It’s a wrap for CES 2024! We told you AI would be the loudest buzzword at the show, finding its way into all kinds of consumer tech, and we were right. AI was everywhere, but the future isn’t only AI.

At Inverse, we obsess over the past, present, and future of technology. The past shows us the progress we’ve made, the present keeps us grounded in reality, and the future opens our eyes to what’s possible.

CES 2024 had plenty of announcements for devices that you’ll be able to buy in the next 12 months, but it was the experimental, ambitious, and far-flung tech innovations that had us at the edge of our seats. The future is exciting only when you have dreamers trying to build it with wild ideas and products, after all. Not all of these 18 CES 2024 tech innovations will stick the landing, but we hope most of them do.

CES is, by definition, future-forward. It’s the world’s largest gathering of gadget geeks, and carmakers have used the show for well over a decade to peacock about their own tech wares and creativity, partnerships, and design acumen.

And if CES 2024 is defined by any single tech component, it’s not the motors and batteries that are moving the latest and greatest EV concepts, it’s the sheer computational “horsepower” allowing these vehicles to become four-wheeled gaming computers, AI assistants, and mixed reality machines.

And more than at any CES we can recall, carmakers really wanted to name-drop their alliance with tech companies bigger (at least in terms of stock value) than themselves. So you had the likes of Mercedes, the Sony-Honda collab known as SHM, BMW, and Volkswagen all boasting about various tie-ins with powerhouse brands including Meta, Amazon, and even Opean AI’s ChatGPT.

There was physical substance, too, luckily, including possibly far more affordable EVs — and, of course, a flying car because they probably aren’t allowed to call it CES without one. Here’s the rundown of the latest and greatest EV innovations shown off at the tech show.