You couldn’t even shake a stick at CES this year without hitting an AI gadget, with artificial smarts now embedded in nearly every wearable, screen, and device on the show floor, not to mention armies of AI companions, toys, and robots.
But this is just the beginning. We’ve also seen AI in a lot of stranger places, from hair clippers to stick wax, and there’s been at least one case where even the manufacturer itself seemed unsure what made its products “AI.”
Here are the gadgets we’ve seen so far at CES 2026 that really take the “intelligence” away from “artificial intelligence.”
Glide Smart Hair Clippers
This is a product that would be quite silly Without AI add-ons. These smart hair clippers help amateur hairdressers create the perfect fade by dynamically changing the proximity of the cut, as well as an ominous face mask that looks like it belongs in an optician’s office.
But it’s taken to the next level by a real-time AI coach that gives you feedback as you make the cut. Glide told me it’s also working on voice control for AI, and eventually it will be able to recommend specific hairstyles, as long as you’re willing to trust its styling advice. Do you?
“Where Bullets Meet AI.”
This was the message spread at the SleepQ booth, where company representatives were handing out boxes of pills—a multivitamin with ashwagandha extract, according to the box, which is supposed to be good for sleep, though I wasn’t brave enough to test that claim on my jetlag.
Manufacturer Welt, originally spun out of a Samsung incubator, calls its product “AI-enhanced pharmacotherapy.” It actually uses biometric data from your smartwatch or sleep tracker to tell you the optimal time to take a sleeping pill each day, with plans to eventually include medications for anxiety, weight-management medications, pain relief, and more.
There could be an argument that fine-tuning the time people take their pills could make them more effective, but I feel safe in saying that we don’t need to start throwing around the term “AI-augmented drugs.”
Startup DeGlass claims its almost unnecessarily sleek-looking Fraction vacuum cleaner uses AI in two different ways: first to “optimize suction,” and then to manage repairs and replacements thanks to the modular design.
It says its Neural Predictive AI monitors vacuum performance “to detect problems before they occur,” giving you a health score for each of the vacuum’s components, which can be easily replaced with a quick parts order from within the accompanying app. A cynic might worry that this is all in the name of selling users expensive and proprietary replacement parts, but I can at least get behind the promise of modular upgrades – assuming DeGlace is able to deliver on that promise.
Most digital picture frames let you display photos of loved ones, old vacation photos, or your favorite pieces of art. Frameik lets you display AI slopes.
It’s an E Ink picture frame with microphone and sound controls, so you can describe whatever picture you want, which the frame will generate using OpenAI’s GPT Image 1.5 model. The frame itself starts at $399, giving you 100 image generations per year, with the option to buy more if you run out.
What makes the AI ​​in Framic so questionable is that it could be a very good product without it. The E Ink panel looks great, you can even use it to show off your photos and pictures, and it uses so little power that it can be run on Year Without plugging in. We’d like it even more without any extra slop.
Infinix, the small phone maker that has found success across Asia for its affordable phones, didn’t launch any real new products at CES this year, but it did bring five concepts that could fit into future phones. Some are clever, like different color-changing rear finishes and some liquid-cooling designs. And then there’s the AI ​​Moduverse.
Modular phone concepts are nothing new, so the AI ​​hook is what makes the ModuVerse unique in theory. One of the “Modus” makes sense: a meeting attachment that attaches magnetically, generating AI transcripts and live translations on a mini display on the back.
But when I asked what everything is made of Other The AI, Infinix didn’t really have any good answers. The gimbal camera has AI stabilization, the vlogging lens uses AI to detect faces, and the microphone has AI voice isolation — all technically AI-based, but not interesting in any way. As far as magnetic, stackable power banks are concerned, Infinix representatives finally admitted that they don’t actually have any AI. The color surprised me.
The trend of AI and robotic cooking hardware is increasing – The VergeJane Tuohy reviewed a $1,500 robot chef just last month — but the Van AIChef is altogether less impressive: an AI-enabled microwave.
It runs on a suspiciously Android-looking device, with recipe suggestions, cooking instructions, and a camera inside so you can see the progress of what you’re making. But…it’s just a microwave. So it can’t really do any cooking for you, except heating your food to exactly the right temperature (perfect plus or minus 3 degrees Celsius, to be exact).
It’ll also do meal planning and meal tracking and calorie counting, which sounds great as long as you’re committed to eating all your meals from the AI ​​microwave. Please, I beg you, do not eat all your food out of the AI ​​microwave.
tech industry at all Love Reinventing a vending machine and branding it robotics or AI and AI bartenders is no different.
This setup – apparently already in use for private parties and corporate events – is actually just an automated cocktail machine with some AI smarts piled on top of it.
The AI ​​uses a connected webcam to estimate your age – in my case it was eight years younger – and confirm you’re sober enough to have another drink. It can also create custom drinks, with mixed success: When asked for something to “fuck me,” it came up with the Funky Tequila Fizz, aka tequila, triple sec, and soda. What, no absinthe?
Photo: Dominic Preston/The Verge
Should you buy your kid an AI toy that provides a full-fledged LLM-powered chatbot to talk to him? Probably not. But what if that AI chatbot looked like chibi Elon Musk?
He is one of several incarnations introduced by the Luca AI Cube, including Hayao Miyazaki, Steve minecraftAnd Harry Potter. Kids can talk to them about their day, ask for advice, or even share a camera feed of the AI ​​Cube to show the AI ​​avatars where they are and what they’re doing. Luca says it is a tool for entertainment as well as learning, with various educational activities and language options.
The question is whether you should trust a company’s guardrails enough to give a young child access to an LLM. Putting the lead with AI on Elon Musk – whose own AI, Grok, is busy undressing children as we speak – doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
