Special From CES 2026: AI Strategy, Tariffs, and the Future of Consumer Tech - Gary Shapiro, CEO

Hi, everybody. I'm Charlie Fink, co-host of the AIXR podcast. This is a very special episode. We have as our guest, Gary Shapiro, the CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, which puts on the CES trade show every year. It's the biggest trade show in the world in Las Vegas. We talk about what to expect from the show and also the state of consumer electronics in the United States, both politically, socially, and of course, from a scientific standpoint. So listen in and thanks for tuning in. MatterCraft speeds up your workflow and brings your 3D ideas to life faster than ever. Start building smarter at MatterCraft.io. If you test AI and XR every week like we do on this show, you notice patterns fast. A lot of systems fall apart once there are three people talking, real emotion in play, and three loud hosts all jumping in at once. That's why we're glad to have Modulate sponsoring this episode of the AIXR podcast. They build conversational voice intelligence designed for that kind of chaos. Their model, Velma, is a voice-native ensemble listening model trained on 21 billion minutes of audio to understand real conversations, not just transcripts. Velma ranks number one for conversation understanding, number one for deep fake detection, and number one for emotion detection. It also leads on transcription accuracy and costs, beating foundation models like Google Gemini, OpenAI, and XAI. And unlike most black box systems, Velma breaks down conversations moment by moment with timestamp sources so you can see exactly when risk rises, behavior shifts, or intent changes. Go beyond transcripts and see what voice-native AI can really do at preview.modulate.ai. That's preview.modulate.ai. Good morning, everybody. I'm Charlie Fink with Roni Abovitz and Ted Shilowitz. It's the AIXR podcast, our first show of 2026. Today, our guest is Gary Shapiro, the CEO of the Consumer Technology Association that puts on CES, which starts on Monday. Good to see you guys. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. 2026? Yep. We were just talking about something that dropped on X yesterday, or I guess Saturday, a new headset called The Pickle. There's a raging debate about whether this is even real. I doubt they're at CES. I almost did the Kickstarter, and then I reminded myself how many shitty Kickstarters I've taken a flyer on. So I think I'll wait for Scott Stein or somebody to review it, or maybe they'll send us one because we're us. Because we're gentlemen. If it's real, send us one. Yeah. Let's see it, guys. I mean, Microsoft, Magic Leap. I mean, how many companies have tried this? We've talked about the science behind it. Buildings full of PhDs in Seattle and at Magic Leap couldn't cross the finish line with this one. So I don't know. It has to be a hoax. Well, it certainly looks too good to be true. And that is sort of alluring in and of itself. The device that can't be built is the one that we always get excited about. You're like, wow, look how sexy and interesting. And wow, wouldn't that be great if that comes to fruition? And part of us wants to believe. It's like the X-Files. I want to believe. Look, you could make a pair of AR glasses with 30, 40 degree field of view and some mics and think you're the first person to ever do it. You know, 10, 15 years after lots of other people have done it, it's not enough to crack the barriers. So let's see. Let's see what these guys have. And I'd love to hear from someone that's put one on. Yeah. So here we go with the news. You would think over the Christmas holiday, there wouldn't be any. There's a chip designer out of Singapore called Grok. They have something that does inference, which I guess gives you faster answers from large language models. So NVIDIA presumably or supposedly has a weak spot here. So they sort of not bought Grok for $20 billion. I don't know why they did the deal this way, but they're buying their technology, licensing their technology and buying all their employees for $20 billion. This is happening a lot, this fake M&A, which are they trying to just like get around like, you know, SEC or other kind of rules? But it's it's kind of ridiculous. Like we're not buying you, but we are buying you. We're gutting the company. Why would they do that? I mean, does does the SEC and antitrust even apply when you're buying a Chinese company? Well, this is not a new concept. The aqua hire has been deployed by Apple many times, by Google many times. But, you know, when you see a $20 billion price tag for an aqua hire, you start to kind of go, hmm. Smells like a duck, walks like a duck, but it's not an M&A. No, no, it's just an investment into an empty shell of a company. And meanwhile, the Intel stock that they bought like six months ago, they finally forked over the $5 billion to Intel. and they made a paper profit of $2.5 billion the day the deal closed. I don't know what the play is there. What do you think that play is that NVIDIA wants Intel? Roni, do you have any insight into this? So a couple of things. I think x86 access, legit x86 access is something. x86 being? Architecture. Like CPU architecture, not GPU, which tells you something about where NVIDIA is heading, maybe at the edge and the devices and robots and stuff. The other piece is like inference-based compute is something that GPUs do not naturally do well. So this investment in Grok and this like bet on x86 is kind of like NVIDIA saying we have so much like money. We're worth $5 trillion. Why wouldn't you put bets on other things? It would be stupid not to. It's a bit like rounding it all out. So if they get x86 architecture, they could build entire NVIDIA computers end to end. They could basically become a brand on top of the brand that they've already built and offer other things to end consumers that they don't do now. Here's my inference. I'll hear what you guys are thinking. Notice that Jensen's been hanging out at the White House a lot. Yeah. And I think there's something about, hey, you get to do X, but you have to help us with Intel. Intel's like this classic American company. It can't fall apart. So do something, invest in them, help them start to build Silicon in this country. I think you're going to see some of that going on as some of the tradeoffs between things that they want to do overseas and things that they're being asked to do in America. That reminds me a bit of the old days when Microsoft came to Apple's rescue. Yes. Make sure that they wouldn't go away. Or AOL taking its insane inflated value and buying Time Warner. Yeah. Right. trying to con so i mean i'm not implying that nvidia is anything like a well but their valuation is so out of this world that they can go buy anything yeah they can grow and round it out now it's interesting but is this an indicator of the outer edge of a bubble are we seeing the the edge of the gpu peak for now um and this diversification into like x86 into inference and maybe all the talk about large LLMs may be hitting their peak as well. Is this the outer edge? And contrarians are starting to make their bets against. People are starting to do downward bets against NVIDIA and other companies. Maybe this is an indicator. Maybe it's not. But if you put it together, other data points, this could be a sign that the current expansion of the bubble may be at some edge. And we'll see that this year. Certainly the is it a bubble or is it not a bubble debate has been raging for at least the past three or four months. So