After I requested Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing what he’d say to AI skeptics at CES 2026, the place AI has been a continuing matter of dialog, he summed it up merely: “No one can keep away from it.”
Final evening, at a reside keynote occasion at The Sphere in Las Vegas, Lenovo leaders introduced a private AI assistant known as Qira designed to work throughout Lenovo and Motorola units, together with a brand new line of futuristic AI laptops and units. Unsurprisingly, synthetic intelligence has been the dominant theme at CES 2026, with firms like Lenovo and Samsung outlining a imaginative and prescient of a future through which AI is built-in into each facet of our lives, from dawn to sundown.
AI wearables, just like the idea Venture Maxwell AI wearable Lenovo introduced at CES, will see and listen to the whole lot you see and listen to to raised help you. In the meantime, AI can be built-in throughout each system. CES has introduced us AI smartphones, AI laptops, AI TVs, AI washing machines — AI, primarily, the whole lot.
The morning after the Lenovo Tech World Occasion at The Sphere, I received the prospect to take part in a question-and-answer session with Yang and Lenovo’s Chief Expertise Officer, Tolga Kurtoglu. So, I requested them what they’d say to AI skeptics.
What concerning the customers who don’t desire AI to see and listen to the whole lot they do? Who don’t desire an AI washer or fridge?
“I strongly imagine AI would be the development,” Yang stated. “No one can keep away from it. However AI is not going to substitute you; it is going to solely empower you, empower every of us, so that’s the reason we expect utilization will provide help to in an effort to do extra, be extra artistic. In order that would be the development that you just can’t keep away from.”
Kurtoglu additionally had a blunt reply: “I don’t see a world with out AI.”
Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing and Chief Expertise Officer Tolga Kurtoglu communicate to the media at CES 2026.
Credit score: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable
Nevertheless, Kurtoglu additionally emphasised the significance of accountable AI improvement in Lenovo’s method.
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“One of many basic ideas with which we develop AI is our perception in accountable AI. After all, there are guardrails and really strict processes that we comply with as an organization as we construct our personal AI. After which globally and regionally, there are laws and compliance necessities about privateness and safety and different issues that we comply with very strictly,” Kurtoglu stated.
Take a look at the total record of Better of CES 2026 finalists, as chosen by CNET Group, right here.
Likewise, Lenovo confused the opt-in nature of Qira and its AI instruments repeatedly throughout its keynote at The Sphere, and Kurtoglu echoed this sentiment to Mashable. “If you wish to take part and get the value-add[ed] that AI brings to you, you decide in, and also you give your permission, and you then get what the AI allows for you. In any other case, in the event you don’t need to take part, in fact, it’s all as much as you. We’re going to proceed to comply with our robust perception in accountable AI improvement.”
Nevertheless, as AI will get built-in into just about all varieties of {hardware}, opting out isn’t so easy. Lenovo itself states that AI PCs will account for 70 p.c of the worldwide market by 2028. Laptops and smartphones are following an analogous development, though not all customers share the identical enthusiasm for AI as business leaders. In a latest survey, CNET discovered that simply 11 p.c of smartphone customers improve their units as a result of they need to benefit from new AI instruments. (Disclosure: CNET and Mashable are each owned by Ziff Davis.)
Throughout the media Q&A, Yang additionally addressed considerations that we’re approaching an AI bubble, downplaying these considerations.
“We imagine AI is just not a bubble,” Yang stated. “The demand can be booming, so everyone could have their private AI, and each enterprise might want to leverage their information to generate intelligence. So, the demand is simply starting. It’s not a bubble in any respect.”
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