The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is an annual convention in Las Vegas that showcases thousands of products and innovations in the world of technology from all over the planet. This year, Buffalo Toronto Public Media board member Dr. Philip Glick, a board-certified pediatric surgeon with over 35 years of experience, is attending the days-long CES. Over the course of the convention, Dr. Glick will be filing first-hand accounts of what he is seeing and hearing from CES.
Edition 3:
On this edition of WBFO at CES 2025, Dr. Glick sat down for a one-on-one interview with Brian Comiskey, the Senior Director of Innovation and Trends at The Consumer Technology Association. The two discussed the integration of AI, a land aircraft carrier electric vehicle concept, and the most impressive innovations they've seen from CES 2025.
The full interview can be heard by clicking the blue "Listen" button at the top of this article. It is also transcribed below:
Dr. Glick: I’m sitting here with Brian Comiskey from CTA (Consumer Technology Association). He's been our personal tour guide for the last day and a half at CES, and I just wanted to have him share some thoughts with our audience about CES and CTA and the future of AI and powerful computing. So Brian, what are your feelings about all this?
Brian Comiskey: Yeah, of course. Well, I think CES this year is off to a really great start in building on some of the themes we saw last year, moving into this year, especially around artificial intelligence. I think this year we're diving in further into the idea of what's the return on investment for the law of artificial intelligence. How does it boost productivity for the enterprise? How does it become more personalized for consumers, especially as they work with their devices, and turn those devices into intelligent platforms? So, laptops, smartphones, and TVs, how do they become almost companions or coworkers and collaborators on a day-to-day basis? So that's really what we've seen across the entire show, for in every campus, what we're hearing about on stage, and it's been a tremendous time so far at this show.
Dr. Glick: So, you just hit on something really important. The Consumer Electronics Show is a B-to-B show, not a B-to-C show, but you've emphasized the B-to-C part. So, talk a little bit more about that.
Brian Comiskey: Yeah, of course. You're right, it's CES now for a reason, we have as much, almost as much, enterprise applications, industrial as we see on the consumer side, the B to C side. It's about, how we have wearables on a day-to-day basis that we're using, whether they're rings or their watches. How does that data that's getting generated on board that's not just step trackers or heart rates? How does that get leveraged into data that goes onto your apps and transmitted to your smart home devices and remotely translated to even doctors to empower health decisions? That's one way. Or how does the TV move from being an entertainment console that we think of as just a TV into something that has smart features like I'm going to pause a TV screen show and see the outfit of my favorite character and buy it right from there? That's how it gets to consumers so they might not realize this, they use AI every day already. Most of your content recommendations are AI, and most of your wearables have AI. Now, it's going to be more visible but still have some of that invisibility to make that seamless day-to-day life with technology.
Dr. Glick: Alright, so you've had a lot more time to see CES this year than I have, or at least you know where to go. What has blown you away the most?
Brian Comiskey: Oh my gosh, I saw a modular car. What that means is, think about how you have electric vehicles. That's a big story here at this show. I saw this on, it's called a land aircraft carrier. So, it's this beautiful van from Xpeng Areo HT, you can drive it. Well, say you want to fly above and look at things above and see a new perspective. A flying vehicle that's electric with autonomous capabilities can launch out of that van from the back. It literally is a land aircraft carrier. That blew me away.
Dr. Glick: Last question, so I know your background is more than just advertising. One of my impressions about CES is that America is not truly represented. Foreign companies are leading the way here. How do we embrace that, as opposed to feeling threatened by it?
Brian Comiskey: Well, I think that if you look at our exhibitor lists, and we'll know the official show numbers after the show, we do an independent audit to figure out the numbers. Last year we had a 60% domestic, and 40% international split. So, it is a global show for a reason at CES. I think the beauty of the show being sort of a platform for business-making and partnership ventures is you see countries, and innovators from all over the world. They're trying to make life better for consumers, they're trying to make business operate better for any enterprise. So, they're making these key relationships, these key partnerships, to grow that. We’ve seen L'Oreal make a major partnership with a 3D printing company from Korea. So, you're talking about French and US stakes meeting with Korea to make custom eyebrow designs that showcase how you can personalize things. So, I think what CES ultimately is about is that innovation comes from anywhere, and it's designed to be for people and humans, and we are all humans, I'm excited to see how we embrace those partnerships and those business decisions.