Tech Brew Ride Home - CES Day 1

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Coming to you live from Las Vegas with the first of the CES madness. More signs that insider betting on prediction markets is going to become something we’re going to have to live with. Is Reddit bigger than TikTok now, at least by one measure? And how Reels became bigger than YouTube by maybe the most important measure. Exclusive: Samsung to double AI mobile devices to 800 million units this year (Reuters) Voice control opening and closing comes to Samsung’s Family Hub smart fridges (The Verge) Someone made a ton of money betting on Maduro’s capture (The Verge) SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic prepare to launch landmark IPOs (Financial Times) Reddit overtakes TikTok in UK thanks to search algorithms and gen Z (The Guardian) How Meta’s Reels Became a $50 Billion Business (WSJ) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Welcome to the TechBrew Ride Home from Monday, January 5th, 2026. I'm Brian McCullough today. Coming to you live from Las Vegas with the first of the CES madness. More signs that insider betting on prediction markets is going to become something we're going to have to live with. Is Reddit bigger than TikTok now, at least by one measure, and how Reels became bigger than YouTube by maybe the most important measure? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. You may have noticed that your customers love webinar and video content, but if you've ever put together a webinar, or a video, then you know that it can eat up a lot of your time and budget.

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Create, edit, collaborate, and publish all in one place. Head to wistia.com slash brew. To learn more, that's WISTIA.com slash brew with Wistia. You can expect less work and more plays. Buckle up, chuckleheads, because the CES headlines are going to be coming fast and furious for the next few days. This is not exactly a headline from CES, but when Samsung co-CEO, T. TM Row overnight announced that Samsung has rolled out Gemini AI features to around 400 million mobile devices so far and aims to hit 800 million devices in 2026.

Samsung's stock jumped more than 5 percent, quoting Reuters. Galaxy AI features are largely powered by Samsung's Gemini, and the thinking seems to be among investors that this gives Samsung an edge over rivals such as Apple and the global race for AI adoption. We will apply AI to all products, all functions, and all services as quickly as possible. T.M. Rowe told Reuters in his first interview since becoming Samsung Electronics co-CEOOO in November. The plan by the world's largest backer of Google's Android mobile platform is set to give a major boost to its developer, Google, which is locked in a race with OpenAI and others to attract more consumer users to their AI model. Samsung seeks to reclaim its lost crown from Apple in the smartphone market and fend-off competition from Chinese rivals not only in mobile telephones, but televisions and home-up appliances all overseen by Roe.

It will offer integrated AI services across consumer products to widen its lead over Apple and such features, though the latter was set to be the top smartphone maker last year, according to market researcher counterpoint. Roe expects the adoption of AI to accelerate, as Samsung's surveys on awareness of its Galaxy AI brand jumped to a level of 80% from about 30% in just one year. Even though the AI technology might seem a bit doubtful right now, within six months to a year, these technologies will become more widespread, Roe said, end quote. And when they say they're going to put AI into all of their products, they mean it at CES. Samsung announced updates to its TV lineup to add new AI features, including a sound controller feature to independently adjust the volume of dialogue, music, or sound effects on your TV.

And I know this always sounds like a joke, but look, stuff like this will be a dime a dozen here this week. Samsung also upgraded its Family Hub refrigerators with AI features, such as voice control to open and close the door and Gemini-powered AI vision to track inventory. Quoting the verge, Samsung's latest update to its Family Hub, SmartFridge Line adds a feature I've always wanted, voice activated door opening and closing. Using the devices built-in Bixby voice control, you will soon be able to say, shut the fridge door or open the door and your machine will obey. According to a press release from Samsung at CES 2026 this week, the voice commands will open the door fully, not just a smidge, over 90 degrees. You can also tap the door with the palm or back of your hand to activate the movement. This could be super helpful when cooking. Say when your hands are dirty and you want to get the milk out, it's also a major accessibility upgrade.

Along with voice control for the door, the family hubline is also getting a Gemini injection. It's built-in AI vision, powers the fridge's ability to recognize what you're putting into and taking out of your fridge, now using Google's LLM. This enables it to instantly identify unlimited, fresh, and processed food items, according to Samsung, and is designed to help with meal planning and cut down on food waste, end quote. And Amazon this morning said it has launched Alexa Plus into early access for all users via a new web interface at Alexa.com, and now lets users upload. documents, emails, and images. Quoting the verge. Alexa Plus was already available on all new echo devices and recently rolled out as an update to older echoes as well, but certain tasks are just easier to do with a keyboard and mouse than they are with your voice. Now you can get access to Alexa while sitting at your laptop to update your to-do list or make reservations

