CES Takeaways Agencies and Brands Need to Know For 2026

CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) is over for another year, but have no fear if you couldn’t make it to Las Vegas! LBB has already collated some of the biggest advertising announcements from the event – which you can see here – and we’ve spoken with attendees from across the ad agency landscape to elucidate the main takeaways from the tech show, and what these might mean for adland in 2026.

According to our experts’ dispatches, social media was a popular topic with renewed interest around organic growth and creators, as well as personalisation at scale and how that can address an increasingly ‘flattened’ marketing funnel in the coming year and beyond. However, among all the innovative new tech launches and brand experiences that CES had to offer, AI was once again at the forefront of it all.

It seems optimism is widespread for the technology’s potential to finally unite strategy, creative, media and data for advertisers in 2026, with vendors and attendees at the event discussing its role, from ambient to agentic AI.

Several of the experts noted a clear shift towards technology that works quietly in the background, or ‘ambiently’, identifying that marketers’ approach to AI may have to follow suit to earn brands a meaningful place in everyday life and create deeper, more believable engagement. Meanwhile, some of their takeaways around agentic AI suggest that what a customer’s AI thinks of a brand may soon become equally important as what the customer thinks.

But while different lessons and predictions arose – like why now is the time to diversify media plans into AI solutions, or why the next big thing is dynamic AI-powered product placement – the CES attendees could broadly agree on two things for the upcoming year: 2026 should be the year that brands “move beyond pilot purgatory”, as Monks’ senior director of partnerships Lucy Weber puts it, and that the technological advancement is only increasing the premium on human creativity.

So, will 2026 see AI stop being an experiment for brands and agencies, and become ‘infrastructural’ to the industry? And will we see the “human reset after years of digital overload” that Omnicom Advertising’s chief innovation officer Luke Eid suggests? Only time will tell, and LBB will be covering it all over the next 12 months.

To read what Luke, Lucy and our other experts learnt at CES this year – and what it could mean for advertising – read on below.

Luke Eid

Chief innovation officer at Omnicom Advertising

My biggest takeaway from CES this year is that the most meaningful technology wasn’t trying to capture attention. It was trying to disappear. Across the show floor, the strongest signals weren’t about bigger screens or louder experiences, but about reducing effort, cognitive load, and friction. From ambient, screen-free interfaces and physical AI that blends in, to on-device AI and early consumer robotics, there was a clear shift toward technology that works quietly in the background, anticipating needs rather than demanding attention. It felt like an early sign of a broader human reset after years of digital overload.

For the ad industry, this signals a major shift in how brands show up. If technology is becoming more invisible, then advertising delivered through that same technology can’t rely on interruption or volume. Brands will need to earn trust by being genuinely useful, respectful of context, and aware of when to step back. At the same time, this creates a new challenge and opportunity for creating brand distinction. As experiences become quieter and more ambient, brands will need to find new modes and formats to remain distinctive. The opportunity is to design experiences that reduce unwanted friction and solve real needs delivering meaningful differentiation. In 2026, we'll start to see relevance come from restraint versus more reach.

Isabel Perry

Global EVP of Strategy at DEPT®

One of my biggest surprises was social media. It was discussed as if it were new again, and with a new degree of respect. The growth isn't paid, it's organic: the creators and community. We see this reflected directly in incoming briefs. Social > streaming, social > SEO. With a pinch of salt: the true successor to search is social, not GEO or AEO. You still need all of them, but social owns the eyeballs and the discovery moment.

More broadly, media, technology, creative, and commerce are converging. The halls felt like a VC tech conference. What's being consolidated is the commoditised layer, but there's still room for smaller, faster companies to innovate with deep, niche specialisms.

A strategic divide is emerging among agencies. Some are investing in agentic systems as a direct revenue strategy, effectively trying to become software companies. I'm sceptical agencies can genuinely be software developers; the incentives and ways of working are fundamentally misaligned.

Despite the narrative around the ‘death of the creative’, I think the opposite is true. As we enter an age of AI-Slop, quality will still be appreciated. As agents increasingly intermediate brand–customer relationships, the ability to encode tone of voice and narrative principles into systems at scale will be highly valued. Bold creative thinkers who can use AI to produce high-quality versions of previously prohibitive ideas will have a great few years.

I also expect dynamic product placement in live and near-live video to grow rapidly; contextual sponsorship tied directly to what's happening on screen. Sport will play a big part here.

Damian Ferrar

EVP, global head of innovation at Jack Morton

This was the moment AI stopped experimenting and became infrastructural. CES 2026 marked the arrival of physical AI – embedded into cars, homes, health, retail, industries and cities. The most powerful ideas didn’t talk about AI at all; they simply showed intelligent systems acting in real environments. This validated what I was seeing with our clients, but CES shows that its influence has expanded exponentially.

