LG 'Empathy Intelligence

CES 2025 in its own way. A general review
"Constructing AI Innovation: CES 2025 Making Scenario a Reality"  
> With the rapid development of AI technology, an era has opened in which the vision that companies have presented only as a "scenario" is embodied in actual products and services.

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1. Why did CES2025 feel 'not new'?
Looking back at CES 2025, it seems that there are no new keywords at all. In fact, the keywords themselves have been coming out since the past.

- LG 'Empathy Intelligence': Already Announced at CES 2023  
- Samsung 'HomeAI': Not Much Different from Traditional Smart Home Concepts  
- Toyota 'Woven City': Expanded concept introduced at CES 2019  
- Zondier's 'Future Agriculture': Introduce upgraded versions of unmanned tractors and autonomous devices following 2019 and 2023

Looking at the keynote speeches and media days of companies, it shows how they are embodying, expanding, and stabilizing keywords that have already been announced rather than presenting completely new concepts.  

So, you may feel "nothing new," but if you look a little deeper, there are many points to think about. For example, if you look at why Samsung emphasizes partnerships through SmartThings, why Toyota wants to invite startups and innovators from all over the world to Woven City, and why Zondier mentions the shortage of U.S. agricultural populations first.

The case of L'Oreal, which received the most attention in the 2024 keynote speech, is also interesting. I was re-invited to a private meeting with the TechSuda team run by Doan-gu, the only Korean media to cover L'Oreal, and experienced innovative products firsthand. Through this, it was an opportunity to learn how L'Oreal conducted open innovation with domestic companies. If we can take a deeper look at the hidden context between the lines, we can read the process of companies changing and settling through intense business experiments.

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2. AI-powered life experience scenario: "Same picture, now cost-effectiveness fight?"

At this CES, the trend of home appliance manufacturers' presentations was almost the same.  
The smart home scenario presented by Samsung or LG more than a decade ago—the concept of home appliances such as refrigerators and TVs connected to AI to provide customized experiences to users—is now common by all home appliance companies, including China, Taiwan, and Japan.

- Thanks to advances in on-device AI and large-scale language models (LLMs), scenarios that remained only imagined are becoming a reality and being implemented in a company-specific direction.

- However, from the consumer's point of view, if several brands present similar scenarios, they have no choice but to value "cost-effectiveness."

- In the trend, it was impressive to see Chinese companies such as TCL come up with strategies such as "big screen + low price," and U.S. consumers also showed a lot of interest in it.

After all, if Korean companies want to surprise them again at CES 2026 and others in the future,
1) A new scenario that didn't exist before  
2) Killer content that can strongly convince platform loyalty,  
3) Alternatively, it is necessary to actively seek ways to increase brand loyalty through physical overwhelming such as "spear."

Incidentally: Delta Air Lines' "Spear" keynote maximizes the visual and emotional experience that overwhelms the field rather than the technology itself, leaving a strong brand image for the audience. Collaboration with YouTube and Uber also received great response by emphasizing "benefits that can only be enjoyed by using Delta," and it was impressive that it continued until the last performance and combined people's experiences in an integrated manner. I think Korean companies should also consider designing such an all-round experience.

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3. Where Google Is Without, Nvidia Is Infiltrating
It was interesting to note that the Google booth disappeared at the CES 2025 site and Nvidia emerged in the vacancy.

- I thought it was an important issue, but I think it's in a context that many people don't talk about. In fact, when you go to the CES site, it was Google that had the largest and best seat in the external booth outside LVCC Central. However, I can't see the Google booth this year.

- Originally, Google was not a company that has participated in CES for decades. Although there was no separate booth in 2017, Amazon was naturally exposed in many home appliance booths through scenarios where Amazon's AI speaker Ekos was connected to home appliances. For this reason, the real winner of CES in 2017 is sometimes called Amazon. Since 2018, Google has officially participated in the CES, and Monorail in Las Vegas has also strongly advertised.

- At this time, there was a battle between how much Amazon and Google made alliances in the home IoT field, and Google set up booths like an amusement park to show how various home appliances and AI technologies are connected to their home speakers through large booths.

- And I think it was really interesting to see that both Amazon and Google didn't just have people in their booths, but they sent people to booths that displayed appliances, especially refrigerators and TVs in different countries, and they said, "This company is working with us. It's going to have Amazon Echo on its TVs. It's going to have Google speakers." I remember saying these things.

- However, the popularization of generated AI initiated by ChatGPT no longer allowed people to understand and communicate with devices more naturally without separate speakers, and each home appliance is no longer working with Google and Amazon, but is going in the direction of directly platforming or installing technology by installing its own language models and finding interworking with other companies.  

(Unlike Google, Amazon is still talking about partnerships in mobility and smart homes, but Amazon's demonstration site, where booths for startups are concentrated, was less crowded than in the past. I think there are some reasons to maintain relationships as a commercial company.)

- Is that why? The Google booth that emphasized connectivity in home appliances disappeared. To focus more on the generative AI field