A roundup of the most innovative and exciting tech products revealed at CES 2024 and how they might impact the future of business technology.
CES 2024 — held in Las Vegas in January — showcased what the consumer technology industry believes we will be using over the next one to three years. While CES is primarily a consumer show, the products and trends on display have a habit of finding their way into business environments within 12-24 months.
Here are the standout announcements and what they might mean for how Australian businesses work.
AI Was Everywhere (And Actually Useful This Time)
CES 2024 was the first CES where AI integration felt genuinely mature rather than aspirational. The difference: products were demonstrating specific, useful AI capabilities rather than just labelling themselves “AI-powered”.
AI-Enhanced Laptops: Copilot+ and NPU Integration
Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm all announced processors with dedicated Neural Processing Units (NPUs) — dedicated chips for running AI workloads locally, without cloud connectivity. The business implication is significant: AI features that currently require sending data to cloud services (Microsoft Copilot, summarisation tools, transcription) will increasingly run locally on the device.
For businesses with data sovereignty or privacy concerns about cloud AI processing, local NPU-based AI features are a meaningful development. Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC category — launched in 2024 — is the first manifestation of this architecture in the Windows ecosystem.
Samsung and LG’s AI Home Integration
Both major TV and appliance manufacturers showed deep AI integration across their product lines — TVs that understand natural language commands, refrigerators that track inventory, washing machines that optimise cycles based on load detection. While these are consumer products, the underlying pattern (AI making everyday devices more autonomous and context-aware) is the same pattern playing out in commercial environments with smart office technology.
Transparent OLED Displays
LG and Samsung both showed transparent OLED displays — screens that function as normal high-quality displays but are transparent when not showing content. The commercial applications are already being developed: retail display, hospitality (menus and signage that do not obstruct views), and architectural installation.
For office environments, transparent displays as glass partitions that can show content when needed and function as standard glass otherwise is a near-future application that several vendors are actively developing.
Spatial Computing and Mixed Reality
Following Apple’s announcement of Vision Pro (shipping in early 2024), CES saw multiple vendors demonstrating spatial computing and mixed reality applications. The business use cases being demonstrated were more convincing than previous years: engineering visualisation, architectural walkthroughs, training simulations, and remote collaboration with shared spatial context.
The hardware remains expensive and the form factor is not yet suited to extended daily use. But the trajectory is clear — spatial computing is moving from experimental to applied in specific high-value business contexts (design, engineering, training) faster than general adoption.
Advanced Wireless Charging and Battery Technology
Several manufacturers demonstrated significant advances in wireless charging speed and range. Motorola showed a phone being charged wirelessly from across a room — currently slow, but the direction of travel is clear. More practically, new battery chemistries (solid-state batteries in early commercial demonstration) promise significantly higher energy density and faster charging that will extend laptop and device battery life materially.
For mobile workers — sales teams, field service, consultants — device battery life is a genuine productivity constraint. The battery technology demonstrated at CES 2024 suggests meaningful improvements are 2-3 years away from mainstream availability.
Health and Biometric Monitoring Integration
The convergence of health monitoring with standard consumer devices accelerated significantly at CES 2024. Multiple smartwatches and rings demonstrated continuous glucose monitoring, blood pressure monitoring, and advanced sleep analysis.
The business application is emerging through workplace wellness programmes — some larger employers are beginning to integrate opt-in health monitoring with workplace wellness benefits and insurance arrangements. This is early-stage for Australian businesses, but the technology capability is maturing faster than the regulatory and cultural frameworks.
What to Watch For in 2025-2026
Based on the CES 2024 trajectory, the technologies most likely to have business relevance within the next 1-2 years:
- Copilot+ AI PCs replacing standard laptops in refresh cycles — local AI processing for privacy-sensitive AI workloads
- Spatial audio and video for hybrid meeting rooms — making remote participants feel more present
- Improved wireless infrastructure — Wi-Fi 7 devices and infrastructure reaching mainstream pricing
- AI-assisted IT management — automation of routine IT tasks through AI integrated with RMM and ITSM platforms
CX IT Services helps Melbourne businesses evaluate and plan for emerging technology through our Virtual CIO service and technology roadmap planning. Book a Right Fit Call to discuss how upcoming technology trends might affect your business.
