Our strategy team had eyes, ears, and our most comfortable sneakers on the ground at CES in Las Vegas. Now the doors are closed and the trends have circulated, but the impact is just starting, especially when it comes to reckoning with the AI revolution that has now arrived in full force. We took a step back to look at the big picture, and assess what it all means for brands going forward.

AI is everywhere. Humans set it apart.

It didn’t take more than a glance at the agenda and five minutes in the opening keynote to reach the big takeaway: AI is everywhere. But not all of it was good. Most of us don’t want to converse with our kitchen appliances, let alone pay for the privilege, which is why Samsung’s Bespoke AI fridge and Bosch’s Personal AI Barista fell flat. Nor do we want something that claims to be an AI “soulmate” serving as a surveillance device, as was the case with Lepro’s AMI AI Companion. We certainly don’t want humanoid robots in cowboy hats as our “new mates,” which is what HiSense inexplicably put forward. 

What these brands failed to understand is that consumers don’t want AI to replace human interactions. We want humans to be the face of AI. 

AI is bringing astronomically high levels of both change and uncertainty, and in moments like these, people seek trustworthy leaders. The powerhouse brands behind the AI revolution know this, and made their CEOs just as ubiquitous as their logos. Nvidia’s Jenson Huang made guest appearances like the seasoned rockstar he is, signature black leather jacket included. AMD’s Lisa Su, Siemens’ Roland Bush, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon, Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan and Lenovo’s Yuanqing Yang stepped onstage — solo and together, time and again — to share their vision for where AI can take us. 

They also made a point to emphasize how their human relationships have led to company-level partnerships. Of all the buzzwords, partnership was a notable one among this elite group of leaders, all of whom emphasized that the process of building the AI infrastructure requires sharing specialized expertise in ways that go far beyond the typical collaboration we’re used to seeing from brands.

Brands are excited about AI, but human brains aren’t wired to understand the future.

The companies selling AI are all in, and it’s not hard to see why. Siemens CEO Roland Bush gave the moment some historical context, explaining that AI is poised to transform industry and life on the same level that steam, electricity, and computers did — if not more. In addition to mind-boggling profits, the leaders and brands that come out ahead will wield far-reaching influence for decades. 

As a whole, CES consumers met the AI hype with a tepid response. As Lenovo unveiled a laundry list of new AI products inside the awe-inspiring Sphere, each announcement was met with a smattering of applause that was polite but minimal. It felt as if the audience wasn’t quite sure what it all meant for them. And perhaps they didn’t.

According to Dr. Hal Hershfield, a psychologist and behavioral decision-making professor at UCLA, humans are, simply put, not designed to be thinking about the future. We don’t think about the future so much as remember it by envisioning the future and creating a memory of that vision. Our ability to imagine the future only gets worse in moments of polycrisis, when uncertainty comes at us from multiple fronts. (Sound familiar?) Our brains glitch, unable to imagine the future world we might inhabit, let alone envision ourselves in it. No wonder the CES audience couldn’t compute. 

To bring consumers along for the ride, brands are going to have to communicate AI at human scale. This means slowing down and painting a vision of the future that people can hold onto — not just the what, but the why and the how. AI brands need to give consumers reasons to believe or they won’t buy into the future that AI brands are building.

Brands are packaging AI in the language of corporate innovation. Consumers want the language of imagination.

CES was high on technological innovation and low on imagination, wonder, and exploration. Brands told us about the transformative potential of AI for business but consumers want to know what it means for us. How it makes our lives richer. The brands that got it right are the ones that sparked curiosity, joy, or better yet, both. 

The most notable brand that got imagination right was the LEGO Group, which won the “Best in Show” award for SMART Play, a tech-enhanced system that gives kids new ways to imagine and play —  without AI or screens. (Full disclosure: XDA is proud to have partnered with the LEGO Group to announce SMART Play at CES!)

Lollipop Star also had CES attendees buzzing with lollipops that play music into your mouth using bone conduction. (Yes, bone conduction is a thing and we had to look it up too!) Some critics knocked the single-use treats as bad for the environment, but that doesn’t diminish how they made people feel. Those in line chatted and wondered about how it worked, and the smiles were genuine as the music started to play. (We tested out the strawberry flavor, which played Ice Spice's "Munch, Baddie Baddie, Big Guy.”) Sustainability challenges aside, the emotional engagement of Lollipop Stars was far more compelling than XBOT’s robot slowly filling a cup with vanilla ice cream.

Nvidia cleverly turned their omnipresence into a scavenger hunt, with a prize earned for tracking their products across multiple booths on the convention floor. Simple, but effective. We also saw the intersection of imagination and innovation in the health space in the form of smart plates that use AI to act as nutrition coaches and a pocket laboratory that tests for common allergens within minutes.

Looking ahead, storytelling matters more than ever. 

The revolutionary change of AI has arrived at a moment when people crave human connection, are paralyzed by a polycrisis of uncertainty, and are struggling to see a future for ourselves. How do brands get consumers to wrap our heads around AI at a time like this?

The answer lies in storytelling. Like myths told around long-ago campfires to explain the existence of stars and fire, humans look to stories to understand the world around us. Brands are already recognizing the importance of storytelling that goes beyond PR: a recent Wall Street Journal article declared that the role of storyteller has become “corporate America’s latest hot job.”

But when it comes to AI, consumers need storytellers to communicate with more than words. We need the power of immersive storytelling to create experiences that tap into our senses, letting us see, touch, and feel the future that we’re struggling to imagine. And we need those experiences to include the things that fuel our soul: joy, wonder, and curiosity. 

Because AI may be artificial, but we are very much human.