The industry must evolve from campaigns to ecosystems – enough talking about it! As brands build AI-powered environments that people truly inhabit, experience becomes the interface and trust the currency. Relevance won’t come from interruption anymore; it will come from usefulness, intuition and effortless presence in everyday life. This pushes brands to shift their roles dramatically – from telling brand stories to designing intelligent, connected brand experiences that feel natural and indispensable. And CES itself proves the point: it’s one giant, immersive experience, reminding us of the sustained power of being in Vegas every January.

Craig Elimeliah

Chief creative officer at Code and Theory

AI stopped being the demo. It became the infrastructure. Every product, every booth, every conversation assumed AI was already working, already integrated, already expected. The question shifted from ‘Can AI do this?’ to ‘What does AI let us do that we couldn’t do before?’.

The most exciting implementations weren’t screaming ‘powered by AI’. They were the ones where AI was so deeply embedded you almost forgot it was there. That’s when technology actually changes how things work, instead of adding a chatbot or robot to things that were fine without one.

Marketing needs to make the same shift. Stop treating AI as a feature, start building it as infrastructure. The industry has been asking for true orchestration across strategy, creative, media and data for years. AI finally makes that possible. Through systems that make our existing tools intelligent. Systems that learn from every campaign and make the next one faster and smarter.

The infrastructure phase begins now. That’s where real transformation happens.

Whitney Fishman

EVP, futures and insights at dentsu Americas

For all the talk about smarter tech and faster systems, the most important thing to come out of CES this year wasn’t technological at all… it was human. Instead of replacing people, the strongest ideas helped people feel more capable. The promise wasn’t ‘we’ll think for you’ but ‘we’ve got you’ – a subtle but essential distinction.

For marketers, the next phase isn’t about immersion or performance but presence. Technology that fades into the background and supports real moments, real routines, and real life. When innovation works best, you barely notice it’s there. Underlying all of this is trust; Not the kind you put in a brand manifesto, but the kind people feel when a product respects their time, attention and boundaries.

The real takeaway from CES 2026 is this: people don’t need brands to impress them right now. They need brands to understand them. The marketers who win next won’t be the ones shouting the loudest about what’s new. They’ll be the ones who make the future feel intuitive, grounded and human… .and who remember that curiosity grows best when it’s invited, not forced.

Jason Strickland

Head of media and communications planning at Wieden+Kennedy Portland

CES 2026 made it clear that we’ve moved beyond discussing the implications of AI on agency workforces and workflows into discussing the real ways publishers, agencies and brands are leveraging AI to reshape how marketing actually works.

Publishers emphasised new tools that deliver personalisation at scale, whether through targeting, adtech or creative development to address an increasingly ‘flattened’ marketing funnel. What stood out most to me was the tension inside this progress.

While we’re getting incredibly good at delivering one-to-one brand messages, personalisation alone likely won't create lasting meaning or value for a brand. As it becomes easier to tailor messages, the harder job is ensuring those messages still add up to a clear, consistent brand story. How do we avoid a ‘personalized sea of sameness’ that puts brands at risk of standing for nothing?

Brand leaders who spoke seemed to recognise this tension. As AI removes friction from execution and performance marketing becomes easier, the brands that win will be the ones that can hold both truths at once. The ability to embrace the complexity of orchestrating personalisation without losing the throughline of what they stand for.

David Shulman

Global CEO, Havas CX

What struck me most this year was a simple observation: many brands continue to promote advances in technology absent of real consumer needs. The innovation on display was fascinating, but much of it felt like technology chasing relevance rather than being rooted in human demands.

The best brands have always started with customer needs and then looked to innovation to build solutions. Too often, we still see companies asking consumers to meet the brand’s need to sell products and services, instead of designing experiences that meet people where they are.

Customers today want brands to enable their desires, not prescribe them. Landscape architects refer to this as a ‘path of desire’ – the routes people naturally create when the paved path does not reflect how they want to move. The same idea applies to innovation.

Rather than forcing us down a path the company wants us to follow, brands need to observe customer paths closely and apply technology in ways that support how people already live, choose and behave. CES reinforced that the real opportunity for our industry in 2026 is not more technology, but a more thoughtful, human-centered use of it.

Lucy Weber

Senior director, partnerships at Monks

We are rapidly approaching a now-or-never moment where the time for isolated pilots has passed. To drive business forward, brands must move beyond pilot purgatory, where projects are often too small or fragmented to scale, and begin showcasing the immediate utility of AI within integrated business workflows.

Whether it’s in creative usage or data infrastructure, stakeholders are looking for the proof in the pudding. The real value is found in redefining the workflow around specific outcomes, helping brands move from a series of fragmented wins and isolated pilots toward scaled, organisation-wide transformation.

By 2026, the industry will need to commit to a mandatory percentage of experimentation to evaluate AI’s impact on a brand-by-brand basis. Whether it's in the volume of impressions or placements for AI-powered creative campaigns, or percentage of share-of-wallet toward AI enabled buying algorithms, now’s the time to diversify your media plans into AI solutions.

