From Jon Denham, Vice President Strategy
Reflecting on the countless innovations unveiled during CES 2020, four consistent trend themes emerged across platforms and industries: Connected, Automatic, Sustaining, Experience – the CASE for future and accelerated change.
Connected: Connectivity for devices is nothing new, but the proliferation and scope is expanding at an accelerated pace and with seemingly unlimited scale from smart home environments, to wearable technology and garments and ultimately to your entire out of home ecosystem:
- Bosch introduced inventory management technology that uses in-refrigerator image recognition to identify items that are added or removed from the fridge. can recommend recipes based on what’s in a user’s connected fridge or pantry — a feature that could potentially save consumers time and money and reduce food waste.
- Facebook’s Preventative Health is a personal healthcare tool that connects people to health resources and recommendations from leading health organizations to help them stay healthy and prevent serious disease. This is one of several innovations that are empowering consumers to proactively manage their health.
- Toyota Woven City is a 175-acre smart city being developed in the foothills of Mt Fuji which will be home to 2000 people creating an integrated environment for experimenting with AI equipped robotic homes, self-driving vehicles, sustainable power and more.
Automatic: Smart products and systems are increasingly automatic – understanding and anticipating what we want and need.
- Myant knits sensors and actuators into everyday textiles, giving them the ability to sense and react to the human body transforming the way health, performance and care are measured and delivered
- Mercedes’ AVTR Concept is inspired by the movie Avatar acting and interacting like a living creature envisioning a future fusion of body and vehicle.
Sustaining: How will brands and products sustain me, my family and the planet?
- U by Moen is a voice activated smart faucet that precisely dispenses the exact amount of water needed and at the desired temperature. Perfect for busy, multi-tasking parents needing help in the kitchen and reducing water waste in the home.
- LG’s Indoor Vegetable Cultivator not only brings gardening indoors but also integrates it with the way we eat. Designed to support the increasing number of people seeking more plant-based diets and sustainable lifestyles
- You’ve seen the Impossible Burger and now there is Impossible Pork a plant-based pork substitute which is reportedly made with a fraction of the environmental impact of actual pork.
Experience: The CES keynote address from Delta Airlines’ CEO Ed Bastian shared the company’s investment in the creation of a complete, end-to-end customer experience. Its innovations will have powerful impact for consumers and employees alike:
- Transparency – Delta partnered with Misapplied Sciences to create Parallel Reality signage technology that allows different people to see images and info personal to them simultaneously presented on a single display transforming the passenger’s experience navigating the airport.
- End-To-End – Delta is also collaborating with Lyft to provide timely, comfortable and reliable transport to and from the airport to complete the travel experience.
- Safety & Hygiene – For its baggage handlers, Delta is working with Sarcos to develop a new exo-skeleton system allowing them to safely transfer higher weights for longer periods of time with fewer injuries. For pilots, it has invested in a new app that senses turbulence earlier so they can plot a safer more comfortable ride. And for consumers, the airline is working with Vital Vio to improve plane hygiene with anti-microbial lamps.
- Entertainment – Delta has created a more personalized onboard entertainment experience which will ultimately become the passenger’s in-flight hub for communication.
These takeaways from CES hit home that every company is ultimately in the experience business, and those that understand the customer’s journey and leverage technology to anticipate and deliver those ideal experiences will be changing and hopefully improving how we live our lives.
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