CES 2026 in Las Vegas is shaping up to be a pivotal moment for artificial intelligence, according to Wedbush, with the technology-focused investment bank pointing to Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, XETRA:NVD) chief executive Jensen Huang’s keynote as the central event of the week.
In a note to clients, Wedbush said Nvidia continues to sit at the core of the AI ecosystem and is increasingly viewed as the backbone of the AI revolution.
The bank expects Huang to focus on data centres, robotics and what it calls “physical AI”, alongside updates on Nvidia’s Cosmos platform.
These areas are seen as critical to the next phase of AI development, where systems move beyond generating text or images and begin interacting with the real world through autonomous machines and intelligent devices.
Wedbush argues that the past two years of the AI boom have been dominated by enterprise spending, with hyperscalers and large organisations pouring capital into computing power, networking and software.
CES, which formally kicks off on Tuesday, is expected to highlight the early stages of a shift towards consumer-facing applications.
Robotics, smart glasses, digital health devices and AI-enabled consumer electronics are all cited as areas where AI is starting to appear in everyday products.
Wedbush believes this marks an important inflexion point, expanding AI’s addressable market well beyond data centres and corporate software.
Capital expenditure remains the key driver behind the theme. Wedbush estimates that between $3 trillion and $4 trillion could be invested globally in AI infrastructure and applications over the next three years.
That spending, the bank notes, is increasingly international, with CES acting as a hub for companies from Asia as well as the US, highlighting the intensity of global competition.
While Nvidia dominates the narrative, Wedbush also points to the broader semiconductor ecosystem.
Advanced Micro Devices is expected to use CES to underline the importance of high-performance chips across PCs, servers and emerging edge devices. In Wedbush’s view, advanced semiconductors are becoming strategic assets in the digital economy.
Overall, the bank describes CES 2026 as one of the most important in decades, arguing that artificial intelligence represents the biggest technology shift in more than 40 years and that adoption is still at an early stage.