Merriam-Webster just named “slop” its word of the year, defining it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” The choice is blunt, almost mocking, and it captures something that has been building for months: a collective exhaustion with AI hype that promises intelligence but delivers mediocrity. Over the past three months, that exhaustion has started bleeding into Wall Street. Investors, analysts, and even CEOs of AI companies themselves have been openly questioning whether we are living through an AI bubble. OpenAI’s Sam Altman warned in August that investors are “overexcited about AI,” and Google’s Sundar Pichai admitted to “elements of irrationality” in the sector. The tech industry is pouring trillions into AI infrastructure while revenues lag far behind, raising fears of a dot-com-style correction that could rattle the entire economy.

CES 2026 is going to be ground zero for this tension. Every booth will have an “AI-powered” sticker on something, and a lot of those products will be genuine innovations built on real on-device intelligence and agentic workflows. But a lot of them will also be slop: rebranded features, cloud-dependent gimmicks, and shallow marketing plays designed to ride the hype wave before it crashes. If you are walking the show floor or reading coverage from home, knowing how to separate real AI from fake AI is not just a consumer protection issue anymore. It is a survival skill for navigating a market that feeds on confusion and a general lack of awareness around actual Artificial Intelligence.

1. If it goes offline and stops working, it was never really AI

The simplest test for fake AI is also the most reliable: ask what happens when the internet connection drops. Real AI that lives on your device will keep functioning because the processing is happening locally, using dedicated chips and models stored in the gadget itself. Fake AI is just a thin client that calls a cloud API, and the moment your Wi-Fi cuts out, the “intelligence” disappears with it.

Picture a laptop at CES 2026 that claims to have an AI writing assistant. If that assistant can still summarize documents, rewrite paragraphs, and handle live transcription when you are on a plane with no internet, you are looking at real on-device AI. If it gives you an error message the second you disconnect, it is cloud-dependent marketing wrapped in an “AI PC” label. The same logic applies to TVs, smart home devices, robot vacuums, and wearables. Genuine AI products are designed to think locally, with cloud connectivity as an optional boost rather than a lifeline.

The distinction matters because on-device AI is expensive to build. It requires new silicon, tighter integration between hardware and software, and real engineering effort. Companies that invested in that infrastructure will want you to know it works offline because that is their competitive edge. Companies that skipped that step will either avoid the question or bury it in fine print. At CES 2026, press the demo staff on this: disconnect the device from the network and see if the AI features still run. If they do not, you just saved yourself from buying rebranded cloud software in a shiny box.

If your Robot Vacuum has Microsoft Copilot, RUN!

2. If it’s just a chatbot, it isn’t AI… it’s GPT Customer Care

The laziest fake AI move at CES 2026 will be products that open a chat window, let you type questions, and call that an AI feature. A chatbot is not product intelligence. It is a generic language model wrapper that any company can license from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google in about a week, then slap their logo on top and call it innovation. If the only AI interaction your gadget offers is typing into a text box and getting conversational responses, you are not looking at an AI product. You are looking at customer service automation dressed up as a feature.

Real AI is embedded in how the product works. It is the robot vacuum that maps your home, decides which rooms need more attention, and schedules itself around your routine without you opening an app. It is the laptop that watches what you do, learns your workflow, and starts suggesting shortcuts or automating repetitive tasks before you ask. It is the TV that notices you always pause shows when your smart doorbell rings and starts doing it automatically. None of that requires a chat interface because the intelligence is baked into the behavior of the device itself, not bolted on as a separate conversation layer.

If a company demo at CES 2026 starts with “just ask it anything,” probe deeper. Can it take actions across the system, or does it just answer questions? Does it learn from how you use the product, or is it the same canned responses for everyone? Is the chat interface the only way to interact with the AI, or does the product also make smart decisions in the background without prompting? A chatbot can be useful, but it is table stakes now, not a differentiator. If that is the whole AI story, the company did not build AI into their product. They rented a language model and hoped you would not notice.

3. If the AI only does one narrow thing, it is probably just a renamed preset

Another red flag is when a product’s AI feature is weirdly specific and cannot generalize beyond a single task. A TV that has “AI motion smoothing” but no other intelligent behavior is not running a real AI model; it is running the same interpolation algorithm TVs have had for years, now rebranded with an AI label. A camera that has “AI portrait mode” but cannot recognize anything else is likely just using a basic depth sensor and calling it artificial intelligence. Real AI, especially the kind built into modern chips and operating systems, is designed to generalize across tasks: it can recognize objects, understand context, predict user intent, and coordinate with other devices.

