With 130,000 attendees expected this year, tech’s biggest trade show is fully back after some pandemic-era cancellations and flux.

Big Tech companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft will have a presence at CES this year, and keynotes include Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon.

Tech Brew is on the ground at the event, and we’ll be paying attention to a few key topics set to play a big role in this year’s show:

• AI all the time: Advances in generative AI have come to captivate every facet of the tech industry in the past year, and exhibitors at this year’s CES are no exception. While some big names like OpenAI will be notably absent, the tech will still be ubiquitous in everything from semiconductors to smart-home devices and vehicle tech. We’ll be focused on how large language models will fit into CES’s gadget-heavy lineup, whether that’s integrating into digital assistant hubs or talking to you while you’re driving.

Keep reading here.—PK

Investors have a unique opportunity to kick off 2024 with Autonomix, a potential pioneer in medical treatment.

Their microchip-based technology has the potential to revolutionize medicine as we know it.

3,000x more sensitive nerve detection. It’s a quantum leap from today’s nerve-sensing solutions, as they’ve secured 100+ patents across 15 patent families.

$900m+ early-stage exits. The startup joins an all-star list of top tech companies in exploring ways to treat nervous-system disorders.

$100b+ market opportunity. Safer, faster, and more effective nerve treatments could open up billions in market potential.

Consider joining the excitement as an early investor—the current funding round closes Jan. 15. Become an Autonomix shareholder as they plan to list on Nasdaq.

For Kodiak Robotics, 2024 is shaping up to be “the year of driverless.”

That’s according to CEO and founder Don Burnette, who spoke with Tech Brew ahead of the autonomous trucking startup’s reveal of its sixth-generation truck at CES this week. This latest version marks a major milestone for the Mountain View, California-based company: the introduction of a semi truck that will hit the open road with no driver in the cabin.

“We are finally ready for driverless,” Burnette said. “We now have the platform, which is the truck, that has all the redundancy that we need in order to safely and responsibly deploy these vehicles and these systems on public roads, and have the confidence that they’re going to be able to respond and handle conditions safely.”

Redundant steering, braking, and power features—meaning, layers of backup ready to kick into gear in the event of a failure—are key to Kodiak’s ability to go fully driverless, Burnette said. The planned deployment of driverless Kodiak trucks this year is a “Holy Grail” moment for the startup Burnette founded in 2018 after working on several other self-driving projects, he said.

Plans by Kodiak and its competitors to take safety operators out of their trucks this year have been met with criticism from labor unions, including the Teamsters, as well as transportation safety advocates.

In discussing the safety of Kodiak’s trucks, Burnette pointed to the backup systems for key features like braking and steering: “Where the rubber meets the road, literally and figuratively, there’s backups…That’s the kind of thing that’s different about the vehicle that we’re launching today that we didn’t have yesterday.”

Keep reading here.—JG

The past 12 months were a tough time for startups and venture funds, and the new year may not offer much in the way of relief.

A recent report from research platform Crunchbase pegged 2023 as the worst year for venture funding in the last half decade; it dropped to $285 billion, compared with $462 billion in 2022, a 38% decline. But one notable bright spot came from AI startups, which rode a hype wave around generative tech to a 9% boost in funding from the previous year.

Experts have attributed the slowdown in the startup market to uncertainty in the economy and a series of federal interest rate hikes in the US that have disincentivized riskier venture investments. Report author Gené Teare, senior data editor at Crunchbase, said investors are also wary after a funding boom from 2021 through the first half of 2022 that led to monster valuations.

“They’ve all just invested so much in recent years that they’re kind of holding back and waiting to see what’s going to happen,” Teare told Tech Brew. “And so the whole venture industry seems to be—not on pause, but holding back.”

Don’t expect that attitude to change all that much in 2024.

Keep reading here.—PK