CES 2026 recap: Physical AI, Nvidia Rubin, AMD Ryzen AI 400 and Razer’s weirdest bets

CES 2026 is wrapping in Las Vegas and the message is blunt: AI has escaped the chatbox. This year’s buzzword was “physical AI” — AI that moves things, drives things, and, in theory, folds your laundry.

Here’s a tight rundown of the biggest reveals and the strangest experiments, from Nvidia and AMD to Razer, Ford, Caterpillar and Lego.

Physical AI takes center stage

For the past two years, CES has been drenched in AI branding. Last year it was all about “agentic” AI. This year, the focus shifted to AI embedded in machines and robots, which showed up everywhere on the show floor.

Robots weren’t just a sideshow; they were the main act, from heavy construction gear to home helpers and humanoids.

Nvidia: Rubin architecture and AI for autonomous vehicles

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang used his characteristically long keynote to claim another victory lap for the company’s AI dominance and set the tone for 2026.

Two key announcements:

Rubin computing architecture
- Designed to meet surging AI computation demands.
- Starts replacing Blackwell architecture in the second half of 2026.
- Brings speed and storage upgrades over Blackwell, with the deeper technical details broken down in TechCrunch’s reporting.
Alpamayo open source AI models for autonomous vehicles
- A new family of open source AI models and tools aimed at powering autonomous vehicles this year.
- Fits Nvidia’s broader strategy to become, as TechCrunch put it, “the Android for generalist robots,” by providing the base infrastructure everyone else builds on.

If you want the full play-by-play, TechCrunch liveblogged the show (see the embedded tweet here: https://twitter.com/TechCrunch/status/2008308031788859720) and broke down Rubin’s architecture in more detail.

AMD: Ryzen AI 400 and a very AI-heavy keynote

AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su had the honor of the first CES keynote. She didn’t do it alone.

On stage with Su were:

Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI
Fei-Fei Li, one of the most influential figures in modern AI
Amit Jain, CEO of Luma AI

Beyond the star-studded guest list, AMD’s focus was clear: making AI on PCs boringly normal.

The company pushed its Ryzen AI 400 Series processors as the way to bring AI workloads directly onto personal computers, not just the cloud.
The message: the AI PC era is here, and AMD wants silicon in every one of those machines.

Ford and Caterpillar: AI in vehicles and heavy machinery

The “physical AI” theme showed up hard in transportation and industry.

Ford’s AI assistant

Ford announced a new AI assistant that will show up in:

The Ford app first, then
Ford vehicles starting in 2027 (targeted timeline)

Key points:

It’s hosted on Google Cloud.
It’s built on off‑the‑shelf large language models (LLMs).
Ford shared very few specifics about what the assistant will actually do for drivers, leaving big questions around safety, reliability and UX.

Caterpillar + Nvidia: Cat AI Assistant

Construction giant Caterpillar teamed up with Nvidia on a pilot called “Cat AI Assistant,” demoed at CES:

Runs on at least one of Caterpillar’s excavators.
Is part of a broader effort to use Nvidia Omniverse simulation tools for construction project planning and execution.

Put simply: AI copilots aren’t just coming to cars and laptops — they’re headed for job sites and industrial fleets.

Robots everywhere: LG CLOiD and Atlas with Google

LG’s CLOiD home robot underwhelms

LG put a big marketing push behind its CLOiD home robot. On stage, it looked like a friendly domestic helper. In person, it felt more like a beta demo.

Senior writer Lucas Ropek summed up the live demo this way:

“Unfortunately, at the presentation I saw, CLOiD didn’t do a whole lot. I saw the bot very gingerly take a shirt out of a basket and place it into a dryer. I also saw it pick up a croissant and (again, very gingerly) place it into an oven.”

Between the cautious movements and heavily produced hype videos, CLOiD looked more aspirational than ready.

Boston Dynamics + Google on Atlas

Hyundai’s press conference focused on its robotics arm Boston Dynamics, but the most interesting detail was the AI stack.

Boston Dynamics is partnering with Google’s AI research lab — not one of Google’s rivals — to help train and operate its Atlas humanoid robots.
That work covers both existing Atlas units and a new iteration of the humanoid robot shown on stage.

The message: advanced robots will be as much about the AI pipeline as the hardware.

The oddities: Razer’s AI companions, Clicks Communicator and more

CES wouldn’t be CES without some glorious weirdness.