Ask yourself: does this product’s AI learn, adapt, or handle multiple scenarios, or does it just trigger a preset when you press a button? If it is the latter, you are looking at a marketing gimmick. Fake AI products love to hide behind phrases like “AI-enhanced” or “AI-optimized,” which sound impressive but are deliberately vague. Real AI products will tell you exactly what the system is doing: “on-device object recognition,” “local natural language processing,” “agentic task coordination.” Specificity is a sign of substance. Vagueness is a sign of slop.

The other giveaway is whether the AI improves over time. Genuine AI systems get smarter as they process more data and learn from user behavior, often through firmware updates that improve the underlying models. Fake AI products ship with a fixed set of presets and never change. At CES 2026, ask demo reps if the product’s AI will improve after launch, how updates work, and whether the intelligence adapts to individual users. If they cannot give you a clear answer, you are looking at a one-time software trick masquerading as artificial intelligence.

Don’t fall for ‘AI Enhancement’ presets or buttons that don’t do anything related to AI.

4. If the company cannot explain what the AI actually does, walk away

Fake AI thrives on ambiguity. Companies that bolt a chatbot onto a product and call it AI-powered know they do not have a real differentiator, so they lean into buzzwords and avoid specifics. Real AI companies, by contrast, will happily explain what their models do, where the processing happens, and what problems the AI solves that the previous generation could not. If a booth rep at CES 2026 gives you vague non-answers like “it uses machine learning to optimize performance” without defining what gets optimized or how, that is a warning sign.

Push for concrete examples. If a smart home hub claims to have AI coordination, ask: what decisions does it make on its own, and what still requires manual setup? If a wearable says it has AI health coaching, ask: is the analysis happening on the device or in the cloud, and can it work offline while hiking in the wilderness? If a laptop advertises an AI assistant, ask: what can it do without an internet connection, and does it integrate with other apps (agentic) or just sit in a sidebar? Companies with real AI will have detailed, confident answers because they built the system from the ground up. Companies with fake AI will deflect, generalize, or change the subject.

The other test is whether the AI claim matches the price and the hardware. If a $200 gadget promises the same on-device AI capabilities as a $1,500 laptop with a dedicated neural processing unit, somebody is lying. Real AI requires real silicon, and that silicon costs money. Budget products can absolutely have useful AI features, but they will typically offload more work to the cloud or use simpler models. If the pricing does not line up with the technical claims, it is worth being skeptical. At CES 2026, ask what chip is powering the AI, whether it has a dedicated NPU, and how much of the intelligence is local versus cloud-based. If they cannot or will not tell you, that is your cue to move on.

5. Check if the AI plays well with others, or if it lives in a silo

One of the clearest differences between real agentic AI and fake “AI inside” products is interoperability. Genuine AI systems are designed to coordinate with other devices, share context, and act on your behalf across an ecosystem. Fake AI products exist in isolation: they have a chatbot you can talk to, but it does not connect to anything else, and it cannot take actions beyond its own narrow interface. Samsung’s CES 2026 exhibit is explicitly built around AI and interoperability, with appliances, TVs, and smart home products all coordinated by a shared AI layer. That is what real agentic AI looks like: the fridge, washer, vacuum, and thermostat all understand context and can make decisions together without you micromanaging each one. Fake AI, by contrast, gives you five isolated apps with five separate chatbots, none of which talk to each other. If a product at CES 2026 claims to have AI but cannot integrate with the rest of your smart home, car, or workflow, it is not delivering the core promise of agentic systems.

Ask demo reps: does this work with other brands, or only within your ecosystem? Can it trigger actions in other apps or devices, or does it just respond to questions? Does it understand my preferences across multiple products, or does each device start from scratch? Companies that built real AI ecosystems will brag about cross-device coordination because it is hard to pull off and it is the whole point. Companies selling fake AI will either avoid the topic or try to upsell you on buying everything from them, which is a sign they do not have real interoperability.

6. When in doubt, look for the slop

The rise of AI-generated “slop” gives you a shortcut for spotting lazy AI products: if the marketing materials, product images, or demo videos look AI-generated and low-effort, the product itself is probably shallow too. Merriam-Webster defines slop as low-quality digital content produced in quantity by AI, and it has flooded everything from social media to advertising to product launches. Brands that cut corners on their own marketing by using obviously AI-generated visuals are signaling that they also cut corners on the actual product development.

Watch for telltale signs: weird proportions in product photos, uncanny facial expressions in lifestyle shots, text that sounds generic and buzzword-heavy with no real specifics, and claims that are too good to be true with no technical backing. Real AI products are built by companies that care about craft, and that care shows up in how they present the product. Fake AI products are built by companies chasing a trend, and the slop in their marketing is the giveaway. At CES 2026, trust your instincts: if the booth, the video, or the pitch feels hollow and mass-produced, the gadget probably is too.

The post How to Spot Fake AI Products at CES 2026 Before You Buy first appeared on Yanko Design.

