For four days in Las Vegas, CES 2023 becomes the nucleus of global innovation. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), owner of CES, predicts a show significantly larger than CES 2022, emerging from two pandemic restricted years on January 5. The annual confab will open more than two million square feet of exhibit space with more than 2,400 exhibitors and the expectation of as many as 100,000 attendees, more than double the last show. ETC@USC will have its team in place, on the ground and online, to explore the show floor and over 175 sessions and keynotes. We’ll be reporting on the latest in AI, Web3, multiverses, image displays and other emerging CE tech impacting M&E.

If groundbreaking technology and product introductions characterized CES during the first two decades of this century, the current CES flies the flag of innovation and how breakthrough technologies can be applied. When ETC heads to CES, we look beyond the headlines and traditional coverage to find companies, products, ideas and trends that matter to our media, entertainment and technology community.

Flashy products and brilliant big screens will always get attention at CES but the shift beyond hardware and consumer electronics can be seen with the expansive automotive wing filling the new West Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center, growth in healthcare and sports tech, a partnership with the World Academy of Arts and Sciences (WAAS) “to spotlight how technology helps people tackle the world’s most pressing problems,” and a focus on Web3.

Keynote presentations from leaders of AMD, BMW, Delta Air Lines, John Deere and Stellantis do not include a typical consumer products company. But the president and CEO of Nasdaq will discuss “What’s Next for the 21st Century Economy,” CoinDesk is producing a half-day Web3 conference program, and C-Space will be the hub for marketing, adtech and entertainment.

While ever broader in scope, and perhaps now the most significant future auto show, finding nascent threads at CES is one of the necessary realities of its increasing inclusion of all things technical.

This year heralded at CES, the metaverse is a stated focus for 2023. Behind the sparkling exhibits, we’ll be looking at not just one XR specific delivery platform, but rather the activity and new tools enabling the growing multiverses that have been here for years — especially tools that enable the immersive experience and inspire creatives to make change happen. We’ll search for fresh approaches to NFTs and how smart contracts fueled by blockchain deepen experience and chronicle engaging memories.

We’re organizing around five key areas of focus this year:

• The Metaverse (initiated in 1992)
• Immersive Enablers (and next-gen creative enablers)
• Image Displays
• CE Advances and Trends
• The ‘Not Yet Metaverse’

While almost every company in all the sectors of CES this year will tout how they are relevant and necessary in the age of multiverses, a delivery format is not the most important issue but rather, we think, how generative AI will impact creativity and change our industry, opening it into many delivery opportunities with increasing direct personal experience.

That is the context that we will focus on as we survey the over 2,400 companies introducing a wide range of new and innovative products and services.

Watch for our live reporting on ETCentric the week of CES 2023 (January 5-8). As always, we’ll wrap up our findings into a fast-paced 45-minute presentation for ETC member companies and a more complete published document loaded with links to associated stories and innovations.

Visit ETCentric for our post-show CES reports from previous years.