• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, January 8, 2025

You are reading this column on Wednesday, right in the middle of CES.  I had a few weeks off (first time since 2000) from creating new content and wanted to ease back into things.

Many of you are bouncing around the Aria and Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas and having a seemingly unending series of 15-minute meetings with people you haven’t seen in about two months.  Some of you are reading this from home, having instead chosen to simply resort to emails, phone and Zoom calls next week as a primary way of reconnecting. 

In either scenario, you probably spent zero time walking the halls of CES and looking at new technology toys.  I didn’t attend either, instead choosing to stay home.  I did write this piece on Monday before everything new and “exciting” got written about. and simply thought I could save you some time by forecasting what CES would be about this year. 

By the time you read this, you can tell me if I was correct or not.  Knowing the folks who tend to respond and comment below, I’m pretty certain you will tell me I was not, but thankfully my ego can handle that.

First off, there were bigger TVs with even more pixels.  Some were LED, OLED, 4K, 5k, 6k, and maybe even a 110-inch 6k OLED that rolls into a ball and can be stuffed in your backpack.

Next, there were some new and incredibly interesting ways to handle getting locked out of your house when you forgot your keys and the power goes out.  Smart locks that are fingerprint-scan-enabled and iris-scan-enabled and can detect your scent when you come home from the gym and forgot your house key on the kitchen table will be everywhere, and yet nobody will buy one -- ever.

Smart clothing will be the new thing this year.  This is clothing woven with special-formula thread that can provide the optimal time for being washed and send that note to your phone.  That means you can reduce your water footprint by only doing laundry when absolutely necessary, and your shirts can stand by themselves and walk directly into the laundry room.  College kids everywhere will cheer.

Smart razors will come out and have not four, not five, but 11 blades on them, and each blade will know when it is time to be replaced, ensuring the closest shave you’ve had in years.  In fact, it may shave that facial hair down to the root, and you’ll bear an eerie resemblance to that picture of yourself from eighth grade that your mom still has on the fridge: smooth skin on a picture that is all wrinkled.

Last but not least, some company will come up a new foldable, flappable, floppable “dumb phone” that simply makes calls while in your pocket, completely removing the need to take the phone out of said pocket.  It will be carried around like a Target receipt, crumpled up in your pocket and still able to do that single basic execution of making a call.

Oh yeah, and all of this is powered by AI.

The TVs will know what you should be watching based on your social media feed, which it will already have because it is reading the IP address of every device in your home.

The smart locks will simply sense you coming home and unlock the house, then tell you it’s OK because you did indeed lock the door when you left.

Your shirt will ping your phone’s laundry line and say “wash me.”

Those smart razor blades will light up in neon colors when it is time to throw them away.

That crumpled-up dumb phone will work everywhere, allowing you to essentially butt-dial anyone and everyone all the time.  Even AI can’t fix that.

Next week, it will be back to the normal topics of CDPs, AI, CTV and whatever other acronyms we decide are column-worthy in 2025.  Have a great day!