CES 2027 is expected to be biggest edition of the tech industry’s annual gathering in Las Vegas since the pandemic.

Kinsey Fabrizio, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, said in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat that the Las Vegas show’s attendee registrations, exhibitors, expo space used, sponsors and media participation are all running ahead of last year’s event.

That optimism for the January event comes as AI moves from a standalone technology trend with a lot of hype into a foundational infrastructure layer across virtually every product category.

Thanks to better AI models, new tech products are getting more practical, including autonomous vehicles, robotics, smart glasses and next-generation health technologies. Fabrizio said those categories are maturing into businesses with growing real-world adoption.

“The show is looking great,” Fabrizio said. “Everything is tracking significantly ahead of where we were this time last year. Even attendee registration is up so much. The number of exhibitors and companies wanting to be at CES is up significantly.”

At the same time, consumer tech is taking a backseat in many ways to AI for the enterprise and infrastructure, driving the big AI companies to spend billions to deploy gigantic data centers. That’s making AI components more expensive, and it’s driving up the costs for consumer tech. As an example, gaming PCs are getting extremely pricey. Add to that concerns around continuing inflation, and the exhibitors showing up at CES could be fairly nervous.

This year’s CES is expected to feature more exhibit space than last year and more exhibitors than the 4,100-plus companies that participated in CES 2026, Fabrizio said.

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