it shows that, you know, there's reason to believe that we could be indeed at the edge of a bubble and, you know, valuations could correct. Again, you know, you look at the corrections we've had in the past, they don't last very long. What's crazy about equity markets is it's much easier to get in than to get out. It's always been the case. And it will prove it again by this phenomenon of this next wave of technology, companies that have achieved $5 trillion valuations, which are potentially unsustainable, or potentially we're looking at companies that will go to $7 or $8 trillion, right? There's just no way to know. You just take your bet and you take the ride and you hope for the best. So here we are. Well, you know, again, if you hold the stock for five or 10 years, you'll be fine, even though there will be some heart pounding moments. I do think a lot of companies get swept up in the valuation that a company like NVIDIA has. If NVIDIA is worth X, company B is worth Y. And that is not always true. Yeah, the adjacent strategy is not necessarily a truism. NVIDIA adjacent won't necessarily work out for a lot of people. Here's my thinking about even my own portfolio. I think this is the year we're going to see the downstream valuations start to hit. So even if the MAG-7 kind of levels off or goes down a little bit, the companies that are applying it for robotics and drones and other applications are, if they start to see the benefits, are going to be rewarded. You guys want to pivot a little bit and talk about the continuing saga of Netflix, Warner Brothers and Paramount for a moment? Sure. Your favorite. My favorite. I mean, it looks like the Paramount bid is going to get stalled if it isn't already. You know, it's just the administration is the wild card, right? In a reality world, this does not hold water. But water gets held in very strange vessels with this administration. And it will be a dramatic multiple attempt at terms of events with, you know, the Ellison dollars. Can you imagine the Ellisons controlling Oracle and two movie studios and a dozen important cable assets? I really cannot. And, you know, when you think about it might be hard pressed to visualize and give perspective as Netflix is the good guy in this race, but kind of Netflix is the good guy. Look, it's not just this administration I was not in the middle of, but AT&T was investing in Magic Leap while they were at the process of acquiring Warner Brothers. This is like pre-pandemic. And now they're upchucking Warner Brothers, right? That whole thing happened. But at that time, the administration at the time was also holding it up. So there was like all this grinding and issues and it finally got resolved, but it was like held up for some reason. And then I'm not exactly sure what those reasons were, but eventually the transaction happened. And you know what? It cost them. It wasn't a good deal. The owner of Warner Brothers, I think they lost $40 or $50 billion. You know, we can get the exact number. It didn't turn out to be that good. So is this actually a really good deal? Whoever buys Warner's. Is this a money sink or is this something that's going to turn out good? Hard to say. So Netflix quietly bought Ready Player Me, our friend Timu Tok, the tall man from Estonia, is going to join Netflix along with his team. And I guess the idea is that there will be a Netflix metaverse across their new gaming channel. And, of course, the terms are undisclosed. interesting window into what Netflix game strategy may be. You know, Ready Player One is a cool company, but I have no idea what the valuation was or really what Netflix is finally going to do in gaming. But is Ernie Klein from Ready Player, the writer, is he part of Ready Player Me? No, that was like a, that's a totally different, just kind of nick the name. Yeah. Netflix is a very interesting play when it comes to gaming. It's a bit like Apple, always trying to get into gaming and never gets the chemistry right. But, you know, Netflix has staying power. They'll keep trying and they'll keep acquiring and keep jockeying for position until they find their way to take a chip out of the PlayStation and the Nintendo Switch market. You know, they'll do it. My bet is that Netflix ends up with Warner Brothers and it would be appropriate for them to own a brick and mortar studio having conquered the distribution game already. Yeah, well, and my thesis about Netflix wanting Warner Brothers because of their theme park aspirations is proven because I'm actually in Vegas a little early this year because Charlie and I have CES in a couple of days, but we're here to see the Backstreet Boys at the Sphere for a few days ahead of time. And we're staying at the MGM, and there's a Netflix Bites food attraction at the MGM where it's all themed food that you go into and eat, and it's all based on their hit shows like Squid Game and Stranger Things and so forth and so on. They're doing a location-based entertainment thing. Yeah, the nuggets are being dropped, right? The breadcrumbs are being dropped. And Netflix is a company that can afford to be a loser in location-based entertainment, but it's a winner in marketing for them. Totally. We were actually at the theater. We went to see the new Avatar, by the way, which is if you guys haven't seen it, it is a unbelievable technical achievement. Like it is stunning from end to end. But it is. Yeah, go ahead, Charlie. The story in the second one was so hackneyed. Well, the story in the second one is Jonah and the whale, right? This one is a bit of Indians learn how to get guns. That's the story. But it is exhausting to watch. It's like three and a half hours of nonstop, like marquee, gorgeous visual effects creation to the point where you actually get like overwhelmed by it. Like you just need to slow down and give me a little dialogue every now and again before you go to the next action scene. It is three and a half hours of the best action movie you ever seen And by the end of it you walk out and you felt like you were on a three and a half hour theme park ride And I was physically exhausted So CES this year has to be AI everything, just like it was Metaverse everything, XR everything. I just got a solicitation email for a company that's got a intelligent toilet. I knew that was coming. Of course. Well, I mean, the Toto toilet is the most intelligent thing on the planet. If you guys have ever been to Japan and experienced the full-on Toto toilet experience. There's an amazing South Park episode about the Toto toilet, by the way. I have an AI cat litter box at home. Of course. And it text messages us every three or four hours. Do you really need to know that, Roni? And more important, does Gary need to know that? Gary needs to know this. It's actually an amazing device, I have to say. It's like, I am stuck. Please clean me. Did you like the third Avatar, Charlie? You saw it? I haven't seen it yet. You haven't seen the third one? No, I was so disappointed with the second one. I think it's also visually gorgeous. But, you know, I mean, look, the third one is Story Uber Allies, guys. It's a remarkable thing to watch. I wouldn't call it a movie. It's a remarkable thing to watch. Right, right. Is it a story or just a theme park? It's a story there. It's just very basic. It's very, look, I mean, it's hard to criticize something that looks, it's like a beautiful piece of technology art that goes along for 3.7 hours in a movie theater sitting there between the 20 minutes of trailers and then the three and a half hours of motion picture. It's