Marketing Lessons from the World's Largest Tech Event.
Each January, CES offers a glimpse into what technology can do. In 2026, it also offered a reminder of what it should do. Amid the noise of ever-smarter devices and increasingly complex platforms, a quieter theme emerged: innovation isn’t always about adding more — it’s about choosing better.
CES 2026 showcased remarkable innovation, but the most instructive announcements weren’t necessarily the most advanced. They were the ones that demonstrated clarity of purpose, thoughtful reinvention, and a disciplined focus on real human needs. For marketers navigating rapid shifts in AI-driven search, discovery, and experience design, these moments offered a valuable lens for rethinking strategy in the year ahead.
Among the noise of ever more intelligent products and platforms promising to manage our lives, one product stood out by doing the opposite. The Pebble Index 01 doesn’t try to optimize your workflow, predict your behaviour, or become yet another ambient assistant. It solves a single, human problem: remembering.
The Pebble Index 01 is intentionally narrow. It captures, stores, and retrieves what you don’t want to lose — thoughts, moments, context . No dashboards to master. No “ecosystem” to buy into. Just memory, externalised.
This kind of product clarity feels increasingly rare. Too many devices arrive bloated by the fear of missing a use case, chasing scale before they’ve earned trust. Pebble Index 01 takes the opposite path - focus. Start with a real need, design for it deeply, and stop. In doing one thing well, it creates space for confidence, simplicity, and longevity.
The same can be said for your 2026 marketing strategy. Our Digital Strategy lead, Tim Eschenaur, argues that the proliferation of AI search terms, AEO, GEO is really an opportunity to focus on the basics that drive value.
CES 2026 was full of impressive technology. But Pebble Index 01 was a reminder that progress doesn’t always look like more. Sometimes it looks like less — done better.
Another CES announcement reinforced this idea from a different angle. The debut of Lego’s Smart Brick offered a clear lesson:
Rather than changing how Lego is played with, the Smart Brick augments what already works. It enhances physical, imaginative play with technology - deliberately and off-screen - while staying true to Lego’s screen-free brand values. The core principles of play remain intact, the experience is simply improved.
This mirrors what we as marketers are experiencing in search and discovery today. As AI-driven search reshapes information discovery, the rules on how audiences find, evaluate, and trust brands are being rewritten. The opportunity isn’t just to adapt tactically, but to rethink how innovation applies across every category and channel, and show up in ways that genuinely augment and improve the experience. Marketers must rethink measurement, content structure, and brand signals to remain relevant in this evolving landscape.
CES 2026 also reinforced an equally important truth:
Not Everything Changes.
Even as AI transforms discovery, the foundations of effective marketing remain intact. Brand trust still matters - perhaps more than ever as AI intermediates decisions and recommendations. User experience remains central, shaping not just engagement but whether users (and AI systems) perceive a brand as credible, helpful, and worth returning to. And logical site structure and clear organization continue to be essential, making it easier for users, search engines, and AI models alike to understand, navigate, and surface content accurately.
The real lesson for marketers is balance. Like the Smart Brick, the most successful strategies blend innovation with intention embracing new discovery models while holding fast to principles that have always driven performance.
CES 2026 reinforced a critical truth for marketers heading into 2026: innovation works best when it’s intentional. The most effective strategies don’t abandon what already works — they augment it. As AI continues to reshape how information is discovered and decisions are made, the brands that win will be those that rethink how they show up in these new environments without losing sight of why users trust them in the first place.
In 2026, every category is once again open to reinvention. But the brands that lead won’t be the ones chasing what’s newest — they’ll be the ones that choose what matters most, and execute it exceptionally well.