When you’re an innovative company, how do you stand out among other equally innovative companies? Walking the exhibit halls of Las Vegas Convention Center during CES 2025, held Jan. 7-10, might give meeting professionals a few ideas about how to create engaging activations that have lasting effects.
On the lookout for booths where attendees congregated most, they seemed to have two things going for them: attendee involvement and products in action.
Timekettle
Translation device company Timekettle creates earphones that can translate languages in different accents. The company highlighted the capabilities of its latest product, W4 Pro AI Interpreter Earbuds, which supports 40 languages in 93 accents. Timekettle’s booth featured a Spanish speaker and an English speaker having a conversation in real time while their words were translated live.
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Perso AI Live Chat
Attendees could have a real-time conversation with an AI assistant at Perso AI’s booth.
The AI chatbot features a response time of 1.5 seconds and is able to speak in 110 languages, including Korean and Chinese.
RoboSense Technology Co.
RoboSense debuted its humanoid robotic prototype. One of the ways it showed off this prototype is through the robot’s capability of manipulation. Its second-generation robotic hand Papert 2.0 uses hand-eye coordination to function.
Attendees were able to walk up to the hand on display and play around with it, as it mimicked their gestures of closed fists, opened hands and No. 1s.
Segway
Segway is a creator of personal transportation, power station and mowing products for individual consumers and businesses.
On one end of the booth, showcasing its Navimow X3 Series, Segway put up a makeshift lawn for the Navimov to roam around in; on the other end, showing off several of its scooters, someone navigated a small track on one of its latest models.
CES Live Captioning
Not engaging in the same way the exhibits were engaging, one uncommon addition was made to sessions at Las Vegas Convention Center: live captions. During sessions, on a main screen and two small screens on either side of the room, real-time voice capture provided text just below the visual, perfect for those who are hard of hearing.
Delta Air Lines at Sphere
During the first day of CES, Sphere’s Exosphere provided a QR code from Delta Air Lines, in anticipation of a keynote from Delta CEO Ed Bastian. Scanning this code led to the aviation company’s 100-year anniversary promo website. At night, the Exosphere displayed an activation highlighting the five airplanes that have made up Delta’s 100-year history.
Delta Air Lines was the first aviation company to host a keynote at Sphere. The hour-long presentation began with a brief intro by Gary Shapiro, CEO of The Consumer Technology Association and CES, and was followed by Bastian’s keynote, with appearances by Grammy award-winning actress Viola Davis; Tom Brady, who has partnered with Delta to host his show, “Well Traveled,” exclusively on its flights; and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, during which Delta and Uber announced their partnership. After a jam-packed keynote, the night finished off with a high-energy performance by Lenny Kravitz.
Typically limited to a number of screens, Sphere’s 16k resolution, 160,000-square-foot inner screen made what’s possible seem limitless. While Bastian spoke, the screen would go from one main camera and would seamlessly double and triple as he brought out Delta employees and partners with whom he spoke.
The Sphere’s engagement features didn’t stop there; its 4D capabilities were also on display. Bastian’s keynote began with a Delta on-screen airplane taxiing toward the audience, during which you could feel the wind turbines blowing air toward you.
Even more memorable were the smells that wafted through the venue. Khosrowshahi gave several audience members Uber Eats gift cards; this was introduced by an Uber Eats employee driving a scooter to deliver coffee to him and Bastian on stage. Upon delivery, attendees could smell coffee throughout the venue. And during the digital fireworks show honoring Delta’s 100th year, burnt fireworks hit the senses as if you were outside watching them live.