like the end of Stranger Things. Like the beginning season is so brilliant and lo-fi and genius. And they have a giant visual effects budget, not quite Avatar. and it's just like, oh, look at all the money we have to spend on CG. All these fun toys we can play with, yeah. You know, one thing I wanted to talk about before Gary jumps in is Starlink announcement. Yeah. Last month they had $8 million. This month they have $9 million. It looks like they're signing up like 20,000 people a day. Yeah, we're Starlink users when we're in Utah, and it is great. You know, I mean, because there's so much bad weather and stuff that the landline internet goes down a lot. Starlink is almost up all the time and it's fast and it's reliable. And, you know, for whatever you think of Elon and all his foibles, he knows how to build shit. He knows how to get stuff done. Well, we've been talking about a SpaceX IPO for some time. Yeah. I think they may be better off spitting off Starlink and doing two IPOs. Gary, what a pleasure to see you. Thank you for coming on the podcast. for our third annual CES Curtain Razor. Of course, we could speculate about what's coming, but you actually know. Well, I am absolutely thrilled to be on here. Technology is beautiful, and CES will be fabulous. It will be... It's off the charts, honestly. I don't know. Let me just give you the big picture is, obviously, artificial intelligence is a big part of the CES. It has a bigger footprint. It has greater pre-registration. and had a record number of innovations entries, over 3,000. We've added new categories for innovation, all sorts of different areas. And we added a whole new portion of the show called CES Foundry. It's in the fountain blue and it's where AI and quantum it has the community together with demos and networking and content. And we also have programming additions. We have something focused on accessibility stage. We have tracks for the first time in manufacturing. We have a track on wearables. We have a track on women's health. We have a whole set of AI training courses for strategy and implementation and agentic AI and even AI-driven marketing. So we have an app that actually uses AI now for the first time in a meaningful way. And we've already could tell by the people using it and have downloaded it that the most common question is, you know, where could I pick up my credentials, of course. but there's like hundreds of other questions. We'll have over 1,200 speakers, and we have some really amazing ones. We have the CEOs of the big tech companies, obviously, like AMD Lisa Su is kicking it off, the opening keynoter the night before. And earlier that day, actually, we'll also have NVIDIA's Jensen speaking as one of the press events. And there's many, many press events. We have other categories. is we have Lenovo's CEO globally is taking over the sphere and has all sorts of people coming on stage, including famous musicians and famous CEOs, including Lisa and Jensen. We have the head of Evendi, the head of Aura. The Aura ring is really hot right now. And the global CEO of Siemens. And we also have a session with some, I don't know, am I allowed to say the all-in podcast people are going live there? Sure. Okay, good. all right yeah we can plug them and maybe in my face that's great gary it sounds like quite a lineup sounds like it's loaded loaded loaded with stuff um and you mentioned uh the fountain blue because i was reading about this nvidia i think is sort of that's kind of where they're roosting right they're not actually going to be in the convention center proper they're going to have their entire presence at the fountain blue hotel it's like a whole NVIDIA showcase and training and learning? Is that, am I saying that right? A lot of stuff going on. Yes, they are at the Fountain Blue. That's what they're doing. But they're also, Jensen's appearing in a number of stages throughout the week. And it's an important event for them. I think the New York Post today has a whole story about how CES has transformed into the big AI show. And of course, there's so many issues out there. We have, for example, we have a panel of senators. We have the chairman of the FCC, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission coming. We have the White House Science and Technology head who heads that up for the Trump administration. We have all these people coming because policy is important as well. And that's a big deal. So you're drifting into this. Do you personally have some opinions about AI for our industry, for the technology industry and all things consumer electronics and in terms of the where it's going, what its danger zones are? Are you mostly positive about it? Is there any concerns that you have about AI and entering our industry in such a robust way? My biggest concern right now is that the government won't get it wrong in the United States. It seems like the Koreans and even the Europeans seem to, and the Chinese, they have strategies nationally. And I think the Trump administration has done a phenomenal job of building on what they did in the first time and what the Biden administration did in AI. But we've been frustrated because basically there is no national strategy that Congress has approved. And that's caused real problems. In 2025, there were over 1,200 bills introduced in state legislatures. Basically, these and new ones keep popping up. I think it was Tennessee, a Republican state legislator wants to make it a crime subject to 10 years in jail. If you offer a genetic AI that actually does back and forth counseling of a person, the harm that can be done is enormous, especially to the smaller companies and the startups that want to get something. I mean, the big companies can certainly deal with all the different state legislation. It's awkward and bulky and not helpful and diverse. The truth is, the only one that has the ability to regulate, and we're not opposed to regulate, is the federal government. They have the National Institute of Standards and Technology. They have great expertise. A lot of state legislatures are trying to pass things they cannot possibly actually implement. But meanwhile, if you're a company and you're trying to get funding, and you have to follow different state laws, it's a huge barrier. So that's the concern I have. In terms of the opportunity, it's just absolutely huge in everything. And we're seeing it every day. We're seeing it, especially in more immediately, would be in health care in the next few years, where you just totally transform health care in terms of specific treatments and cures based on your, you know, it used to be said you have to do A-B tests. You could do retrospective examination medical records now and figure out a hell of a lot more. And that's becoming a clear-treaded medical generalist already to just tap state of mind what you have anonymized. But then, you know, it's happening, and that's why we have Caterpillar. It's happening in agriculture. They're using AI to save water and seeds and fertilizer and be more precise. But we're seeing it in transportation. All the self-driving, you'll see it. Yes, that's AI. That's what it is. There'll be problems. You know, cars will stop. They'll stop for weird reasons, but it'll keep getting better, and it'll clearly save on hospital emissions. and the 2 million people that are treated from car accidents every year. So it should lower our costs of transportation and should be a boon to those that are disabled and older Americans as well, and globally, frankly. So we're pretty excited about it. But