Razer’s Project Motoko and Project AVA

Razer, normally known at CES for over‑the‑top hardware (three‑screen laptops, haptic cushions, even a mask that drew a federal fine), pivoted into AI companions this year:

Project Motoko: aims to behave like smart glasses without the glasses — think an ambient, AI-driven assistant without putting hardware on your face.
Project AVA: an AI avatar that lives on your desk, acting as a kind of visual AI companion.

For now, both remain concepts. Razer is using CES to test how comfortable people are with always-present AI personalities.

Clicks Communicator: the BlackBerry energy is back

One of the buzziest mobile devices on the floor came from a newcomer: Clicks Technology.

The Clicks Communicator phone costs $499 and brings back a full physical keyboard, very reminiscent of classic BlackBerry designs.
There’s also a $79 slide‑out physical keyboard accessory for other devices.

Consumer editor Sarah Perez wrote that in hands-on tests:

“The phone felt good to hold — not too heavy or light, and was easy to grip… The device’s screen is also somewhat elevated off the body, and its chin is curved up to create a recess that protects the keys when you place it face down.”

For people who still miss tactile typing, Clicks may have nailed the nostalgia play.

EufyMake E1 UV printer: industrial tech for Etsy makers

UV printers that can print directly onto objects have typically lived in factories, not home studios. EufyMake E1 wants to change that.

Launch price: $2,299, due later this year.
Prints directly on items like mugs, water bottles and phone cases.

For small merchants and makers, that price is still steep but far more attainable than traditional industrial UV rigs.

Smart homes, calendars and Amazon’s Alexa+ push

Skylight Calendar 2

The Skylight Calendar 2 stood out as a surprisingly practical family AI device:

Central family planning and calendar hub.
Uses AI to sync calendars from multiple services.
Can create new to‑dos from messages or photos, and handle appointment reminders and other admin tasks.

It’s less “sci‑fi robot” and more “quietly useful household infrastructure.”

Amazon: Alexa+, Fire TV and Ring

Amazon used CES to push a much more AI‑heavy vision of its ecosystem.

Alexa+: a chatbot-style upgrade to Alexa.
- Launching for early access users via Alexa.com in the browser.
- A revamped, bot‑centric Alexa app is coming as well.
Fire TV and Artline TVs: new TV hardware and interfaces with Alexa+ tightly integrated.

On the Ring side, Amazon rolled out a slate of updates, including:

Fire alerts and
An app store for third‑party camera integrations, among other features.

The throughline: Alexa is becoming less of a voice remote and more of a conversational AI front end.

Office space and commute algorithms: MyCommuters

Away from the gadget noise, MyCommuters offered a different kind of product: office planning as a data problem.

The platform combines commute times, expenses and other datasets.
It recommends office locations that work better for both companies and employees, rather than just what’s cheapest or most visible on the market.

Founder Guillaume Acier built it around a simple idea: hybrid work needs smarter geography, not just smaller leases.

Lego’s first CES: Smart Bricks and Star Wars

For the first time, Lego took a booth at CES, and it didn’t show up empty‑handed.

Behind closed doors, the company demoed its Smart Play System:

Bricks, tiles and Minifigures that can interact with each other and play sounds.
The debut sets are Star Wars–themed.

It’s Lego’s attempt to add digital behavior without forcing kids in front of another screen.

Panels, side shows and a $25,000 Theranos bounty

CES isn’t just product launches. A few standout bits from the side stages this year:

Palmer Luckey evangelized retro aesthetics, leaning into the nostalgia wave across hardware design.
Speakers debated whether the “learn once, work forever” era is effectively over for workers in a fast‑changing AI economy.
Attendees got an early look at “The Audacity,” a new Silicon Valley–based TV series.
Roku talked up the expansion of its $3 streaming service, an aggressive price point in a crowded market.
All‑In host Jason Calacanis offered a $25,000 bounty for an authentic Theranos device, in a stunt that perfectly captured CES’s mix of spectacle and tech history.

Want more? Watch or listen

If you prefer audio or video, TechCrunch’s Equity podcast broke down the highs and lows of CES 2026 in detail. You can watch or listen via the embedded videos from the show:

CES 2026 made one thing clear: AI is no longer just an app feature. It’s becoming the logic layer for hardware, vehicles and infrastructure — even if, for now, some of those robots still just “very gingerly” move our croissants.