The second day of CES 2025 brought more eye-opening gadgets to the Las Vegas Convention Center, from AI air fryers to water-cooled desktop PCs, to solar-powered cars. For Jacobs Media, it was another hectic day of sampling some of the 4,500 exhibits and trying to make sense of it all for broadcasters. Many of the radio pros who took one of two tours curated by Fred and Paul Jacobs had their heads reeling with possibilities. “It got them thinking about how they can use this technology as an opportunity, as opposed to being disrupted by it,” President Fred Jacobs said on location for Inside Radio.
Tour attendees represented a diverse group of radio pros – commercial, public, and Christian broadcasters – along with reps from state broadcast associations, the RAB, and even an attorney and an engineer.
During a post-tour luncheon at Emeril’s on Tuesday, the group seemed fired up about AI’s transformative possibilities. “The overall consensus they had is that it's not about AI replacing humans, it's about how do we apply this to our organizations to make them better at what we do,” Jacobs said in a recap interview. “And where do we place our bets?”
Or as one of the participants put it: “It's not digital transformation, it's digital integration.”
New Forms Of Audience Engagement
Curiosity and a desire to be proactive greeted several of the tour stops. Attendees saw an AI-enabled language translation device from Timekettle as an opportunity to convert an English-language radio station into another language and put it on an HD side channel. For minimal investment, this could attract a new audience – and new advertisers looking to reach them.
A visit to Reddit sparked a discussion about how radio can tap into the increasingly popular social news aggregation website and forum. After all, both media thrive on community engagement. Deanna Mackey, GM at pubcaster KPBS San Diego, spoke about using Reddit to tap into what the community is saying about news topics that are important to them. The radio and TV operator hosts “Ask Me Anything” on the platform, where KPBS news execs pose questions to the Reddit community. One devoted to the 2024 election drew 59,000 views. Another tied in with San Diego’s Comic-Con event generated 48,000 views.
Jacobs sees it as a new form of research for broadcasters. “Reddit is one of these rare platforms where it's public and yet anonymous, so people can be real,” he said. It’s also a way to stir up a conversation with a new, younger audience. “Everybody walked out of the Reddit hour feeling very empowered to jump into that and sit down with their teams and try and figure out how they want to tap into this online community.”
Trying to absorb the enormity of CES can make brains hurt, especially for first-timers. Yet none of the Jacobs tour participants left feeling fearful, Jacobs says. “If anything, it stoked their curiosity to begin experimenting and applying a lot of what they have learned. It wasn't at all foreboding.”
Heads-Up: A New In-Car Display
While there were fewer automakers at this year’s show, those that trekked to Las Vegas made headlines. BMW unveiled its first-ever augmented reality dashboard, which transparently projects navigation and other information onto the windshield. The German automaker’s Panoramic iDrive allows drivers to see the info they want without taking their eyes off the road. Vehicles using the system will no longer have a traditional dash cluster; the info that would have been displayed there will be projected onto the windshield in front of them in what’s known as a heads-up display (HUD).
Hyundai’s version of HUD is its Holographic Windshield Display, which projects info about navigation, safety, and infotainment across the entire width of the front windshield in front of what the driver sees ahead. “The heads-up display is becoming much more common, bigger in some cases, taking up the entire windshield,” Jacobs said. “That’s going to change the way that radio stations are displayed in these vehicles and is something we're going to have to deal with as an industry, sooner rather than later.”
Honda announced a pair of EV concept vehicles as part of its O series – a midsize SUV and a low-to-the-ground sports sedan shaped like a wedge, called the Saloon. Honda says both will go into production in the U.S. in 2026. According to AutoBlog, both models will use Level 3 automated driving, with the eventual "eyes-off" ability to drive while doing something else, like watching a movie or attending a Zoom call. A new operating system promises to deliver an individualized, custom driving experience that can adjust everything from infotainment settings to road performance. “Like a smartphone, various functions of 0 Series models will continue to advance even after the purchase,” said Katsushi Inoue, Honda Motor’s head of Electrification Business Development Operation. “The more it is used, the more personalized it will become.”
With range anxiety a thing among EV owners – a fear of running out of battery charge before reaching their destination – solar EVs have entered the picture. The three-wheel, two-seat Aptera Solat EV recharges as you drive. CNET reports it achieves 70% less drag than EV's on the road today.
While these automakers made news at CES, others avoided the show entirely. Mercedes Benz was a no-show. So were the Big Three American car companies.
‘Pivot Or Die!’
Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, which puts on the mammoth tech show, said most industries are in a pivoting period nowadays. “Progress has never come from standing still. It comes from those who took a chance and tried something new,” Shapiro said at the convention. “As humans, we’ve done this over and over — pivoting and innovating to survive and thrive. And that’s especially true in the rapidly evolving world of technology where we have to adapt or become obsolete. Pivot or die!”