we're also seeing things in other categories, which I'm happy to talk about. I know by the name of your show, you're like AIXR. So I'm happy to talk about XR if you want. It looks like there's going to be an overwhelming number of AI-enabled wearables, you know, following the success of Meta's Ray-Bans. There were a lot last year, but I think we'll see even more this year. Am I on the right track, Gary? Oh, yeah. I think wearables are one of the things that helped define the show big time. And, you know, it's just smart people figuring out new ways of doing things. you know there's it's one of the people that comes and explains there's many part untapped parts of the body and you know and you're gonna you're gonna see more and more but like you know the aura ring has certainly taken off and there's obviously competitors to that there's the wrist and then there's people putting stuff around their body for glucose monitoring and things like that which are just getting more and more sophisticated right now the glucose monitoring is pretty much subdermal but it's a little tin prick but i think there's increasingly there'll be other opportunities to get information from all sorts of things, depending upon what you're looking for. And I also think there'll be some consolidation in that area, or at least families of devices. That's what we're starting to see as well, where you basically have partnerships, what I think will be discussed at CES, where partnerships will be created. And let's have our wearables work well together and get different information and then provide a new sort of service. And a lot of people seem to be specializing in one part of the body, if you will. The truth is it's different parts. And then there's the subdural implants and things like that, which are also going to be part of the mix in the future in terms of measuring all sorts of other things. So it's a great boon, I think, to the health care system to help cover the shortage of physicians and nurses and technicians and also keep the hospital beds from overflowing. So we're getting older and we have fewer people to take care of us. And we're going to be relying on technology and AI and wearables. would be a big part of the solution. You know, right now we're still at this stage where I can't tell you how often my wearables tell me that I've had a hard fall when really I'm just like excited about something, clapping or jumping up and down and I have to stop the emergency signal from going. So Gary, here's a curiosity question for a lot of our listeners. CES, for those that have been, is such a huge show. I mean, on the show floor, there are literally thousands and thousands of employees that are running around doing stuff to maintain this thing. But for the year that starts like the day after the show ends and that 11 and a half months that queues up to launching the show in January every year, how big is your staff that you actually manage? And kind of what is the hierarchy of the CTA, which is the government body that runs the CES show? Like, is it how big of a team and what do they do all year to get this monster off the ground? That's what I'm curious about. I love that question, actually. I think we've been doing this for decades. No one's ever estimated anything quite like that. We have about 160, 170 employees. We supplement that. We have a lot of former employees that work the fourth quarter and help us out at CES. A huge number of former employees. And we have a lot of boomerangs people have left and come back. But we also, in addition to running CES, we do public policy and lobbying. And we're in 50 state legislatures in different ways. We have lobbyists in about half the states. So we have a big team. We have engineering standards team dealing all the time with standards to make things work from the hearing aid standard that allowed us to basically buy your hearing aids at retail at CVS. And two other things, like the RS-230 to the back of the computer or to HDTV developing those standards we develop. But we develop them. And just in the health care area alone, we seem to be drawing about 10 to 20 standards a year. We measure brain waves. We measure footsteps. We measure sleep. We measure all sorts of things. so people could come out with new products that benefit consumers. In terms of the step and the hierarchy, as of yesterday, my new title is executive chairman and CEO. We have a president, his name is Kinsey Ferrizio, who's coming along incredibly quickly as being able to do a great job. And she and I are a wonderful team, but she will take over at some point. And we have a group that, believe it or not, you talk about planning for the next show. We're planning, we've already planned for the next show. We already have a floor plan. During the four days of CES, people are going to be, companies are coming in and choosing their space for next year. Right, I've seen that, yeah. So it's a pretty emotional area for people. And we have, you know, we do a lot of different things in a lot of different areas. We have a home market research department that asks consumers questions that measures markets. And we also have a deal with NASDAQ where we actually are in like almost 20 categories of new technology where we have, we do the ETF indice, basically. and NASDAQ licenses that out to different ETFs, you know, do two or three times the speed or do it in a certain way. And we look at the companies that are at the forefront of technology in different categories and we create them as part of the index of publicly traded. So they're actually, that is limiting. Obviously, a lot of the companies are not publicly traded, but we are following the publicly traded ones on a global basis. And that's part of, it's very synergistic with CES. In terms of, if you're asking who my boss is, There's a board of executives. Like, who tells me to stop talking? It's obviously not one of you right now because I keep going. I could just keep talking about it. Our governance is really great because we have a volunteer board of about a dozen or so different industry executives. We go for diversity of category of small versus big of people that make a difference. And on that, we have one of the leaders of Best Buy. We have Sony. We have, I was going to say HP, our vice chair, but she went to AMD about a year or two ago So she running everything but the Americas I think for AMD We have a very interesting board that has a culture associated with it It focuses on what best for the industry and consumers and the institution and the staff And that's allowed us to do a huge number of different things very quickly. And is the CTA, is it organized as a non-profit organization? Yes. There's no equity. The industry owns the CES. and we try to plug, you know, take the revenue and push it back into the industry to promote, to do the standards, to pay for all the staff, to do, frankly, a lot of lobbying as well to make sure government doesn't mess it up. But we also have events in other countries. I've spent a lot of the fall in Asia and Europe promoting CES with different, every event in every portion is different. We've been in California and Detroit and South America, New York, and that's because the press contingent is so large it's about 6 000 different editorial press and analysts that come to see us and we also get we also focus on getting make making sure we are one of the few globally dominant events in the u.s last january we had over 40 percent of our attendees were from outside the u.s that's 55 000 people it's the biggest thing