Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2019 officially kicked off on Tuesday in Las Vegas, where tech enthusiasts are expected to showcase the best, most innovative and sometimes even strangest products. 

What will dominate this year's tech show? Market watchers say AI may become mainstream this year and reach consumers in more ways. 

Andy Mok, a non-resident fellow with the Center for China and Globalization said that artificial is huge, as it rightly should be. 

"People talks AI, like it is electricity. It is not in AI products. AI powers everything, from genetic research, robotics, even 5G. When we think about the applications, autonomous vehicles, smart cities, AI is a critical component of them."

"I think, AI, not just at CES, but going forward, I'm certainly paying a lot of attention to AI, as investors and companies… I am seeing products, even today, whether it is the television that automatically adapts to content, better digital assistance, like Alexa and Siri, these are all AI-based applications. I think both today and in the long term, we will see more tangible AI applications," said Andy Mok.

The combination of 5G technology and the Internet of Things is another trend that will surely garner participants' attention. As a potential game-changer in shaping the future generation of smart homes and enterprises, 5G is expected to go far beyond just phones and computers. 

Mok pointed out that there is an enormous amount of hype around 5G. That has been building for several years. The reality is that it will be transformational. Whether it will be in 2019 remains to be seen. 

"The U.S. has announced the roll-out of what they called '5G'. It's not true 5G yet. UK and Canada are close to rolling out 5G. But the question is the 5G really happens behind the scene… The reality is that all of the back-end infrastructure. One of the big issues, for some countries around the world, is whether they like it or not, China is in the lead. The hardware that it takes to drive implement-run of the 5G is primarily Chinese. I think we'll see some exciting development happen with 5G. But it is a question of implementation, not is the technology is really there.”

More than 4,500 exhibiting companies, including manufacturers, developers and suppliers of consumer technology hardware, content and technology delivery systems will unveil their latest innovations in the next few days. Over 250 conference sessions are scheduled and more than 180,000 attendees from 150 countries are expected to be present at this year's gathering.