CES is understood for flashy devices and enjoyable shopper know-how. For many banks, CES is just not 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 doable in terms 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 tendencies, unpack which have been overhyped, and clarify what financial institution leaders must be being attentive to over the following 12 to 24 months.
From a banker’s perspective, what alerts did CES ship this 12 months about the place know-how funding is definitely heading—and which tendencies felt extra operationally actual than hype?
Don Relyea and Todder Moning: Properly, it’s secure to say the know-how funding is rising throughout the board. We love taking Future Safaris™ to CES as a result of it’s a good way to get concepts and see and observe rising tendencies throughout many areas that may enable us to enhance the client expertise in addition to combine with different new tech improvements.
Developments that caught out to our staff this 12 months embody:
In all places Intelligence – Embedded in The whole lot: Synthetic intelligence is not a standalone class—it’s being woven into units giant and small, on the edge (on-device) and within the cloud, turning odd merchandise into sensible, context-aware companions. By way of potential monetary implications, personalised monetary assistants that perceive habits, spending patterns, and context might dramatically enhance consumer expertise and belief sooner or later. Nevertheless, elevated reliance on AI raises privateness, bias, and regulatory issues—particularly as monetary choices change 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 units. We see healthcare as linked 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 dangerous, and serving to to succeed in 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 purchasers. We additionally noticed quite a few wearables and different AI-based improvements that monitor varied metrics and values to tell you about well being dangers or issues. That is related as a result of there’s a sturdy correlation between bodily well being and monetary well being. These improvements might additionally assist catch pricey medical issues earlier than they happen, saving folks cash and stress. For instance, transaction metrics might flag early indicators of dementia or an eldercare abuse subject.
Robots for industrial and residential use: The resurgence of robotics was essentially the most seen development 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 function, 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 properties, manufacturing and even autonomous autos.
Trying forward: CES reveals a shift from gadget splendor to system-wide integration—every thing is linked and clever. AI, robotics and immersive interfaces are converging—not simply making issues “sensible” however connecting behaviors, identities and environments.
As CES showcased advances in shopper {hardware}, AI assistants, and linked units, what new expectations do you suppose prospects will convey 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 among the finest—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 comparable applied sciences to do one thing. This can be a nice option to accumulate and curate direct or oblique ways in which you are able to do metaphorically comparable issues in your future, {industry} and area of curiosity.
On the longitudinal view, if you happen to’re in a spot and time the place a lot of applied sciences, developments, or enterprise fashions are current, it’s an amazing alternative to gauge how every know-how, 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 know-how or improvement is altering over time. Are robots getting higher and extra helpful, or are they growing slowly (or worse, stalled and in decline)? Is AI advancing and if that’s the case, in what locations and methods? Is a touted know-how delivering towards the hype, or is it prancing round with no actual innovation use. In Texas, we name the latter “huge hat, no cattle.”
The large thought is that know-how, design, and experiences are erasing the boundaries and limits between industries. If one involves anticipate what’s doable to do in a single {industry}, enterprise, or product, they may probably come to anticipate that for different industries and companies. That’s the sort of meta-trending we attempt to discover after which apply to what meaning for banks and monetary companies going ahead.
Buyer interactions proceed to change 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 prospects want from us—as we offer the know-how and steerage that make their monetary lives less complicated and extra handy. We’re proud to have one of many longest working devoted innovation practices in banking right this moment.
AI being embedded in every thing goes to boost the bar for shopper expectations of what good is. This 12 months AI was not entrance and middle at CES, it was embedded and enhancing the automation of shopper units in delicate and straightforward to make use of and straightforward to entry methods. Suppose rings, pins, and enterprise card type elements which you could speak to (which will or might not connect with different units or the cloud) and ask them to transcribe, translate, make PowerPoints, fill out varieties, handle calendars, and lots of different issues. That is going to boost the expectations of consumers that extra must be achieved for them.
Did you discover fintech ideas like embedded finance, identification, or real-time funds exhibiting up inside non-financial know-how at CES?
Relyea and Moning: Sure, we noticed issues like an AI-enabled oven that helps you grocery store for substances.
We noticed a number of biometric fee checkout interfaces. These have been straightforward to make use of and arrange and might be built-in into something requiring identification and funds fairly simply.
We noticed biometric know-how utilizing keyboard habits that would assist flag a major habits change in an worker (for instance), who’s both underneath duress or as a disgruntled worker might make poor choices impacting the enterprise. One other instance we noticed is asset-tracking know-how that might be used off-grid, to say observe vans, railcars, mining tools, and so forth.
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 units and what has began taking place in agentic commerce. Gadgets of all kinds are exhibiting indicators of turning into commerce orchestrators and brokers for patrons—and it’s a brief soar from there to having units change into a kind of buyer. Lots 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 knowledge 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 know-how you noticed at CES?
Relyea and Moning: I feel 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 select up a heavy merchandise with ease. I additionally preferred the sustainable printed battery that was paper skinny. It might be embedded into most something and energy airtags in issues like your passport service, purse, pockets, that sort of factor. And whenever you throw it away, it’s utterly compostable.
And we all the time love the autonomous mobility work that the massive agricultural and development/mining manufacturers present—autonomous combines with autonomous hoppers that maintain tempo with the mix, and AI-assisted and autonomous Bobcats and development excavators. It simply reveals how autonomous mobility is going on, even when its tempo is slower than was initially anticipated initially of the last decade.
Photograph by Pixabay
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