then i get i get the sense eclipse it but i get the sense that china is back in force chinese back more they they're not back to where they were I mean, you know, they're keynoting, which is somewhat unusual. Lenovo's, and they're doing Lenovo's definitely doing it right, taking over the sphere. But the big Chinese companies are in. I think there's a little bit of pull-off in the smaller ones because, and reflecting a lot of things, whether it's the Chinese economy or the tariff situation, which has been like hanging over the industry for the last year. That's why I'm thrilled, honestly, at right now, knock wood, how well the CES is doing, because it was a tough, 2025 was a crazy year, you know, with 100 tariff announcements and a lot of executives focus on tariffs more than they are in innovation. But you know what? They're plugged along. I think since COVID, the industry has done well. I think it forced companies to diverge and do different things. There was a lot of Me Too, I think, before that. And now companies are, you know, they're fighting for survival, all of them. And they're doing some really creative things which solve real problems. You mentioned Caterpillar a few minutes ago, and that gives an opening to another prediction I have, which is we're going to see a lot of robotics and a lot of applied AI. Absolutely. I'm glad you raised that because I did not. But robotics is definitely the biggest robotics presence we ever had. And I think that's just the start of something big that we'll be continuing to do for a long time. And in terms of applied AI, absolutely. I mean, you know, robotics is simply AI with all the mechanical stuff added. And, you know, some of them are more humanoid forms. Some of the pet things are really cool and lovable and make older people and others feel comfortable. But to be honest, most of the robotics we've seen has been industrial robotics for the most part in the last 20 years. We're flying, you know, I guess you could call a plane or a self-driving car mobile robotics. But definitely applied. and I think there's a lot of verticals there and I think there's a lot of room for growth. I mean, I grew up with science fiction, so this is the stuff that really turns me on too because I just believe it. You know, and when you ask, go back to, you know, what are the Y views of concerns? I view, you know, anti-new tech is something I've dealt with my whole career and innovation. There's always, you know, the sky is falling people and, you know, to a certain extent, they're right. I mean, there will be jobs that will be affected. There will be lifestyle things or, you know, we want to make sure that things are safe. But we've always managed to figure that out. And dooms never, days never occur. In fact, in a job scene, I was really thrilled to see the last Nobel Prize winners in economics were Americans who actually had analyzed all new inventions, basically, and proven that they actually created more jobs than they lost. So whether it's, you know, the car with the horse and buggy, or, you know, automated telling machines and bank tellers, elevator operators that are self-driving computers, if you will, if you think about it. there's always new jobs that are created. And we always talk about inflation and interest rates in the economy. And I love that stuff. But almost no one ever talks about the reality that what technology does is improves productivity. And productivity brings down inflation and allows lower interest rates. And that's something I think Trump has figured out. And if you want to listen to a really interesting speech, whether you hate him or love him, his AI speech this past summer was the best presidential speech on technology I think I've ever heard, including heads of other countries. He nailed it. And he talked about why AI is important. And there's a part of his constituents here, a party, which is definitely afraid of technology. And they don't love big tech. But on the other hand, I think Trump is, this will define, I think, the Trump president more than a lot of the other things. just the way actually if you look at the Obama presidency you know some of it looks at is based on health care the reality is the economy we're for because of fracking and that he was willing to try this new technology to get you know natural gas out and he embraced it I think Trump's embracement of AI will have the same impact obviously totally different but it'll have the same impact in terms of how the U.S. is positioned strategically in the long run yeah Gary let me let me ask you this question so you brought up the kind of global ai issue and china sort of showing up at ces in a different way what's the impact of the rift between us and china that you're seeing i always think of ces as the it's like the canary in the cave of like the interdependence between america and china all the things we make in computing and electronics are like somehow woven between us, are you seeing less and less as a trend? You know, DGI, for example, being banned from the United States, can't buy DGI drones going forward. Do you think that's a one-off, or do you think that's like what future CESs will be, like a world, at least our Western world, devoid of China? Or do you think things are going to find an equilibrium? I know it's a tough question for a Friday morning, but... No, no, it's fine. It's a good question. And we're asking ourselves out all the time. I interviewed the deputy USDR last month and I asked him, I said, where are you going with all these tariffs? You know, what do you want in five to 10 years? And he said, I want everything we consume in the US to be made in the US. Now, I disagree with him and we agreed to disagree in just about everything. But that is like absurd. You know, first of all, we don't have enough American factory workers as it is. We don't have the skills to make these factors and everything will cost like several times what it costs today if we do that and that's a that's a great if you were old you know if you want to make fortress us and you know be like north korea you know that's we could we could try it it's not a good strategy i understand when it comes to defense issues i mean it bothers me that we can't build ships anymore and and you know and china and russia are like taking over in terms of the world and especially china in terms of shipbuilding They're going under the Arctic Circle now. They're doing all sorts of things. I mean, it's a threat. And, you know, we definitely should focus on national security. But do we need to make pencils and all these other things that we can't possibly do? And even if we do do them, we'll have to learn how to create a lot of factories. We'll need a lot of energy that we don't have, that, frankly, we need for AI and basic living. And it's just not a good strategy. But we do have a whole new manufacturing portion of CES. But the point is, I think if we're trying to create fortress U.S., that's a terrible thing. What we've advocated is, if you want to go that direction, focus on national security primarily. And two is, deal with our allies, our friends who value democracy and liberty and freedom of speech and all these wonderful things, the value of the individual, privacy. And let's deal with the people that are our friends in Europe and in South Korea and in Japan and Australia, New Zealand, Canada, most of South America, North America, let's work together. Because, you know, the Dutch are really good at producing semiconductor machines and doing a lot of things. Do we have to do