at that new Puerto Rican spot that recently opened up. One of the big advantages is the ability to upload documents, emails, and even images to Alexa Plus through the website and have it pull out important information. recipes can become a shopping list, vet bills, a record of rabies vaccinations, and kids' little league schedules can automatically be added to your calendar. Of course, Amazon is talking up its broader integrations as well, like generating meal plans and automatically filling an Amazon fresh or Whole Foods cart with your groceries, even abiding your dietary restrictions. It can also access your smart home devices like lights, locks, and doorbell cameras

right next to your chat with Alexa. While in theory, Google Gemini should have similar smart home features, I can tell you from experience that they're not particularly reliable, end quote. Also, that might pair well with an AI smart fridge. No? Well, maybe this is the first entry in the could be big in 2026 file. I can't see how this is going to slow down anytime soon. A brand spanking new polymarket account over the weekend bet $30,000 on Venezuela President Maduro's capture just hours before President Trump made the announcement of said capture renewing questions on insider information in prediction markets. Quoting the verge, shortly before the U.S. military launched an attack on Venezuela and captured President Nicholas Maduro, an account on Polly Market made some very suspiciously timed investments.

The prediction market had been running bets on whether or when or if Maduro would be removed from power with prices for out by January 31, 2026, as low as 7 cents late Friday evening. But within 24 hours of the military action, a newly created account invested tens of thousands of dollars racking up several hundred thousand in profits. The account was created less than a week ago and invested over $30,000 the day before the assault turning a profit of over $408,000. The activity was flagged on social media with people speculating that the person placing the bet was acting on inside information and perhaps even worked at the Pentagon. Joe Pompliano, an investor in podcast, Gesser quickly pointed out on X that, quote, insider trading is not only allowed on prediction markets,

it's encouraged, end quote. And quoting the information. The account created in December 2025 spent a total of $32,537 over the past four days, betting that Maduro would be out by January 31st. As President Donald Trump confirmed, the U.S. had captured Maduro early Saturday morning, the account made profits of $404,2,2 or a 1,242 percent return. It's unclear who's behind the account or if the person has other accounts or positions. The account is also currently betting that the U.S. will invade Venezuela and Trump will invoke war powers against Venezuela by the end of the month. The Commodity Features Trading Commission, which regulates prediction markets in the U.S.

generally forbids contracts related to events such as a war, terrorism, or assassination, which are contrary to the public interest. Polymarkets global platform where the account made its bets is not open to U.S. users and therefore not subject to U.S. regulations. Polymarket has launched a separate platform for U.S. users. Calci also offers bets on when Maduro would be leaving office, though. There's currently no bet on potential U.S. invasion of Venezuela, end quote. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds.

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the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com. only a Yamava resort and casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. U.N. must be 21 to enter. The F.T. says that SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic could all IPO this year. Those three deals alone would exceed the total proceeds from roughly 200 U.S. IPOs that took place in 2025.

Quote, I can't recall a crop like this. Three private companies, which would be amongst the largest public market caps in the world, said Peter Habert. founder of venture firm Lux Capital. The likelihood of all these companies listing in 2026 is small, but possible that would mean an epic bonanza for VCs, bankers, and deal attorneys. SpaceX executives told investors in recent weeks that the company will go public within the next 12 months unless there is a major market shock, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Anthropic has appointed West Coast law firm Wilson-Sonsini to begin preparations. OpenAI has also

been in talks with leading firms including Cooley about IPO preparations, according to two people with of the matter. The ChatGPT parent company has not yet selected its legal advisors, according to a person close to the company. The groups have yet to set IPO valuation targets, OpenAI, which is currently valued at $500 billion, is engaged in discussions with investors about a new fundraise at a valuation of $750 billion or more. Those talks are at an early stage, but OpenAI is likely to raise tens of billions of dollars in new funds, the people said. SpaceX is working on a secondary stock sale that would value it at $800 billion, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deal. Anthropic is also in talks for new funding, which investors expect will value the company

at more than $300 billion. Hopes for a revival of large tech listings in 2025 faded when Donald Trump launched his sweeping tariffs in April and were set back again by the government shutdown in October. Figma, Klarna, Corweave, and Chime were among the technology groups to list in 2025 contributing a total of more than $30 billion in U.S. IPO proceeds in the first nine months, the bulk of it from technology groups, according to EY. This year's total is likely to dwarf that sum if even one of the three big startups goes public. SpaceX alone is widely expected to surpass Saudi Aramco's $29 billion raise in 2019 to become the largest public listing ever, end quote. Two segments now on the social media ecosystem, Reddit has surpassed TikTok as the fourth

most visited social media service in the UK, likely driven by changes to Google's search algorithms and the recent AI deals Reddit has made. Yes, I said this is only the UK, but do think about that. Reddit, more important than TikTok, might be a global trend. Quoting the Guardian, The platform has undergone huge growth over the last two years with an 88% increase in the proportion of UK internet users it reaches. Three and five Brits Online now encounter the site up from a third in 2023, according to Offcom. Its popularity is rising fastest with younger internet users. It is now the sixth most visited organization of any kind by UK users aged between 18 and 24, up from 10th a year earlier. More than three quarters of that cohort now visit it.

