I’ve just returned from Lenovo’s Tech World CES 2026 event at the Las Vegas Sphere, a building which I’ve been more than a little critical of in the past. The good news? It’s a really impressive venue to experience in person, although I still think it’s a testament to the hubris of humanity.

The bad news? The event itself was a two-hour long AI-athon, with very little let up. Oh, there were plenty of star guest speakers. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang turned up to talk about, you guessed it, AI innovations. AMD’s Dr. Lisa Su, pretty much the same.

AI Gigafactorys were revealed. An oddly-named AI assistant was given its first outing. But for us PC gamers, we mostly had to make do with a brief mention of… this FIFA-themed Lenovo Legion Pro 7i.

Hey, I get it. AI is a big deal these days, and not every event needs to cater to those of us that prefer to use our machines primarily as gaming devices. Still, it’d be nice to get something more than what appears to be a pre-existing gaming laptop with a sports theme, but I’ll work with what we’ve got.

The lappy comes as part of Lenovo’s announcement that it’s working with FIFA to provide, what else, a swathe of AI tech solutions to power the 2026 FIFA World Cup—which, to our American audience, is a big event where lots of countries play soccer against each other.

Football, to the rest of the world. Still, the tournament will be partly hosted in the US this year, so I guess the other nations will have to grit their collective teeth and call it by the other name.

Anyhoo, Lenovo will be providing 3D digital avatars of the players to improve the decision-making process made by FIFA match officials, along with AI solutions for tournament operations, Smart Wayfinding maps tech for travelling fans, and…

I’ve lost you, haven’t I? Here, have a pretty photo I took of the inside of the Sphere before the event started:

On an unrelated note, if I hear AI discussed again for hours on end this CES, or have its virtues relentlessly beamed at me from the world’s most impressive display directly into my eyeballs with full haptic feedback integration once more, I may just fall into a deep and unending fugue state.

Gwen Stefani performed after the main event, apparently. I’d already skedaddled back to my hotel room by that point, where I’m now writing this very article. Perhaps that was a mistake. Perhaps I missed a really good afterparty, and now I’m just being crabby about it because I’m an AI sceptic and I’ve had my fill of it at this year’s show. Ah well, there’s always next year.

Anyone mind if I raid the minibar? I can feel a nightcap coming on.