that? Gary, in that thread, where do you see India? Because I know, like, you know, Europe is possible, but they just don't have the populations. But do you think India supplants China in electronics and compute, or is that a pipe dream? I haven't been in India in a few years, but they're better at software and they have huge numbers of people and they're good at speaking English and learning the king's English. I don't see them as a manufacturing hub. In the telecommunications world, they are kind of fortress India. They've tried to make their own phones and do all sorts of things. I mean, it's worked for them a little bit, but their consumers pay more and get less. So, you know, you talk about where people are going, though, but I mean, I had a member of mine who makes a sous vide. She's a small business, had a successful exit when, believe it or not, she was in high school and she created a company grading appliances. And she sold it out to Gannett USA Today. And she started another company called sous vide, and it's like a refrigerator microwave that you could leave in the morning and come back and your stuff's like done perfectly at the right time. And she was making it very successful, making the product in China, but in the U.S., distributing it along with all sorts of, because you buy the food from them that will work for that. And all around the U.S., very successful. And then in the early, you know, President Trump said, forget China. So she quickly created a factory in Vietnam. And then when the tariffs came out in April, Vietnam was surprisingly, because they are kind of a, we have a treaty with them. They are communists, but they're a free market. And we have a treaty. But he put heavy tariffs that no one expected on Vietnam. after all these companies returned and the first Trump administration moved out of China, they moved to Vietnam. And now, you know, if you go to India, I don't think that's going to be much better. Our relationship with India isn't always that smooth either. I mean, there's issues with Pakistan, obviously. And there are a lot of infrastructure issues in India affecting manufacturers. Anyway, to make a long story short, to get back, so she opened this product from Vietnam, started building, and then Vietnam, she just opened it back now in Mexico. So Trump has made it clear he wants to look at South America and Latin America. I was just talking to someone from Chile yesterday. There's opportunities throughout South America, and that's almost the Trump doctrine we'll be hearing more about in the next few weeks, I think. We'll be more focused on South and Latin America, but the Chinese aren't giving up there. So I don't know if you want to have a geopolitical discussion, but these are issues that our companies are discussing because they're trying to figure out where to put their factories, and they're big bets. It's like, you know, the big bets were made on electric cars in retrospect. not the best bet to make. One last thing on it, Gary. One last thing on that, because we'll go a tiny bit geopolitical then go back to the normal piece. I just had one question, a slight pushback on what you said earlier. China has incredible manufacturing capability, tons of trained technicians. We just don't have the volume of people. Agree with that. But at the same time, you talked earlier about the amazing capacity of AI. I'm a huge believer that the U.S. and the West will be able to outproduce China, not because we have more people, but because labor will give way to AI. And that doesn't matter how many people you have in the future. With robotics and with AI, you'll be able to create billions of workers. And China will have a liability, lots of people who have skills that you can do much better with with silicon, and we'll have a smaller population of them. So I'm not a believer personally that the population dictates the future of manufacturing prowess anymore. And at the same time, as a believer in AI, it's hard for me to say, okay, we don't have the people, but AI will actually do it much faster, much cheaper, at much crazier scale. So I just want to get your take on that. Well, it's a great theory I haven't heard before. I mean, China definitely is doing really well in robotics in almost every robotics. And they're there. I used to say they're not innovators or copiers. I don't say that anymore. They are innovating. And they have you're right. They have four times the population of the U.S. The U.S. is roughly the same population as the U.S. So it's double the U.S. and the U. even if we get together. But we definitely especially the U.S. have more restrictive labor laws and things like that. And we pay people better minimum wages, all that. But in terms of the skills, you're right. If robotics does take over, it will be a better world. I mean, there's theories about, you know, that we won't have to work as hard anymore. You know, we'll go down one day a week. And what do we do with our free time and how do we keep people engaged? And is that really good for the spirit and the soul? And there's a lot of, you know, theories about, you know, the come back to the economic one. Do you pay people to, if you pay them to dig a ditch and then to fill the ditch, is that real economic value being added? Why do we pay them to get retrained? I think that's happening, and I credit Trump administration again. They're really focused on retraining people. In fact, the first lady herself has taken an initiative for education of AI. And it is common when there's technological change that there's money being spent on retraining. The issue, though, that makes me a little skeptical is just, you know, if we were talking five years ago, we would have said to each other, oh, let's get everyone focused on software programming. And it turns out software programming is somewhat real by software that's been programmed to train and to do that stuff. So if you look at the job openings now versus the data analysts, for AI specialists, for things like that, they're very different job openings than they were five years ago. And the university community is trying to talk to a lot of people in that community. They're trying to adjust quickly, but it's difficult, especially at the same time all the research money is being cut and they're dealing with multiple issues. There's a lot of very stressed out people at universities. There's a lot of stressed out people at companies. And, you know, I think COVID had its impact. So people have a different view of life than they've had before almost. And there's also, you know, there's an affordability issue, which is the number one issue. I think that the Democrats have finally figured it out. Trump figured it out. Then he forgot about it. He's playing Biden and keeps saying that, oh, everything's cheap and there's no inflation. But anyone who shops at a grocery store the way I do knows there's amazing inflation. And at some point that has to switch and come down or, you know, people are upset about this issue. Look at the New York City mayor. You know, that was that's in part how he won. He won as a Democratic socialist and he wants to make things affordable People vote for that So you know the next election coming up in the Congress will be big Democrats are likely to take over on that issue alone unless you know Trump starts making some serious changes. And one of them we advocate for is obviously reducing the tariffs, which he's starting to do. I mean, I was joking last month when he put it on Italian pasta. I said, I looked at the Supreme Court