At CES 2025’s opening session on Tech Trends, futurist Brian Comiskey, the Consumer Technology Association’s senior director of innovation and trends, forecasted record retail revenues of $537 billion in 2025, representing a growth in hardware, software and services. He also enumerated the growth of AI as a continuing trend. Fueling this record growth is the dominance of Gen Z, which he dubbed “the first true digital natives.” Comiskey noted, however, that the incoming government proposal to establish tariffs threaten U.S. purchasing power for technology products.

Ninety percent of Gen Zers — the generation born between 1997 and 2012 — is found in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia, continued Comiskey. “This year, 27 percent of the OECD workforce will be Gen Z,” he said.

“Sixty percent of them are early tech adopters, very comfortable with fast tech cycles.” They have, on average, 13 tech devices in their homes.

Another trend is growing consumer familiarity with AI. “It’s not a hype cycle,” said Comiskey, who stated that 93 percent of U.S. adults perceive the difference between AI and generative AI and that 61 percent use AI tools at work.

Sixty-four percent of consumers have used AI shopping tools, with virtual try-ons already a $2 billion marketplace. Further, 40 percent are more likely to make purchases via AI personalization. Increasingly, consumers expect digital technologies to co-exist.

Also in the coming year, an increasing number of consumers will utilize AI tools via ongoing hardware upgrade cycles, in product arenas including smartphones, TV and vehicles. For 2025 trends in AI, Comiskey singled out increased productivity via AI agents, digital twins and humanoid robots, referencing respectively, Chatbase, Nvidia and Enchanted Tools.

Another important trend for 2025 is the transition to more sustainable energy sources, via infrastructure, grid resiliency and experimentation. Although 65 percent of U.S. buyers say sustainability is important, only 47 percent currently make purchases based on this value.

In the smart home, the TV will become the smart home command center, with deeper personalization via AI. Vehicle innovations will advance towards autonomy, which Comiskey dubbed an “underestimated trend” in 2024. He also emphasized a pursuit of longevity at the individual level, and dubbed the 2030s as the “Quantum Decade,” with quantum computing on the CES show floor for the first time this year.