Over the holidays, I’ve been splitting time between family and necessary reflection—helicoptering up to stitch together themes from a year of BrandRank.AI work for my forthcoming book, The Answer Economy: How Agentic AI, Not Ads, Will Shape the Future of Brands (Wiley Publishing).
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With CES right around the corner—drawing roughly 140,000 people to Las Vegas—I couldn’t help asking: How will AI change how we interface with the world’s largest consumer technology showcase?
For those planning to walk the seemingly endless halls, it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider something beyond the dazzling product demos and innovation theater: Not just whether AI will power many of these products—but how AI will transform how we evaluate them.
While the show floor will spotlight breakthrough devices—AI refrigerators, autonomous vehicles, health tech wearables, smart home ecosystems—there’s a quieter revolution happening in how consumers will actually discover, compare, and choose these products.
Here’s a one-pager I’ve prepared that captures ten fundamental shifts happening in how AI-powered answer engines are changing product evaluation in the consumer electronics space:
Let me unpack a few of these that matter most for the brands exhibiting at CES:
When someone asks ChatGPT or Claude “What TV should I get for my bright living room?”, the AI doesn’t recite megahertz and HDMI versions. It translates technical specifications into plain language about viewing experience, room conditions, and use cases. Brands that can’t articulate why their specs matter will be invisible.
“What should I get?” is replacing “Which model is newest?” AI answer engines start with the consumer’s actual situation and work backward to solutions. This means product positioning needs to be anchored in real-world problems, not feature checklists.
AI explains tradeoffs naturally: “The Sony has better motion handling but the Samsung offers superior brightness.” No buried footnotes. No marketing spin that obscures genuine limitations. Brands must be honest about what they do well—and what they don’t.
Performance isn’t discussed in benchmarks anymore. It’s framed around actual life: “This camera performs well in low light at your kid’s basketball games.” The shift from specifications to real-world outcomes requires brands to think differently about product documentation and claims.
Vague sustainability promises don’t cut it. AI asks: “Where is it made? How long will it last? What happens when it breaks?” Clear, specific answers beat aspirational marketing every time.
For the 4,300+ exhibitors at CES 2026, these shifts create both risk and opportunity:
The Risk: Your million-dollar booth and product launch might be invisible to AI answer engines. If your brand isn’t showing up when consumers ask questions, your innovation doesn’t exist in their decision journey.
The Opportunity: Brands that embrace radical transparency—that document compatibility, acknowledge limitations, explain sustainability practices with specificity—will build trust that compounds across millions of AI-mediated conversations.
The brands that win won’t confuse. They’ll make complexity livable.
If you’re at CES next week, I’d love to connect. I’m speaking at CES “Foundry AI” on Thursday afternoon about how brands can prepare for this Answer Economy shift. I will also highlight, in partnership with JobsOhio, some of the great innovation and even head-turning AI leadership taking place in the State of Ohio.
And if you’re walking the show floor, take a moment to ask yourself: Would an AI recommend this product? And more importantly—does it have the information it needs to explain why?
The future of consumer electronics isn’t just about what gets invented. It’s about what gets understood.
See you in Vegas.