CES is thought for flashy devices and enjoyable shopper expertise. For many banks, CES shouldn’t be a must-attend occasion as a result of it doesn’t give attention to fintech and banking. There may be, nonetheless, nonetheless worth in attending the present, as rising applied sciences can sign how buyer expectations and new working fashions are evolving.
U.S. Financial institution understands this and despatched two executives, Don Relyea, Chief Innovation Officer, and Todder Moning, Head of R&D, Innovation, on a “Future Safari” to take a look at what’s new, what’s subsequent, and what’s attainable in the case of implementing applied sciences.
After they returned to the workplace final week, we interviewed Relyea and Moning to unpack what CES 2026 revealed from a banker’s perspective. From embedded AI and robotics to agentic commerce and cross-industry convergence, they spotlight new developments, unpack which have been overhyped, and clarify what financial institution leaders must be listening to over the following 12 to 24 months.
From a banker’s perspective, what alerts did CES ship this 12 months about the place expertise funding is definitely heading—and which developments felt extra operationally actual than hype?
Don Relyea and Todder Moning: Nicely, it’s protected to say the expertise funding is growing throughout the board. We love taking Future Safaris™ to CES as a result of it’s an effective way to get concepts and see and observe rising developments throughout many areas that can permit us to enhance the client expertise in addition to combine with different new tech improvements.
Tendencies that caught out to our crew this 12 months embrace:
In every single place Intelligence – Embedded in All the pieces: Synthetic intelligence is not a standalone class—it’s being woven into gadgets giant and small, on the edge (on-device) and within the cloud, turning odd merchandise into good, context-aware companions. When it comes to potential monetary implications, customized monetary assistants that perceive habits, spending patterns, and context may dramatically enhance person expertise and belief sooner or later. Nonetheless, elevated reliance on AI raises privateness, bias, and regulatory considerations—particularly as monetary choices turn into automated.
Digital Well being/Wellness/Longevity Tech: Tech that senses, analyzes, and predicts well being was signposted at CES 2025 and carries into 2026 with smarter biofeedback gadgets. We see healthcare as related to monetary companies and also have a saying: “healthcare is wealth care.” Cash is emotional and has impacts on folks, their households, and companies, each good and unhealthy, and serving to to achieve higher wealth care outcomes (monetary outcomes) positively impacts folks’s well being and wellness.
The convergence of AI, wearables, mind interfaces, and different age-tech are going to increase life. There is a chance for banks to weave that right into a extra holistic planning course of for our shoppers. We additionally noticed quite a few wearables and different AI-based improvements that monitor numerous metrics and values to tell you about well being dangers or considerations. That is related as a result of there’s a sturdy correlation between bodily well being and monetary well being. These improvements may additionally assist catch expensive medical issues earlier than they happen, saving folks cash and stress. For instance, transaction metrics may flag early indicators of dementia or an eldercare abuse concern.
Robots for industrial and residential use: The resurgence of robotics was probably the most seen pattern at CES this 12 months. “Embodied AI” or what some name “Bodily AI” are catchier names for clever robotics. We’re seeing tons of AI and much more robotics this 12 months than in prior years, and because the two domains merge extra deeply, a wave of AI-enabled, extra basic objective, and sometimes extra human-like robotics options are rising.
Robots, humanoid, non-humanoid, and robotic exoskeletons that you just put on are graduating from managed environments to unstructured, real-world contexts—folding laundry, navigating houses, manufacturing and even autonomous automobiles.
Wanting forward: CES exhibits a shift from gadget splendor to system-wide integration—the whole lot is related and clever. AI, robotics and immersive interfaces are converging—not simply making issues “good” however connecting behaviors, identities and environments.
As CES showcased advances in shopper {hardware}, AI assistants, and related gadgets, what new expectations do you suppose clients will deliver again to their monetary establishments?
Relyea and Moning: You’re hitting on two of the 5 themes about why we prefer to take Future Safaris and why CES is likely one of the greatest—what we name lateral and longitudinal. At CES, we’re in a position to see many industries and domains in a concentrated period of time. Taking the lateral view, we see what and the way quite a few industries use related applied sciences to do one thing. This can be a nice method to acquire and curate direct or oblique ways in which you are able to do metaphorically related issues in your future, {industry} and area of curiosity.
