CES 2026: The top innovations shaping the future of work

From hybrid work to cognitive overload, organisations are looking for technologies that can better support human performance and experience. This year’s CES event showcased a new generation of tools designed to do exactly that.

These are the top innovations to emerge from the event that are redefining how work is supported, sensed and shaped.

Brain Booth with AI Coach
Neuro-responsive micro-environments for focus and recovery

The Brain Booth is a compact, AI-powered wellness pod that uses EEG, posture and heart-rate sensors to read a user’s cognitive and physical state in real time. As focus drops or stress rises, the booth dynamically adjusts lighting, sound, oxygen flow and binaural beats to support attention or recovery. Rather than treating wellbeing as a personal responsibility, it turns it into responsive infrastructure. For workplaces, this signals the rise of neuro-adaptive environments designed to stabilise energy, prevent burnout and support sustained cognitive performance.

Deepscent AI
Scent as a programmable layer of space

Deepscent AI transforms fragrance into a real-time, data-driven system. By analysing mood, media, imagery and environmental context, its AI generates custom scent blends on demand, syncing smell with lighting, sound and space. This turns scent into a new interface for experience design – one that shapes emotion, energy and memory. In workplaces, olfactory intelligence opens up new ways to influence atmosphere, from energising focus zones to calming social or recovery areas, making environments more emotionally responsive.

Nvidia Rubin Architecture
The infrastructure layer for ambient AI

Nvidia’s Rubin platform underpins almost every other CES breakthrough. By delivering a 10x reduction in AI inference costs and enabling far more efficient training of agent-based models, Rubin makes always-on, spatial and personalised AI economically viable at scale. Its new Inference Context Memory allows AI agents to reason across multiple steps and environments. For workplaces, this is what enables AI to move out of the cloud and into buildings, devices and workflows – powering everything from digital co-workers to responsive environments.

Yneuro Neuro ID
Your brain as your password

Yneuro uses EEG sensors and AI to turn a person’s brainwave patterns into a secure digital identity. Instead of passwords, fingerprints or facial scans, access is verified through a unique neural signature that is difficult to copy or spoof. As work moves into mixed reality, spatial computing and AI-mediated environments, identity can no longer rely on physical tokens. Neuro ID points to a future where authentication is continuous, invisible and embedded in the human body – reshaping how people move between digital and physical workplaces.

Samsung Spatial Signage
3D content without headsets

Samsung’s Spatial Signage brings three-dimensional visuals into an ultra-thin, flat-panel display, creating depth and presence without bulky enclosures or VR hardware. Designed for commercial environments, it allows digital content to sit more naturally within physical space, from retail and exhibitions to offices and public venues. For workplaces, this signals the rise of spatial communication – where data, storytelling and collaboration are no longer confined to flat screens, but become part of the environment itself, making information more immersive, intuitive and engaging.

Willo Wireless Power
Wireless charging at scale

Willo demonstrated the ability to transmit power through the air, allowing multiple devices to be charged simultaneously without cables, pads or precise alignment. By making energy omnidirectional and continuous, it removes one of the biggest constraints on connected environments. For workplaces, this unlocks truly wireless sensor networks, self-powered wearables and always-on spatial computing. When power becomes ambient, buildings become more flexible, more intelligent and far easier to adapt as technologies, layouts and ways of working continue to evolve.

AEON Humanoid Robot
A co-worker, not a machine

AEON is a humanoid robot designed to operate safely alongside people in industrial and service environments. Built with spatial intelligence, dexterous hands and self-swapping batteries, it can handle tasks from inspection and machine tending to teleoperation and digital capture. Its design draws on psychology to encourage trust and acceptance. As labour shortages grow, AEON signals a shift from automation as replacement to automation as collaboration – with robots becoming part of the workforce rather than separate from it.

The innovations showcased at CES 2026 point toward a more adaptive, intelligent and human-centred workplace. Many of the breakthroughs on show mirror the trajectories mapped in WORKTECH Academy’s Now, Near and Far Workplace Technologies Trend Report.

To explore how today’s breakthroughs connect to tomorrow’s workplaces, read the full report here.