The Five Weirdest AI Inventions I Saw at CES 2026.

Artificial intelligence still holds a significant place in the tech world, but it’s no longer just a new thing . It’s been around for a while, and simply implementing it into a product isn’t enough to make it stand out, especially at the world’s largest tech show. During my time at CES this year, I kept noticing a trend of AI getting weirder and weirder. From personal holographic assistants to a gaming monitor that essentially cheats for you, here are the five weirdest AI inventions I saw at CES 2026.

Razer will give you your own personal anime girl.

At last year’s CES, gaming lifestyle company Razer unveiled Project AVA, a concept for an AI-powered esports coach that was simply a disembodied voice embedded in your laptop. Boring. This year, the company is expanding on that concept by bringing AVA into the real world.

This year, at the Razer showroom, I interacted with “Kira,” a hologram of an anime girl who lives in a small USB tube connected to my laptop. Thanks to the tube’s camera, she noticed my orange sweater, then asked me about the series and offered to start a round of Battlefield 6 , where she offered some general gear advice. I communicated with her using microphones also built into the tube, and she responded through her own speaker, not the laptop’s. Razer said this demo was more focused, so it immediately touched on the topic of gaming, but the ultimate goal is to make the new AVA a compelling all-around AI companion, so you don’t have to use it just for gaming.

To this end, the company claims to be “AI-agnostic,” so you can plug your own model into it. The demo I watched clearly used Grok, and overall, it felt very similar to interacting with the app’s built-in AI companions , right down to the ridiculous jokes. But Razer stated that, theoretically, you could use ChatGPT or Gemini instead.

While we were chatting, Kira was demonstrating animations from Animation Inc. , a company that develops similar, but more app-focused, AI companions. In other words, the chatbot and animations here aren’t anything groundbreaking, so you’ll only be buying a USB drive and the characters.

Kira isn’t the only AI companion option in this case: she’s a typical anime gamer girl, but I also got a glimpse of Zane, a tattooed, muscular guy in the deepest V-neck I’ve ever seen. The intended audience for both characters is immediately apparent, but if you want something more discreet, you can also configure the Razer logo to appear on-screen surrounded by a sound wave, simply called AVA (though the entire project is still called AVA). The company is also working on using celebrity images: eSports star Faker and influencer Sao have already given their approval.

Razer has said it’s still working on how these characters will be distributed, and I was told you’ll get a pack of them when you buy one, but you’ll likely be able to purchase more later.

As for price and availability, there’s no information yet. It’s still technically a concept, so development may have to go back to the drawing board. However, Razer’s website states that the company hopes to release the device in the second half of 2026, and that you can make a $20 deposit right now to reserve yours .

In short, if you strip away the functionality already built into the apps you can download right now, the new Project Ava is essentially a talking holographic toy for your desktop. That’s still a decent description, but unfortunately, I’m not sure the word “hologram” is appropriate. Kira seemed rather flat to me, less like that projection of Princess Leia than an image on a regular transparent screen simply placed inside a cylinder. I think the novelty doesn’t yet live up to the concept.

A gaming headset that uses artificial intelligence to read your mind.

When I play competitive games, instead of jumping right into a match, I run a few practice sessions to warm up. This is helpful, but time-consuming. The new Neurable x HyperX concept headset aims to change that, helping you get ready for the game in just a few minutes.

Essentially, it’s a regular gaming headset, but the earcups are embedded with various sensors that can supposedly read your concentration level. They’re similar to the brain-computer interfaces you might have seen in sci-fi shows, complete with wires and dials, but scaled down for the consumer market, without any of the clutter.

This is where artificial intelligence comes in. The smaller sensors certainly mean that this headset collects fewer readings than larger devices in lab conditions, but Neurable claims its models are still able to detect trends in these readings and convert them into useful data while discarding unnecessary data.

For gamers, this means the game offers a quick concentration exercise called “Prime,” which requires you to concentrate while watching a cloud of dots collapse into a solid sphere. After completing this exercise, which took me about 90 seconds, you’re presumably focused and ready to play.

