Technology As An Empowering Force Is Lead Theme For Consumer Electronics Show

By Jonathan ‘Yoni’ Frenkel 

It’s still the early days of 2023, and many of us are curious about what technology trends will impact our lives.

In exploring this idea, there was no better place to view the possibilities than the Consumer Electronics Show, held yearly in Las Vegas, which I attended in person the first week of January.

Traditionally, the conference has focused on consumer tech, but has grown to include a number of verticals such as content, media, early-stage companies and the metaverse (and extended reality).

This year, the inclusion of Web3 also showed up in different ways in many brands’ products.

The one consistent theme of the show, however, was technology as an empowering force.

While many of the technologies focused on finding real-world solutions (ex., digital health, wellness tech) for consumers, there were also hardware and software solutions which could empower creators in 2023.

From a VC’s perspective, Alexa Fund director Paul Bernard remarked via email that, “To invent on behalf of our customers, we’re investing in emerging trends across the metaverse, creator economy tools, XR, Web3 and so much more.”

Creator economy 2023

The newest video and audio gear featured at CES could help creators in producing higher-quality content, and there was a focus on panels relevant for creators.

The “Creator Economy and NFTs” panel featured conversation around how AI is helping empower creators and the use of technology to drive influencer and brand relationships.

Dylan Huey, a social media influencer who leads the University of Southern California influencer club, USC Reach, and spoke at the conference, noted in an email that:

“Attending and speaking at CES as a creator was beneficial as today brands and creators are merging, and creators are the CEOs of their brand. … As such, this show gave creators access to new hardware and software around AR, VR, gaming, AI and the metaverse which support content creation.”

Jonathan ‘Yoni’ Frenkel is a content strategist and founder of YKC Media, an agency which works with VCs, corporate executives and startup founders. He most recently wrote about The United Nations Global Assembly and Clinton Global Initiative for Crunchbase News.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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