The rapid growth marks a shift in the site standing with its numerous forums once seen as arenas for hostile exchanges between largely anonymous users. The UK is a boom market for the platform with the second largest user base behind the U.S., according to company records. A series of factors are behind its rise. However, a change in Google search algorithms last year to prioritize helpful content from discussion forums appears to have been a significant driver. A recent deal with Google that allows the company to train its AI model on Reddit's content also appears to have provided a boost. Reddit is the most cited source for Google AI overviews, which is likely to see more people directed to its forums. It has a similar deal with OpenAI, which owns the most popular AI chatbot chat GPT. The company believes it is also

benefiting from shifting internet habits as younger users seek out human-generated reviews and opinions on issues, including parenting, skin care, and sports. More than half of its UK users are women. Internal company research suggests 71% of women on Reddit in the UK have a personal interest in skin care, beauty, and cosmetics, prompting higher traffic for specific UK Reddit forums on those issues known as subredits. Reddit started with this perception, rightfully so, for a male skew, gaming and tech as the anchor, said Jen Wong, Reddit's chief operating officer, who said she spent a lot of time in the UK gardening subreddit.

Reddit has become very diverse. It is gender balanced in the UK. Now, what is interesting is that one in three are Gen Z women on the platform. Gen Z are very open to looking online for advice around these life stage moments like leaving home and renting for the first time, which happens a little bit later for some of this generation. It's a very safe place to ask questions about balancing a checkbook or how to pay for a wedding, end quote. UK subredits on pregnancy and parenting have doubled in size over the last year. There is also a growing trend for supporters of Premier League clubs to watch games while logged on to their team's subreddit. The Premier League subreddit has grown by more than a billion views in the last year.

according to company records, end quote. And well, this lead kind of says it all. Who says copying things never gets you anywhere? It can, again, maybe get you bigger than TikTok, quoting the journal. Five years ago, Meta's Reels was a TikTok copycat with no revenue. Now it is set to bring in as much as Coca-Cola and Nike, and the company plans to expand to more screens in 2026.

Meta Platform's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced on an October earnings call, that Instagram and Facebook Reels had surpassed a $50 billion annual run rate, which means that the company is on track to make that amount of revenue in the next 12 months. By comparison, analysts expect YouTube to bring in $46 billion in advertising revenue this year, and the research firm E-marketer estimates TikTok will bring in only $17 billion. It is a far cry from just a few years ago when internal meta research showed that Instagram was stumbling in its attempt to mimic TikTok, caught flat-footed by the success of that video app, then owned by By ByteDance, Instagram launched Reels in August of 2020. By 2022, Instagram users were spending one-tenth the time watching Reels as they did on TikTok, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

One document said Reels engagement had been falling over the previous four weeks and that, quote, most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever. Tesla Lyons, Instagram's vice president of product said the first challenge was figuring out how to introduce short-form video into an app that had primarily been known as a place for people to post photos and connect with their friends and the creators they follow. Then they had to help people find reels from accounts they don't even follow. That's an entirely different ranking challenge from the way that we originally had to think about ranking content, she said in an interview. Instagram's algorithm previously had been built on a following graph, meaning it primarily showed users posts from people they follow it,

either friends, celebrities, or creators. TikTok upended the idea of the following graph. instead showing users videos from accounts they didn't follow and figuring out what they liked based on how long they lingered on each video. Instagram had to figure out how to do that much harder task too. It focused on promoting original content and paying creators to post on the platform. As people spent more time scrolling reels, the algorithm got better at predicting what users wanted to see. Five years on, something has started to click. The average Instagram user is now spending 27 minutes a day watching reels versus YouTube shorts users watching 20. minutes on that platform, according to estimates from Market Intelligence firm Censor Tower.

TikTok is still king, however, with the average user spending 44 minutes a day scrolling its main feed, end quote. I believe the last time I was at CES was right before the COVID lockdowns started. So what was that? 2020? January 2019? I don't remember. Maybe somebody can go back in the archives and let me know.

Anyway, I'm off to try to get into the Jensen Wong event this afternoon. Talk to you tomorrow. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition. First Citizens Bank.