Unfortunately, I performed worse in the practice game after the training than before, but that doesn’t mean the data is useless. I did this exercise with a colleague, whose performance improved by about a third after the training, and given the small sample size, there could be many reasons why I “fell” after the training. The company said this training method might even help prevent failure.

Either way, numbers are fun. That’s why I’m most excited about the streamer plugin that allows them to display their concentration level on the chat screen. I can easily imagine the community looking at this data and teasing their favorite streamer, trying to distract them.

However, it will be a while before you can buy this device. It’s still just a concept, with no price or release date. However, Neurable already has a similar headset, not designed for gaming, created in collaboration with Master & Dynamic, which will be available soon , but without this software. Read more in my full article here .

Your Lenovo laptop can nod its head when you ask it a question.

This is more of a hardware innovation, but a pretty clever one. At CES, Lenovo unveiled a laptop with a motorized hinge that can automatically close, open, and even rotate from side to side. It’s set to go on sale this summer , but while the company was showing me the device, they also showed me a prototype of the chatbot they’re developing for it. It uses ChatGPT for now and is just a concept, so it won’t ship with the laptop. But it was cute.

Essentially, while I was interacting with the app, the laptop displayed a large pair of animated eyes on the screen and, using a hinge, nodded or shook its head in disagreement when I asked it questions. It also displayed small animations in response to certain questions, such as displaying an umbrella when I asked about rainy weather.

It’s too early to draw conclusions, but I was impressed that the hardware was able to recognize an affirmative answer and prompt the laptop to respond accordingly. Many AI systems seem quite disconnected from the real world, so anything that can give them a physical presence is probably a good idea if you want people to take them seriously.

Lenovo’s AI-powered gaming monitor is essentially a cheat.

Also unveiled at CES this year, the Lenovo AI Frame gaming monitor is arguably the most practical item on this list, almost to the point of feeling like cheating. Essentially, it fills most of the 21:9 screen with a regular 16:9 image of whatever’s on your computer, and uses AI to display a larger version of important gameplay information on the remaining screen.

For example, in a MOBA demo (like League of Legends ), the monitor zoomed in on the map. In the Counter-Strike 2 demo, it zoomed in on the reticle. Personally, I didn’t find the zoomed-in map particularly helpful, but being able to constantly see what was essentially a sniper scope around my reticle was a game-changer, as it worked with any weapon and made target acquisition significantly easier.

I think Counter-Strike 2 developer Valve might even ban this technology if it ever hits the market, as they ‘ve taken similar steps before . But for now, this is just an idea. However, it shows that companies are starting to find concrete ways for AI to help you in games, beyond simply providing tips you probably already know.

XREAL’s new AR glasses can automatically convert any 2D content into 3D.

Finally, perhaps my favorite AI invention at CES this year was XREAL’s new REAL 3D technology. Built into the latest augmented reality glasses and already added to existing pairs via a firmware update, it uses AI to automatically detect depth in any 2D video source and convert it into 3D. And after trying it out myself, I was convinced that it looks practically like the official technology.

When I used it to play Mario Kart World , I would have believed you if you said Nintendo added this mode themselves. It also worked perfectly with James Cameron’s Avatar , and there was no lag when setting it up or turning it off. Furthermore, there was no blurriness, which can occur on glasses-free 3D displays like the 3DS.

This is a great option for those who love watching 3D games and movies but are finding them hard to find now that 3D TVs and the Nintendo 3DS are largely a thing of the past. Now you can simply watch your existing 2D library, but in 3D.

The only issue you might encounter is content that lacks depth. For example, Ralph Jodice of XREAL told me that the program didn’t quite understand what to do when he tried to play the original 8-bit Super Mario Bros. , randomly highlighting only certain game elements without any logic. However, the illusion of depth seems to work. Super Mario Bros. is completely flat, but when I tried watching a tabletop animated version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs using the technology, it correctly separated the foreground characters from the background scenery, even though everything on screen was entirely hand-drawn.

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