justices that are Italian. There's two of them. It's like, wow, that would really upset people because you know i i know a lot of italians i grew up with italians and irish and italians are very focused on their the quality of their food and the cost for the you know he's just rolled them back it was like a popular movement but there's so much movement in that area that you you may not even know that because there's so many millions of things to follow no he's doing with it what's happening in the technology world so it's a it's a um it's a very volatile time. That's why my book called Pivot or Die, over my left shoulder, is done very well because a lot of people, everyone's pivoting. I mean, everyone's changing in terms of what they're doing. And that's an important message. I would say we've got a lot of CEOs in the U.S. complaining that they can't find workers with the right skills. And I don't understand why people would talk about universal basic income when you could pay them to go to school and get those skills. So it seems like as we transition to a world where manufacturing and so many other things are driven by AI, how do we train people to control that AI and to service those robots? And, you know, those robots are mechanical things that have to be repaired and managed by human hands. And I think we ignore that when we look at the threat, because inside of every threat, of course, is a great opportunity for development of a different kind of work. Absolutely. I totally agree with you. In fact, we were using this plumber, and he tells us he's buying this multimillion-dollar house. And he said, if you're a plumber or an electrician now, he said, it's great. He says, we don't have enough plumbers or electricians in the U.S. And part of it is, I agree with you, is training. Part of it is switching the cultural attitude we have towards people who work with their hands and do things and make things happen. But those plumbers and electricians also, they'll be fixing things, but they'll be doing it with a device that'll be giving them the plans and what to do, and they'll be using AI themselves. But you're right. We need a fundamental shift in terms of the jobs that people have. The only weakness I think I see in your hypothesis there is, first of all, let's be honest in that there is a cultural challenge that some Americans don't want to work. Some immigrants don't want to work. Well, there are lots of options in particular, right? When you talk about manufacturing jobs, when you're talking about these jobs that culturally do not seem to fit with, like, Western ideals of what work is, where you'll get, you know, factories in Malaysia, Vietnam, you mentioned all over, excuse me, India, that, you know, people are literally placing chips onto boards, right? over and over and over again all day long, that's their job 12 hours a day. Hard to find Americans that want to do that. We keep talking about wanting to domesticate these labor forces and bring these types of manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. as opposed to offshoring them. But the reality is that Americans as a society don't want to be sitting in a factory for 12 hours a day placing chips on a board. Absolutely. In fact, we have some research we're releasing I think Sunday that shows the global research that looked at different countries and how they're using AI. And it shows that the U.S. is ahead of every other country. But the question I was asking our research people was, well, isn't that because the people that the U.S. has a higher percentage of white collar jobs, if you will, than other countries and fewer manufacturing jobs. So I think that's part of part of the answer. Is it and one thing I've been saying for 20 or 30 years is that a lot of Americans don't want these jobs because they're highly educated working in factories. But our communications, you can't say that. You can't say that. Well, I'm in Detroit. You talk to the Detroit factory people here, a lot of the management, and they've gotten rid of drug testing at this point. They can't find people that don't come and stoned in the morning. Nothing like people working with heavy machinery who are stoned. Well, it's not all people. Well, it's not the major companies, but, you know, there's a lot of tier two and tier three suppliers. So it's something that is there's a there's a cultural change. And I I don't want to get it back to Trump and make it sound like I'm a fanboy because I have a lot of issues. But he has tapped the population that wants to change and wants to be recognized. And he is you know, we started out in the first Trump administration and we work with IBM. We had this whole white collar apprenticeship program where people would be trained veterans, mothers coming back to the workforce, kids out of high school. by companies and get paid while they're there. And they learn the skills they need to go forward in this new environment. And I think now his wife, the first lady, has doubled down on getting commitments from companies. We made a commitment. We're going to help that happen in terms of training people and getting them educated. But having said that, in a big system like the US, nothing is perfect. And there'll be a lot of people who just won't want to work. There'll be a lot of people who play the system. And we're seeing that in headlines today. you know every time you have a good intention program people figure out a way to take advantage of it now they're figuring out that covid some of the money there was misused what a surprise and you could see that everywhere you see that in any program that the government has you could see that in you know it has nothing to do with anything but i'll say like i was horrified to be reading i think it was new york times that the there are these people now that pretend they're disabled to get on the airplane first and they they have these miracles once the plane lands they all run off right it's like you get on with a wheelchair but then right off with no it's like like i just find that so repulsive to me personally like you have this great well-intentioned thing of helping people with disabilities and then other people take advantage of it and you know it's just gary gary let me ask a thing we have to focus on as well let me ask let me ask you a hopeful question 30 years out ces 20 56 2056 um we're in a post ai everywhere world post robots everywhere world post wearables everywhere world what is happening at ces then well here's you know i of course will not be around to see that but you never know i think about it all the time like i used to say i want to see the ces in 50 years or 100 years and so i love how you think because it is a fantasy first time travel second you know be able to see something what do i think i think the human face to face i mean as much as i enjoy talking to you guys on on this video um ultimately i'd like to get to know you better and share a meal with you or figure out whether i could trust you to do a business deal or not and things like that and i still think that face to face uh human interactions five cents experience breaking bread sharing a drink you know it it makes a difference and trust will always be important. And especially now with deep fakes and things like that. I mean, what we're finding with the CES, which is a phenomenon, we don't talk about much, maybe we should, is that a lot of companies are having the board meetings there. They're using CES for their exhibits as an opportunity for staff to work together as a team, physically