Last year, every other product at CES had a chatbot slapped onto it. Your TV could talk. Your fridge could answer trivia. Your laptop had a sidebar that would summarize your emails if you asked nicely. It was novel for about five minutes, then it became background noise. The whole “AI revolution” at CES 2024 and 2025 felt like a tech industry inside joke: everyone knew it was mostly marketing, but nobody wanted to be the one company without an AI sticker on the booth.

CES 2026 is shaping up differently. Coverage ahead of the show is already calling this the year AI stops being a feature you demo and starts being infrastructure you depend on. The shift is twofold: AI is moving from the cloud onto the device itself, and it is evolving from passive assistants that answer questions into agentic systems that take action on your behalf. Intel has confirmed it will introduce Panther Lake CPUs, AMD CEO Lisa Su is headlining the opening keynote with expectations around a Ryzen 7 9850X3D reveal, and Nvidia is rumored to be prepping an RTX 50 “Super” refresh. The silicon wars are heating up precisely because the companies making chips know that on-device AI is the only way this whole category becomes more than hype. If your gadget still depends entirely on a server farm to do anything interesting, it is already obsolete. Here’s what to expect at CES 2026… but more importantly, what to expect from AI in the near future.

Your laptop is finally becoming the thing running the models

Intel, AMD, and Nvidia are all using CES 2026 as a launching pad for next-generation silicon built around AI workloads. Intel has publicly committed to unveiling its Panther Lake CPUs at the show, chips designed with dedicated neural processing units baked in. AMD’s Lisa Su is doing the opening keynote, with strong buzz around a Ryzen 7 9850X3D that would appeal to gamers and creators who want local AI performance without sacrificing frame rates or render times. Nvidia’s press conference is rumored to focus on RTX 50 “Super” cards that push both graphics and AI inference into new territory. The pitch is straightforward: your next laptop or desktop is not a dumb terminal for ChatGPT; it is the machine actually running the models.

What does that look like in practice? Laptops at CES 2026 will be demoing live transcription and translation that happens entirely on the device, no cloud round trip required. You will see systems that can summarize browser tabs, rewrite documents, and handle background removal on video calls without sending a single frame to a server. Coverage is already predicting a big push toward on-device processing specifically to keep your data private and reduce reliance on cloud infrastructure. For gamers, the story is about AI upscaling and frame generation becoming table stakes, with new GPUs sold not just on raw FPS but on how quickly they can run local AI tools for modding, NPC dialogue generation, or streaming overlays. This is the year “AI PC” might finally mean something beyond a sticker.

Agentic AI is the difference between a chatbot and a butler

Pre-show coverage is leaning heavily on the phrase “agentic AI,” and it is worth understanding what that actually means. Traditional AI assistants answer questions: you ask for the weather, you get the weather. Agentic AI takes goals and executes multi-step workflows to achieve them. Observers expect to see devices at CES 2026 that do not just plan a trip but actually book the flights and reserve the tables, acting on your behalf with minimal supervision. The technical foundation for this is a combination of on-device models that understand context and cloud-based orchestration layers that can touch APIs, but the user experience is what matters: you stop micromanaging and start delegating.

Samsung is bringing its largest CES exhibit to date, merging home appliances, TVs, and smart home products into one massive space with AI and interoperability as the core message. Imagine a fridge, washer, TV, robot vacuum, and phone all coordinated by the same AI layer. The system notices you cooked something smoky, runs the air purifier a bit harder, and pushes a recipe suggestion based on leftovers. Your washer pings the TV when a cycle finishes, and the TV pauses your show at a natural break. None of this requires you to open an app or issue voice commands; the devices are just quietly making decisions based on context. That is the agentic promise, and CES 2026 is where companies will either prove they can deliver it or expose themselves as still stuck in the chatbot era.

Robot vacuums are the first agentic AI success story you can actually buy

CES 2026 is being framed by dedicated floorcare coverage as one of the most important years yet for robot vacuums and AI-powered home cleaning, with multiple brands receiving Innovation Awards and planning major product launches. This category quietly became the testing ground for agentic AI years before most people started using the phrase. Your robot vacuum already maps your home, plans routes, decides when to spot-clean high-traffic areas, schedules deep cleans when you are away, and increasingly maintains itself by emptying dust and washing its own mop pads. It does all of this with minimal cloud dependency; the brains are on the bot.

LG has already won a CES 2026 Innovation Award for a robot vacuum with a built-in station that hides inside an existing cabinet cavity, turning floorcare into an invisible, fully hands-free system. Ecovacs is previewing the Deebot X11 OmniCyclone as a CES 2026 Innovation Awards Honoree and promising its most ambitious lineup to date, pushing into whole-home robotics that go beyond vacuuming. Robotin is demoing the R2, a modular robot that combines autonomous vacuuming with automated carpet washing, moving from daily crumb patrol to actual deep cleaning. These bots are starting to integrate with broader smart home ecosystems, coordinating with your smart lock, thermostat, and calendar to figure out when you are home, when kids are asleep, and when the dog is outside. The robot vacuum category is proof that agentic AI can work in the real world, and CES 2026 is where other product categories are going to try to catch up.