Furthermore, experimentation with AI in media will also help brands discover deep insights into consumer behaviour by testing creative ideas that wouldn't normally pass traditional approval cycles. This allows for mass personalisation that speaks to a higher density of consumer mindsets and niche preferences simultaneously. Instead of one hero asset, brands can deploy hundreds of high-performing variations that remain 100% brand-secure while uncovering deep, real-time insights into what truly resonates with diverse audiences.

Luke Hurd

Director of experience design at VML

Walking the floor at CES this year, the most noticeable pattern was what wasn’t there. There were very few entirely new hardware categories. Instead, the real momentum came from taking familiar products and quietly making them more capable by layering in sensors, computer vision, and new forms of input. A lot of that innovation focused on modality, meaning interaction beyond screens and buttons. That ranged from earbuds that interpret jaw movement as gestures to low-cost surface sensors that can detect taps, finger writing, or simple patterns on everyday objects. Intelligence is spreading out into the environment instead of living in a single device.

That same shift showed up across categories. Pet tech moved past basic automation into monitoring behaviour, mobility, and health. Home robotics focused less on novelty and more on autonomy… CES felt less like a gadget show and more like a preview of everyday objects becoming aware of context and behaviour.

That evolution matters because it points to technology being designed to fit into people’s lives more naturally, rather than compete for attention. These products are built to observe, interpret, and assist in the background, often without a traditional interface. When intelligence is ambient and continuous, interruptive messaging starts to feel out of place. Relevance comes from usefulness, timing and alignment with real needs.

It also raises important questions about trust and responsibility. The same systems that make homes, pets and environments smarter rely on deeply connected data. For brands, the opportunity is not just better targeting but building services and experiences that genuinely help people. CES 2026 made it clear that intelligence is becoming embedded and human-centered by default. Advertising will need to evolve alongside that by focusing less on volume and more on earning a meaningful place in everyday life.

Yann Caloghiris

Executive director, creative, strategy and innovation at Left Field Labs

When Qualcomm’s CEO called robotics “the next big wave of AI”, it crystallised what was happening across the CES show floor: embodied AI has crossed from lab experiment to real interface. This wasn’t just about voice assistants gaining mobility - it was about behaviour becoming the brand surface. Posture, pacing, gesture, and even how a machine holds itself started to matter as much as what it says.

At the same time, CES felt louder and more uneven than usual. Exhibitors clearly signalled an AI-first future, but many don’t yet control it. Hardware still lags ambition, and much of what’s on display reflects futures imagined years ago. Yet the show felt alive - global brands in force, real deals happening, real learning underway. The takeaway wasn’t spectacle; it was that AI works best when it quietly shapes more human experiences rather than announcing itself.

Advertising is entering a behavioural era. As embodied AI becomes part of brand expression, marketers will need to design movement, timing and presence - not just messaging or tone of voice. The way a machine moves can build trust or erode it before a single word of understanding lands.

CES reinforced that experimentation will be messy and hardware imperfect, but the opportunity is clear: brands that treat AI as an invisible, human-centric layer, rather than a spectacle, will create deeper, more believable engagement in 2026 and beyond.

Maggie Gross

Head of strategy and brand practice leader at Deloitte Digital

AI went from a feature to the interface, and then to the real world. This year, the dominant through-line was ‘agentic’ and ‘physical’ AI: assistants that do things (not just answer), showing up across devices, the smart home, cars and robotics. At the same time, companies pushed ‘ambient AI’ that follows you across contexts, expanding to the web and building agentic experiences on top of it.

Your brand won’t just compete for attention. It needs to compete for recommendations. And the first audience you need to persuade might be your customer’s agent. Your brand will have an ‘AI reputation’ separate from your human reputation. If an agent has one bad experience (returns, fraud flags, misleading claims), you may get silently downgraded without ever knowing why.

The new KPI is ‘share of agent consideration’. Not awareness. Not clicks. Whether you make the shortlist. Brand safety flips. It is not just ‘Where did my ad appear?’, it’s ‘What did the agent say about me?’, and whether it said it confidently, correctly and consistently.

Anson Sowby

Co-founder, CEO at Battery

Despite the dread and fear of AI killing and then mocking our creative marketing souls, the trends at CES 2026 showed me a very different story: AI isn’t here to replace creativity. It’s here to make it more valuable.

The real shift isn’t ‘AI making ideas’, it’s AI removing some of the cost and friction that often limit a great idea from getting made. Nvidia’s Rubin announcement highlights how AI can dramatically lower the expense of producing complex ad creative. Disney introduced us to AI tools that simplify the creation of CTV ads – bringing premium-quality storytelling within reach for more brands, not fewer.

None of these innovations remove the need for human judgment. Quite the opposite, they increase the premium on it. When production becomes cheaper and faster, AI allows us to focus on what makes us humans interesting – taste and narrative.

CES 2026 made one thing clear to me: as the cost of production goes down, the value of creativity goes up. Humans live to fight another day!