CES continues to attract many visitors, but CES 2025 was somewhat stale and lacking in excitement.

The progress and spread of technological innovation has been tremendous in recent years, and cutting-edge innovations are now being deployed in the market before the exhibition. In the past, technologies exhibited at CES were expected to appear in the market in a few years, but now the span has been reversed, and things that are already in the market are being shown at the exhibition.

AI is a good example. Many innovations that utilize generative AI were exhibited at CES, but these innovations have already been tried by companies, and the market is actually ahead of them. This trend is particularly noticeable in the United States, home to Silicon Valley, and as a result, the strange phenomenon of things that already exist being lined up at the exhibition hall has unfolded.
Frankly speaking, walking around the CES 2025 venue, I sometimes wondered, “Are companies holding back on their innovation?” This is not entirely off the mark. Speaking to local people, many American companies have indeed refrained from exhibiting at this year’s CES. One reason is the fear of technology leakage, but the biggest reason is the inauguration of the Trump administration. The Biden administration was still in power during CES, but the Trump administration took over immediately after. Many American companies are concerned that the change of administration will make the economy less clear. For now, they seem to be cautious, deciding that it is best to keep a low profile. It has been about a month since the inauguration of the administration, but looking at the actions of the Trump administration, these concerns have more or less come true. 
In Silicon Valley, vigorous AI development was seen. As expected of the mecca of innovation, the dynamism is overwhelming. What they are focusing on now is the complete automation of services using AI. How can services be provided without human intervention? How can we remove the human-in-the-loop from business? The trend in Silicon Valley is that they are focusing on these considerations.
Robotics is attracting attention as an approach to remove humans from business. It may be better to express it as AI x IoT.
AI will be incorporated into various things with the aim of completely automating services. It will be incorporated not only in cars and robots, but also in heavy machinery and home appliances, and even pencils and erasers in the future.
AI business is expected to expand explosively in this way in the future, but when considering the business of Japanese companies, there are great business opportunities on the IoT side of AI x IoT. It is expected that AI technology will be dominated by American companies, but when it comes to IoT, Japanese companies, which are good at manufacturing, can demonstrate their true abilities. By setting a vector for manufacturing with the incorporation of AI in mind, the next path forward may become clear.
In the age of AI, Japanese companies will be required to become even more selective and focused. First of all, they should focus on brushing up on their areas of expertise.
To be honest, it will be difficult to compete with American companies in open AI and public clouds, but it is possible to surpass them in communications technology and manufacturing.
I recommend that they begin serious consideration of how they can combine their own technologies with AI to achieve “complete service automation.”
(Kei Kitajima)

※Translating Japanese articles into English with AI