TVs are getting Micro RGB panels and AI brains that learn your taste

LG has teased its first Micro RGB TV ahead of CES 2026, positioning it as the kind of screen that could make OLED owners feel jealous thanks to advantages in brightness, color control, and longevity. Transparent OLED panels are also making appearances in industrial contexts, like concept displays inside construction machinery cabins, hinting at similar tech eventually showing up in living rooms as disappearing TVs or glass partitions that become screens on demand. The hardware story is always important at CES, but the AI layer is where things get interesting for everyday use.

TV makers are layering AI on top of their panels in ways that go beyond simple upscaling. Expect personalized picture and sound profiles that learn your room conditions, content preferences, and viewing habits over time. The pitch is that your TV will automatically switch to low-latency gaming mode when it recognizes you launched a console, dim your smart lights when a movie starts, and adjust color temperature based on ambient light without you touching a remote. Some of this is genuine machine learning happening on-device, and some of it is still marketing spin on basic presets. The challenge for readers at CES 2026 will be figuring out which is which, but the direction is clear: TVs are positioning themselves as smart hubs that coordinate your living room, not just dumb displays waiting for HDMI input.

Gaming gear is wiring itself for AI rendering and 500 Hz dreams

HDMI Licensing Administrator is using CES 2026 to spotlight advanced HDMI gaming technologies with live demos focused on very high refresh rates and next-gen console and PC connectivity. Early prototypes of the Ultra96 HDMI cable, part of the new HDMI 2.2 specification, will be on display with the promise of higher bandwidth to support extreme refresh rates and resolutions. Picture a rig on the show floor: a 500 Hz gaming monitor, next-gen GPU, HDMI 2.2 cable, running an esports title at absurd frame rates with variable refresh rate and minimal latency. It is the kind of setup that makes Reddit threads explode.

GPUs are increasingly sold not just on raw FPS but on AI capabilities. AI upscaling like DLSS is already table stakes, but local AI is also powering streaming tools for background removal, audio cleanup, live captions, and even dynamic NPC dialogue in future games that require on-device inference rather than server-side processing. Nvidia’s rumored RTX 50 “Super” refresh is expected to double down on this positioning, selling the cards as both graphics and AI accelerators. For gamers and streamers, CES 2026 is where the industry will make the case that your rig needs to be built for AI workloads, not just prettier pixels. The infrastructure layer, cables and monitors included, is catching up to match that ambition.

What CES 2026 really tells us about where AI is going

The shift from cloud-dependent assistants to on-device agents is not just a technical upgrade; it is a fundamental change in how gadgets are designed and sold. When Intel, AMD, and Nvidia are all racing to build chips with dedicated AI accelerators, and when Samsung is reorganizing its entire CES exhibit around AI interoperability, the message is clear: companies are betting that local intelligence and cross-device coordination are the only paths forward. The chatbot era served its purpose as a proof of concept, but CES 2026 is where the industry starts delivering products that can think, act, and coordinate without constant cloud supervision.

What makes this year different from the past two is that the infrastructure is finally in place. The silicon can handle real-time inference. The software frameworks for agentic behavior are maturing. Robot vacuums are proving the model works at scale. TVs and smart home ecosystems are learning how to talk to each other without requiring users to become IT managers. The pieces are connecting, and CES 2026 is the first major event where you can see the whole system starting to work as one layer instead of a collection of isolated features.

The real question is what happens after the demos

Trade shows are designed to impress, and CES 2026 will have no shortage of polished demos where everything works perfectly. The real test comes in the six months after the show, when these products ship and people start using them in messy, real-world conditions. Does your AI PC actually keep your data private when it runs models locally, or does it still phone home for half its features? Does your smart home coordinate smoothly when you add devices from different brands, or does it fall apart the moment something breaks the script? Do robot vacuums handle the chaos of actual homes, or do they only shine in controlled environments?

The companies that win in 2026 and beyond will be the ones that designed their AI systems to handle failure, ambiguity, and the unpredictable messiness of how people actually live. CES 2026 is where you will see the roadmap. The year after is where you will see who actually built the roads. If you are walking the show floor or following the coverage, the most important question is not “what can this do in a demo,” but “what happens when it breaks, goes offline, or encounters something it was not trained for.” That is where the gap between real agentic AI and rebranded presets will become impossible to hide.

The post How AI Will Be Different at CES 2026: On‑Device Processing and Actual Agentic Productivity first appeared on Yanko Design.