing a strong presence in the PC gaming market.

However, recently, deep learning technology using GPUs has gained significant attention in fields like autonomous driving technology, robot perception technology, image recognition, and speech recognition. Simply put, GPUs have become crucial in AI and ML. Amidst this, NVIDIA, the leading GPU company, has positioned itself as an "AI computing company," securing a vital place in the tech industry alongside Intel and Qualcomm, making it the centerpiece of CES.

CEO Jensen Huang unveils the "XAVIER" semiconductor unit supporting autonomous driving AI

 

Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf discusses the future of video streaming enabled by 5G

 

IoT and VR Have Become Commonplace

For the past few years, IoT and VR have been the stars of CES. Starting with wearable devices, connected cars, smart home appliances (from smartphone-controlled lighting to refrigerators connected to online shopping via power outlets), gadgets from numerous startups, and the various ecosystems linking them all—CES allowed us to sense the potential of a world where everything connects to the internet.

Now, IoT is no longer a vision of the future but an established reality. At CES, numerous presentations featured many U.S. CXOs discussing what is needed in the IoT world, what their companies should do, and how they should differentiate themselves—all with IoT as a given.

Simultaneously, VR has, at least this year, fully gained mainstream acceptance. VR is no longer a novel concept; it was routinely utilized in exhibits, with discussions focused on VR-based business models and future content experiences. Attending CES always makes you keenly aware of the speed at which technologies and concepts, introduced just a few years ago as new frontiers, progress and become established.

The Unsung Star: Alexa and the Potential of Voice Interaction

This year's CES had a hidden star: Alexa. Developed by Amazon, Alexa is a personal assistant whose voice interaction capabilities position it as the center of the connected home. It can play music, provide traffic information, and control various smart appliances. Alexa's functionality is widely available to developers via APIs. Companies ranging from large corporations to startups were showcasing the implementation and integration of Alexa's voice interaction capabilities everywhere—from home appliances to in-car devices. Alexa's presence was felt everywhere related to IoT—in homes, cars, and appliances.

Amazon Alexa and IoT integration exhibit. From the popular NETATMO home environment monitor booth

 

At this year's CES, Alexa's suddenly heightened presence made me consider two things. First, the importance of ecosystems. Amazon early on enriched Alexa's development environment and widely expanded it to numerous developers. As more companies adopt Alexa, its competitive advantage grows, attracting even more companies to adopt it. This cycle flooded the CES venue with Alexa in just one year. Like IBM Watson as an AI development platform, Alexa demonstrates that in the broader IoT network business, building an ecosystem is far more critical than the inherent superiority of the underlying technology itself. Japanese companies likely have much to learn about leveraging core technologies with this open-minded approach, prioritizing ecosystem development for commercialization.

Another key point is the potential of voice interaction. While this primarily applies to English-speaking regions, Alexa's momentum will likely further elevate the presence of voice recognition as a user interface (UI) connecting IoT products and services with consumers. Although languages like Japanese still face significant technical hurdles for widespread adoption, marketers must be mindful of the proliferation of voice-based UIs as contact points with consumers.
Next time, I'll report on the movements of major US companies observed at CES and the AT&T Developer Conference.