On the longitudinal view, for those who’re in a spot and time the place numerous applied sciences, developments, or enterprise fashions are current, it’s an amazing alternative to gauge how every expertise, improvement, or enterprise mannequin is altering over time. This was the financial institution’s fifteenth 12 months at CES, which permits us to gauge how every expertise or improvement is altering over time. Are robots getting higher and extra helpful, or are they creating slowly (or worse, stalled and in decline)? Is AI advancing and in that case, in what locations and methods? Is a touted expertise delivering in opposition to the hype, or is it prancing round with no actual innovation use. In Texas, we name the latter “massive hat, no cattle.”
The large thought is that expertise, design, and experiences are erasing the boundaries and bounds between industries. If one involves count on what’s attainable to do in a single {industry}, enterprise, or product, they may seemingly come to count on that for different industries and companies. That’s the type of meta-trending we attempt to discover after which apply to what which means for banks and monetary companies going ahead.
Buyer interactions proceed to turn into more and more digital and more and more enabled by AI and sensors, and U.S. Financial institution is at the forefront of visioning the place tech is headed and what our clients want from us—as we offer the expertise and steerage that make their monetary lives easier and extra handy. We’re proud to have one of many longest operating devoted innovation practices in banking at the moment.
AI being embedded in the whole lot goes to boost the bar for shopper expectations of what good is. This 12 months AI was not entrance and heart at CES, it was embedded and enhancing the automation of shopper gadgets in refined and simple to make use of and simple to entry methods. Assume rings, pins, and enterprise card kind components that you may speak to (that will or could not connect with different gadgets or the cloud) and ask them to transcribe, translate, make PowerPoints, fill out kinds, handle calendars, and plenty of different issues. That is going to boost the expectations of shoppers that extra must be accomplished for them.
Did you discover fintech ideas like embedded finance, identification, or real-time funds displaying up inside non-financial expertise at CES?
Relyea and Moning: Sure, we noticed issues like an AI-enabled oven that helps you grocery store for components.
We noticed a number of biometric fee checkout interfaces. These have been straightforward to make use of and arrange and could possibly be built-in into something requiring identification and funds fairly simply.
We noticed biometric expertise utilizing keyboard habits that would assist flag a major habits change in an worker (for instance), who’s both below duress or as a disgruntled worker may make poor choices impacting the enterprise. One other instance we noticed is asset-tracking expertise that could possibly be used off-grid, to say monitor vans, railcars, mining gear, and so on.
For almost all of financial institution leaders who didn’t attend CES, what’s one rising theme from the present that you just suppose will influence monetary companies over the following 12 to 24 months, and why?
Relyea and Moning: I’d say the embedding of AI into gadgets and what has began occurring in agentic commerce. Gadgets of all types are displaying indicators of changing into commerce orchestrators and brokers for purchasers—and it’s a brief leap from there to having gadgets turn into a sort of buyer. Most of the issues we see at CES include subscriptions—for example, the longevity mirror I used got here with an annual subscription for you and your loved ones to make use of its AI information and fashions. You’ll be able to think about that many of those month-to-month or annual subscriptions we would have sooner or later. Are you going to handle all of these, or will the gadget handle it for you with restricted spending capabilities you present it?
Inform us in regards to the coolest non-banking use of expertise you noticed at CES?
Relyea and Moning: I believe the exoskeletons have been actually cool. Don was in a position to put on the leg ones that helped him climb stairs a lot simpler and quicker. I used to be in a position to put on one on my again and hips that helped me to choose up a heavy merchandise with ease. I additionally preferred the sustainable printed battery that was paper skinny. It could possibly be embedded into most something and energy airtags in issues like your passport provider, purse, pockets, that type of factor. And once you throw it away, it’s utterly compostable.
And we all the time love the autonomous mobility work that the large agricultural and development/mining manufacturers present—autonomous combines with autonomous hoppers that hold tempo with the mix, and AI-assisted and autonomous Bobcats and development excavators. It simply exhibits how autonomous mobility is occurring, even when its tempo is slower than was initially anticipated at the start of the last decade.
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