Joe Maring / Android Authority
It’s not a proper CES if I haven’t seen at least one gadget that’s left me scratching my head and reconsidering my life choices. For CES 2026, I experienced that during my demo session of Razer’s Project Ava.
Project Ava was first teased at last year’s CES, and at the time, it was being marketed as a semi-serious AI gaming assistant. The idea was that Ava would monitor your gaming performance to provide real-time feedback and coaching, helping you improve across virtually any title.
But fast forward to 2026, and Project Ava has taken an … interesting turn. It still provides feedback during your gaming sessions, but it’s now taken the form of an anime girl trapped in a cylinder speaker with suggestive/flirty undertones. If that sounds creepy and unsettling, that’s because it is.
From a technical perspective, Project Ava is fairly interesting. The hologram projects a roughly 5.5-inch screen for your anime companion to be displayed. Razer markets it as a 3D hologram, though to my eye it looked like a pretty flat (but sharp) 2D image. A camera on the front of Project Ava can interpret the world around it (only when you give it permission), and there are physical volume and mute buttons on the top.
Kira companion Zane companion
The anime girl’s name is Kira, and she’s one of five “companions” you can interact with. Kira and the other companions were all designed by Animation Inc., the same company that created Grok’s AI avatars. Razer says you’ll be able to use Project Ava with any AI model of your choice, but during my demo session, Ava was (very fittingly) powered by Grok.
In practice, interacting with Project Ava varied from fine to bad to downright awkward. When asked about the biggest news stories from CES 2026, Ava mentioned Lego’s new Smart Brick and even provided its booth location here at CES. Helpful, but nothing you can’t do with Gemini or ChatGPT on your phone.
Joe Maring / Android Authority Desktop app for controlling Project Ava settings
I then asked Ava a couple of questions about attachments I should use for a gun in Battlefield 6. It was neat to ask, “Which sight should I use for medium-to-long-range combat?” and have Ava immediately analyze all the options in the game menu and tell me what to pick. That said, I’d argue that its recommendation of a 1.5x scope for medium- to long-range was questionable at best.
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