By Jonathan Lowndes

In our tech practice at ReD, we monitor CES each year for provocative and disruptive innovations that might force us to rethink the tech landscape our clients live in. Our experience of what comes out of CES each year is often very frustrating. The tech demonstrations are dazzling, the future visions are awe-inspiring, the roundtables and press coverage are full of stimulating ‘What If?’s - but the same old orthodoxies and blind spots in how the tech world thinks about users are achingly apparent.

This year was no different. Some examples of what we found especially frustrating:

Disconnected, feature-driven visions that assume we’ll give our lives over to tech

Samsung's ‘Age of Experience’ is a vision of massive interconnectivity between smart devices, from connected cars, to exoskeletons and heart-health wearables, to robots as ‘personal companions’. Samsung pitches this vision as human-centric: as H.S.Kim puts it, “the way we interact with our world is what drives this evolution. It's not about what you possess. It's about our individual needs.” 

Samsung does not talk about the massive buy-in users will have to agree to if their ‘Experience’ is to be anything approximating personal. AI-enabled devices that are constantly listening and intervening devices will have to be a key part of the contexts that matter to users. Our family squabbles, our contemplative commutes, our everyday shopping and media-watching and gaming and eating experiences. All of this will be exposed to dozens of tech companies competing to learn our preferences, or (as Samsung hopes) one company who’s with us all the time. The AI and interaction models to deliver anything like this experience are not ready (Samsung’s AI agent Bixby was notably absent from the vision, while Samsung is quietly removing Bixby buttons from its phones), and devices attempting to tackle small parts of this vision are struggling to prove to users that they deserve a place in their lives.

In the short term, these device showcases ignore the challenge of imperfect AI. In the long term, they assume this tech can weave its way into what matters most to people. In our view, these prospects are the opposite of ‘human-centric’.

Mobility concepts that distract the auto industry from use cases and problems that matter to people

Samsung's ‘Age of Experience’ is a vision of massive interconnectivity between smart devices, from connected cars, to exoskeletons and heart-health wearables, to robots as ‘personal companions’. Samsung pitches this vision as human-centric: as H.S.Kim puts it, “the way we interact with our world is what drives this evolution. It's not about what you possess. It's about our individual needs.” 

Samsung does not talk about the massive buy-in users will have to agree to if their ‘Experience’ is to be anything approximating personal. AI-enabled devices that are constantly listening and intervening devices will have to be a key part of the contexts that matter to users. Our family squabbles, our contemplative commutes, our everyday shopping and media-watching and gaming and eating experiences. All of this will be exposed to dozens of tech companies competing to learn our preferences, or (as Samsung hopes) one company who’s with us all the time. The AI and interaction models to deliver anything like this experience are not ready (Samsung’s AI agent Bixby was notably absent from the vision, while Samsung is quietly removing Bixby buttons from its phones), and devices attempting to tackle small parts of this vision are struggling to prove to users that they deserve a place in their lives.

In the short term, these device showcases ignore the challenge of imperfect AI. In the long term, they assume this tech can weave its way into what matters most to people. In our view, these prospects are the opposite of ‘human-centric’.

Mobility concepts that distract the auto industry from use cases and problems that matter to people

The BMW i3 Urban Suite turns the i3, a masterpiece of clever, attractive, sustainable design and engineering, into a concept for a small electric limo. BMW intends the concept to illustrate something about the future of mobility, but in our view it takes the industry a step back. Possibly because BMW is so good at engineering cars, it focuses the concept on what the space, the ergonomics, the digital tech in the car do together to create the luxury experience of working in a car. But what does BMW do to actually move you in a valuable way? How does it help fit the journey into your schedule, or help others collaborate with you in the car, or understand and plan your movements to be in the right place at the right time? In two dozen projects for mobility clients we’ve seen repeatedly that disclocated, disconnected, unpredictable time in the car fundamentally undermines people’s experience of mobility. We’d argue that Waze-enabled Google Maps is one of the best productivity tools of the last five years. Whereas, concentrating on space in the car, ignoring time, is not only irrelevant to customers but blinkering the auto industry to opportunities that the FANGs are spending heavily to pursue.

Plain old snake oil 

Artificial humans, flying taxis, 5G, 8K: None of them are here, all of them claim to be here. 5G promises new use cases, but the most concrete we saw was Sony and the NFL’s concept to stream from player’s shouldercams. Meanwhile, there’s continuing opacity around where 5G actually exists or even will exist soon.  

So far, so similar: it’s Groundhog Day for getting people wrong. What’s most frustrating is seeing glimpses of tech companies getting people right, and getting lost in the noise:

•  Phillips’ plug-and-play Hue outdoor lights are sensible: as socializing at home has become more and more informal and happens in more spaces in the home, we’ve seen people try to stretch the limits of indoor smart homes to create social atmospheres that move between inside and outside

•  Weber’s June-powered Smart Grill will help users build valuable skills where many devices de-skill; we’ve seen the value that people place in being able to build and show each other their cooking and entertaining skills around special occasions

•  Quibi has attracted attention for its mega-budget and screen-flopping tech; we think the innovation is in identifying moments when people need a fundamentally different media experiences - in essence, ‘pause moments’ between more meaningful experiences - and ruthlessly constraining the platform to supporting that one use case

The good news is that media covering CES is starting to realise this. We’ve lifted the term ‘Groundhog Day from The Information’s summary webinar, and The Verge wrote a scathing review of this year’s show. Even better, some outlets are starting to read between the lines, and imagine their own humanist take on the possibilities of CES innovations: Marketplace on NPR discussed the possibility that IoT devices like shower speakers could represent a future where we aren’t tethered to our phones, and our media and communication needs are met by a variety of things in the home that free us from a constant companion. Our research tells us this opportunity is real, and substantial; it’s still frustrating that the media is revealing these insights to tech, and not the other way around.

[Banner image by Markus Spiske via Unsplash]