Google watched Amazon run away with last year’s show, and at CES 2018 it answers with a vengeance. Hey Google is plastered across the entire Las Vegas monorail, painted on buildings, stamped on every other booth. The assistant war is now a full-scale brand brawl, and Google has clearly decided it is not going to lose the home without a fight.
And then the lights go out
Halfway through the week the power fails across a big chunk of the convention center, and the biggest technology show on earth sits in the dark for hours. It is the thing everyone walks out of Vegas talking about. Underneath the chaos, Snapdragon keeps powering the flagships and 5G is creeping onto every roadmap as the next big promise.
The trend for the year ahead
The assistant duopoly hardens into Amazon versus Google, and the 5G hype machine spins up for real. Expect a year of carriers and chipmakers promising that everything is about to get much faster.
My take
The Google blitz is the most aggressive marketing I have ever seen at CES, and it works. As for the blackout, there is something perfect about the show that worships technology getting humbled by a power cut. Pack a flashlight next year.
Part of 20 Years of CES Through My Lens, my year-by-year diary of the show.