A new year is almost here, and you know what that means: The world's largest annual tech event is starting in just a few days.

Yep, CES 2026 is scheduled to kick off on January 6 in Las Vegas, Nevada, gathering tens of thousands of enthusiasts to see what's new in the world of consumer tech. We'll see an entirely new breed of TVs, new foldable phones, self-driving cars, weird gadgets, powerful chips, and many, many AI and robotics-related announcements. Unsurprisingly, those are some of the top tech trends we're anticipating in 2026.

Mashable will be on the ground in Las Vegas to cover CES 2026 as it unfolds. For now, let's take a look at what we expect to see from the biggest exhibitors this year.

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Micro RGB TVs

Can these achieve OLED-like picture quality at a lower price? It remains to be seen. Credit: LG

Forget OLEDs and QLEDs – this year you'll mostly be hearing about Micro RGB TVs. Two TV giants, Samsung and LG, have pre-announced their lineups of Micro RGB TVs, which are hitting the market in a variety of sizes this year. We don't have a verdict on how good these are just yet, but you can read about the technology that drives them in our handy explainer.

Of course, all of the other major TV manufacturers will be at CES 2026 as well. Sony is likely to show off its True RGB TVs, a new take Mini-LED TVs that promises higher brightness and contrast with more accurate colors (don't they all?).

We're also likely to hear a lot of talk about new HDR formats; Samsung announced its HDR10+ Advanced, the company's answer to Dolby Vision 2, back in October, with a launch scheduled for early 2026.

Foldable phones

Why fold a phone once when you can fold it twice? Credit: Samsung

CES isn't exactly a phone show, with most major companies choosing to launch their flagships at standalone events. That doesn't mean we won't see a bunch of new devices, though, and we're betting that a lot of them will be foldable.

Samsung, for example, has freshly launched its first tri-folding phone, the Galaxy Z TriFold, but the company is rumored to be working on yet another foldable device that isn't a new iteration of its Galaxy Z Fold. We don't know whether that one will show up at CES 2026, but we're sure Samsung's booth will feature at least a couple new devices with folding displays.

Motorola is also rumored to launch a book-style foldable phone at CES; a first for the company (Motorola already sells the flip phone-style foldable Motorola Razr).

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Robots, robots everywhere

Roborock's Qrevo Curv 2 Flow already combines a vacuum with a self-cleaning roller mop, but we bet the company has something even more advanced up its sleeve. Credit: Roborock

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is banking on the company's Optimus robot to be the next big thing, and other tech companies are taking notice.

One major company that's already announced a new robot is LG. The company will launch its CLOiD home helper robot, designed to improve your quality of life by performing a "wide range of indoor household tasks". We don't have photos, specs, or a release date for this one, so forgive us for not being too enthusiastic until we find out more about CLOiD.

Samsung has a robot called Ballie which it keeps re-launching at CES (it originally launched in 2020, followed by a 2024 remake), and we wouldn't be too surprised if the company brought a new version to CES 2026.

Companies such as Roborock are likely to show off even more advanced robot vacuum cleaners. Since we're on the topic of smart home, we're also likely to see new, smarter home security cameras, among other clever house-bound gadgets.

And while we cannot reveal more at this stage, we definitely know there will be several companies bringing new, humanoid and non-humanoid robots to the show.

Self-driving cars

These would look good in front of my garage. Credit: Honda

Look, it's CES. There will be cars. And if you're launching a car these days, it better be capable of autonomous driving.

We already know that Sony and Honda's joint venture (Sony Honda Mobility or SHM) will bring its retro-futuristic electric cars to the show. These will feature Level 3 autonomy, and we'll likely find out more about specs such as range and charging times.

Autonomous driving powerhouse Mobileye will also have a keynote on January 6, with CEO Amnon Shashua talking about the company's tech roadmap going forward.

Overall, we expect a lot of announcements related to self-driving tech, be it in the form of new cars, new AI smarts and chips powering autonomous driving, or further expansion of robotaxi services.

Powerful new chips

Intel's Core Ultra series 3 (codenamed Panther Lake) chips will go on sale in January 2026. Credit: Intel

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is delivering a keynote on January 5, and while that doesn't necessarily mean we'll see major new products, we're likely to find out more about Nvidia's strategy on powering the AI revolution going forward. One rumor claimed that Nvidia might launch new GeForce RTX 50 Super series graphics cards during CES, but later reports said the launch was delayed until later in the year.

AMD is probably introducing new Ryzen chips, including the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D. Intel has pre-announced the announcement of its Panther Lake chips, which will officially launch at CES. Qualcomm is launching its Snapdragon X Elite and X Elite Extreme chips inside laptops for the first time. In short, you shouldn't worry about your next computer, phone, or tablet being underpowered (if you can afford the RAM, that is).

AI everything

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Every tech event in the past couple of years has had a strong artificial intelligence focus or at least undertone, and we expect to see even more of that this year. AI will be mentioned by the chip makers. It will be sworn on by the automakers. Every robot, phone, tablet and home security camera we see at CES 2026 will likely have a brand new AI brain powering it. Heck, even the news TVs will boast AI smarts for upscaling and intelligence picture enhancement.