CES is understood for flashy devices and enjoyable client know-how. For many banks, CES is just not a must-attend occasion as a result of it doesn’t concentrate on 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 relating to 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 traits, unpack which have been overhyped, and clarify what financial institution leaders needs to 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 know-how funding is definitely heading—and which traits felt extra operationally actual than hype?
Don Relyea and Todder Moning: Effectively, 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 traits throughout many areas that may enable us to enhance the client expertise in addition to combine with different new tech improvements.
Traits that caught out to our workforce this 12 months embody:
In all places Intelligence – Embedded in Every thing: 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 strange merchandise into sensible, context-aware companions. By way of potential monetary implications, customized monetary assistants that perceive conduct, spending patterns, and context might dramatically enhance person expertise and belief sooner or later. Nevertheless, elevated reliance on AI raises privateness, bias, and regulatory considerations—particularly as monetary selections develop 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 actually have a saying: “healthcare is wealth care.” Cash is emotional and has impacts on individuals, their households, and companies, each good and unhealthy, and serving to to succeed in higher wealth care outcomes (monetary outcomes) positively impacts individuals’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 numerous metrics and values to tell you about well being dangers or considerations. That is related as a result of there’s a robust correlation between bodily well being and monetary well being. These improvements might additionally assist catch expensive medical issues earlier than they happen, saving individuals cash and stress. For instance, transaction metrics might flag early indicators of dementia or an eldercare abuse challenge.
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 simply put on are graduating from managed environments to unstructured, real-world contexts—folding laundry, navigating properties, manufacturing and even autonomous automobiles.
Trying forward: CES exhibits a shift from gadget splendor to system-wide integration—every little thing is related 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 client {hardware}, AI assistants, and related gadgets, what new expectations do you suppose prospects will carry again to their monetary establishments?
Relyea and Moning: You’re hitting on two of the 5 themes about why we wish 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 comparable applied sciences to do one thing. It is a nice strategy 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 numerous applied sciences, developments, or enterprise fashions are current, it’s an ideal 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 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 massive concept is that know-how, design, and experiences are erasing the obstacles and bounds between industries. If one involves count on what’s doable to do in a single {industry}, enterprise, or product, they are going to seemingly come to count on that for different industries and companies. That’s the form of meta-trending we attempt to discover after which apply to what meaning for banks and monetary companies going ahead.
Buyer interactions proceed to develop into more and more digital and more and more enabled by AI and sensors, and U.S. Financial institution is at the vanguard 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 easier and extra handy. We’re proud to have one of many longest operating devoted innovation practices in banking at this time.
AI being embedded in every little thing goes to lift the bar for client expectations of what good is. This 12 months AI was not entrance and heart at CES, it was embedded and enhancing the automation of client gadgets in delicate and simple to make use of and simple to entry methods. Suppose rings, pins, and enterprise card type components that you could speak to (that will or might not connect with different gadgets 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 lift the expectations of shoppers that extra needs to be finished for them.
Did you discover fintech ideas like embedded finance, id, 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 cost checkout interfaces. These have been simple to make use of and arrange and might be built-in into something requiring id and funds fairly simply.
We noticed biometric know-how utilizing keyboard conduct that would assist flag a big conduct change in an worker (for instance), who’s both beneath duress or as a disgruntled worker might make poor selections impacting the enterprise. One other instance we noticed is asset-tracking know-how that might be used off-grid, to say monitor vehicles, railcars, mining tools, 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 simply 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 taking place in agentic commerce. Units of all types are exhibiting indicators of turning into commerce orchestrators and brokers for purchasers—and it’s a brief leap from there to having gadgets develop into a kind of buyer. Most of the issues we see at CES include subscriptions—as an illustration, 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’d have sooner or later. Are you going to handle all of these, or will the system 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 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 sooner. 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 favored the sustainable printed battery that was paper skinny. It might be embedded into most something and energy airtags in issues like your passport provider, purse, pockets, that form of factor. And while you throw it away, it’s fully compostable.
And we all the time love the autonomous mobility work that the massive agricultural and building/mining manufacturers present—autonomous combines with autonomous hoppers that maintain tempo with the mix, and AI-assisted and autonomous Bobcats and building excavators. It simply exhibits how autonomous mobility is occurring, even when its tempo is slower than was initially anticipated at first of the last decade.
Picture by Pixabay
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