together. And they're having all sorts of meetings with their investors. I mean, that's what in a sense of Lenovo is doing. They're having their big conference of everyone they licensed together there. They're going to fill the sphere and do this amazing presentation with all these celebrities and stars, CEOs. And it's just like, why are they doing that? Why are they making that major investment? Because some people get it. And that's what I think COVID taught the CEOs, actually, is that it was very tough for CEOs who are used to being with people. And they had to adjust. And the COO is the people who control the CFOs, control the budget. Like, wow, we don't have to spend money on travel anymore. Well, all of a sudden, you know, Delta Airlines figured it out and others. And if you give that good experience in travel and events like ours, We're not the only one, obviously. There's a lot of great events out there. People, they're doing well. People still want to go. There are issues which come up. You know, the Canadian travel is definitely off. They're upset with us. And that's a one-off that's, you know, unfortunately, President Trump made some remarks he shouldn't have made. And we're having still these issues where they're just angry at us. But others are concerned also with some of the visa issues. I mean, there are issues there. But when you're looking 40, 50 years from now, I still think we'll have that face-to-face experience. It'll be very important. And we'll also be smarter in virology and other risk factors that go into it. And that's one thing we try to excel in at CS. We try to be as healthy as possible. We literally pay people to hold doors open for us so you don't have to touch a door. There's all these green things, like with buildings, the LEED-certified building. Well, the problem with the U.S. compared to Europe is we now only make buildings that you can't open windows up. And it's like it sounds primitive, but, you know, it's healthier actually to open a window than to sit in a closed tight building that saves energy. So I'm a big hotel in the basement right now, and I can't open the window. It would be nice to open the window. It's a nice window. All right. You're ready for CS? We're seeing the Backstreet Boys tomorrow at the theater. We're pre-gaming, as we say. And listen, I know we're coming to the end of our show here. And Gary, I remember last year when you were on the show. By the way, we appreciate you coming on every year as a veteran and showing up and giving your time because I know how busy you are this time of year. But what you told us during CDS week is that people forget to invite you to dinners because they think you're booked. So here's our invitation to you. I have a rare reservation at Lotus of Siam. For people that know Vegas, they know that Lotus of Siam is literally the best restaurant in all of Las Vegas. Maybe the best high restaurant on planet Earth. At Monday night, Charlie, I'm going to try and drag along. If you need a dinner planned for Monday night, you are welcome to join us for dinner at Lotus of Siam. I will. We'll talk about that later. By the way, we have a podcast party every year at CES. It is almost completely full, which has never happened this soon. And usually people book. Send me the info. The Monday night is the AMD Lisa Su keynote. So I would not miss that. Okay. So I am, no, and Tuesday morning, I'm up with my own little keynote. So let's finish. Let's finish with the ultimate CES question. By the way, I mean, this is like my 30-something-ish CES. And I have this terrible, serious deja vu problem. I'll be walking through Caesar's Palace and I'll be like, I've been here. I've been here so many times. But for people who are trying to plan their three days or four days at CES, you know, I've kind of as a veteran, I'm like, OK, two days at the convention center, one day at the Venetian. It takes me this amount of time to go through everything that I'm interested in. So somebody who's coming to CES for the first time, what do you recommend for like three days at CES? Well, you said one of the major things is plan to be in like one facility per day, if you will, because you don't want to spend time getting around Las Vegas. Although we haven't, you know, we spent several million dollars just on free buses to get people around. And we have at least 10 facilities at this point where we have things going on. The buses are great, by the way, and I highly recommend them to anybody going to CES. Yes, it's much faster than a cab or an Uber. The other thing is the Tesla tunnels are cool, actually, if you're getting them in a Las Vegas Convention Authority area. You know, wear comfortable shoes. Don't start out with, I'd be walking around my house in new shoes. Try to break them in. Things are further away than they appear. If you think you're going to be able to walk there, it'll take you longer. Drink plenty of water, less alcohol. And layers, wear layers. Cold outside, hot inside. Yeah, that's great advice as well. And also download the app. spend some time to become familiar with it. Pre-register, obviously. Registration should not be a difficult process, but if people want to go at the last minute, you do have to be connected to the industry somehow. Whether it's a journalist, an analyst, a retailer, a writer, a manufacturer, we don't allow kids in. Don't forget to enjoy it. The show is so big that you will never, ever, ever get a chance to see it all. Pick the stuff you're interested in, spend your time there meet and talk to the people see your friends make relations don't try and constantly walk from place to place trying to see as much as you can because it's actually a waste of time yeah you need that are relevant to you and experience ccs is an experience where it's a little bit like south by southwest in so much as you're going to have fomo no matter what you do it's impossible to do everything you want to do well some of the a lot of the sessions will be recorded. Obviously, going to at least one of the keynotes is valuable. But to me, I hear what you're saying. I agree. It's like being a North Korean and going to a Costco for the first time. You'll never get you. Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association that puts on CES every year. We owe you a debt of gratitude, not just for coming on our show, but really for everything you do for the industry. You guys are so essential. And we really appreciate you, Gary. Thank you. I appreciate you coming each year and talking about CES and supporting us. If you have any ideas to how we could do it better next year, contact me after the ride of your listeners. Contact me with any of the ideas. We always could do better, and we want to do better. We have to pivot ourselves. I hope I see you in the reel so we can get our annual selfie. That would be awesome. Let's do that. I am signing books somewhere, so that's a good opportunity. I cut the line last year in order to do that. I recall. That's why I said that. All right, everybody. That's our show for today. Hopefully we'll see you at CES or at our podcast party. You can hit me up on the socials if you would like an invitation. Don't wait to the last minute this year because it's going fast. The podcast has had a great year. And so a lot of people are listening. And hopefully we're going to try and post this one a little sooner than we usually do just to make sure that people on their way to the show get the benefit of this great advice. So thanks. That's our show. And have a great weekend, everybody. Thank you.