Fears of an AI bubble were nowhere to be found at the world’s biggest tech show

The Sharpa Wave mimics hand gestures at the Sharpa booth during the CES tech show Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Robots took over the floor at the biggest technology show of the year: I watched a towering humanoid robot march forward, spin its head and wave at an excited crowd. Then I almost bumped into a four-legged doglike robot behind me.

They’re just a couple of the many robots I encountered this week designed for a range of purposes, from playing chess to performing spinal surgery. These are common occurrences on the Las Vegas Convention Centre’s show floor during CES, which wrapped on Friday. Every January, companies from around the world gather to flaunt new technologies, products and services.

The show is just as much spectacle as it is substance; many of the most eye-catching wares either haven’t come to fruition (like flying cars) or are wildly expensive and impractical (think TVs that cost tens of thousands of dollars). But CES provides a glimpse into the bets being made by industry giants like Nvidia, Intel, Amazon and Samsung.

AI once again dominated the conference. Companies showed off everything from humanoid robots they claim will staff factories to refrigerators you can open with your voice to the next-generation chips that will power it all. CES, in some ways, turned the Strip into a bubble of its own, shielded from AI skepticism.

CNN asked a handful of tech executives at CES about an AI bubble and how it might impact their businesses. Some said their businesses aren’t relevant to the bubble concerns, while others expressed optimism about AI’s potential and said they are focused on building products that show it.

“We’re in the earliest stage of what’s possible. So when I hear we’re in a bubble, I’m like… This isn’t a fad,” said Panos Panay, Amazon’s devices and services chief. “It’s not going to pass.”

Growing concerns of an AI bubble

Tech companies poured more than US$61 billion into data centre investments in 2025, according to S&P Global, fueling concerns that investments may be far outpacing demand.

And investments are only expected to grow, with Goldman Sachs reporting that AI companies are estimated to invest more than $500 billion in capital expenditures this year. Julien Garran, researcher and partner for research firm MacroStrategy Partnership, said in a report last year that the AI bubble is 17 times bigger than the dot com bubble.

Most of the concerns around an AI bubble have centered on investments in data centers built for AI tasks that are too power-hungry for devices like laptops and smartphones to handle alone. Nvidia, the poster child of the AI boom and the company at the centre of the bubble debate, announced at CES that the next version of its computing platform that powers those data centres is arriving in the second half of this year.

When asked about the AI bubble, executives from chipmakers Intel and Qualcomm pointed to their respective companies’ efforts to improve how computers process AI tasks locally rather than in the cloud.

Qualcomm, which makes chips for smartphones and other products, announced last year that it’s expanding into data centres. But that represents a very small part of its business.

“As far as we’re concerned, where we operate is not where the bubble conversation exists,” Akash Palkhiwala, Qualcomm’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, told CNN.

Intel is focused on products that are important to its consumers, like chips that boost laptop performance, rather than making a big bet “that takes a lot of investment that may or may not make it,” said its client computing group head, Jim Johnson.

CK Kim, executive vice president and head of Samsung’s digital appliances business, said in an interview through an interpreter that it’s not for him to say whether the industry is in an AI bubble. He added that the company is more focused on whether AI is bringing value to consumers.

AI and the hunt for the next big thing

What that “value” looks like is exactly what the thousands of exhibitors at CES tried to demonstrate this week. Humanoid robots were a big part of that equation for companies like Nvidia, Intel, Hyundai and Qualcomm, all of which announced new tech to power human-shaped robots.

Boston Dynamics and Hyundai debuted Atlas, a humanoid robot developed in partnership with Google’s DeepMind AI division designed for industrial work like order fulfillment. It’ll be deployed to Google DeepMind and Hyundai’s Robotics Metaplant Applications centre in the coming months, and additional customers will adopt it in early 2027.

“With one investment, we can explore any application in the world, from industrial use cases to retail use cases to home use cases,” Aya Durbin, who leads Boston Dynamics’ humanoid application product strategy, said in an interview at Hyundai’s booth when asked what’s driving the interest in humanoid robots. (Hyundai owns a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics.)

Tech companies have also been chasing the next big product following the smartphone and think AI could be key to finding it. At CES, a wave of companies introduced discrete listening devices that can record conversations or voice notes. These products included AI jewelry from a startup called Nirva, the Index 01 ring from smartwatch maker Pebble and the now Amazon-owned wristband from Bee.

Speaking to gadgets is often faster than typing, but Amazon and Nirva also see their devices as another means to gather data that can provide insights about a user’s life, though doing so will surely raise privacy concerns.

Business leaders seem to agree that AI is here to stay — even for those like Pete Erickson, CEO of tech events and education company Modev, who said the industry is indeed in a bubble.

But Erickson also believes AI is “just a part of our lives” now.

“I don’t think it’s going anywhere,” he said.

By Lisa Eadicicco