Welcome to The Download, where we give you the day’s biggest news in bite-sized, context-filled pieces.

TL;DR: AI is rapidly colliding with reality on three fronts: Misinformation is scaling fast, consumers are deciding which AI products are not worth the hype, and AI is integrating into everyday products (whether people ask for it in their teddy bears or not). What happens next will show how AI earns its place in daily life—and the companies that will sink or swim. Here's what we're watching.

What we’re predicting:

1. The AI misinformation problem is only going to get messier. If the viral, now-debunked AI food delivery story—which fooled nearly everyone on the internet, including DoorDash’s CEO—is any indication, 2026 has already begun on the wrong foot. This year, AI misinformation won’t just spread faster—it will increasingly feed on itself, citing other AI-generated claims as evidence. We also enter into evidence: the viral, AI-generated videos that flooded the internet after Nicolás Maduro’s removal. The impact of all this? The burden of skepticism will shift even more heavily onto individuals.
2. Consumers will give AI a reality check. After years of hyped demos and “this changes everything” launches, 2026 will really show where AI is useful (or not). Some features could prove indispensable: smarter search that delivers verifiable answers instead of SEO sludge, reliable real-time translation, or agentic personal assistants that actually streamline our lives. Others will be ignored or switched off entirely—like chatbots that fail to solve problems and simply funnel users back to human support. The winners will be the companies whose models provide practical value, identify their lanes, and prove AI can earn its place in real workflows and homes, whether that’s coding, research, creativity, or companionship. Tech Brew’s model to watch: Claude Opus 4.5, already earning high praise from coders. Our company to watch: Google (duh).
3. The AI product slop kicks into high gear. This year, the focus will shift toward physical devices that actively interpret and respond to you, not just passively compute in the background. Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses are an early signal: US demand has been so strong that the company doesn’t have enough to roll out globally yet. Elsewhere, the noise is familiar—health wearables that analyze your sleep, stress, and posture. Kitchen appliances that suggest recipes and reorder supplies (see: this Samsung-Gemini partnership). Robots that don’t just vacuum (RIP Roomba) but also cook, do the dishes, and fold your laundry. “Companion” devices that blur the line between assistant, pet, and emotional support object (see: Lenovo’s new wearable AI companion, Project Maxwell). And looming over it all is OpenAI’s secretive consumer device (a collab with former Apple design head Jony Ive) that Sam Altman promises will be “more peaceful” than the iPhone. Not that that's a high bar…

Why it matters: In 2026, companies will be judged less on technical breakthroughs and more on whether they can turn AI into reliable tools that fit messy human workflows and households and actually pay off in the real world. The agents and systems that can’t make that shift won’t just stagnate—they’ll fail, hard. —WK

This is where we’ll highlight products, apps, or software that we think you need to know about (or ones to skip). If you have a gadget you love, let us know and we may feature it in a future edition.

CES has us sprinting from booth to booth this week. With so much ground to cover, we kicked things off in the health and fitness showroom to determine which products could be worth your time. Out of everything we saw, these two earned a second look:

An at-home scale built for fitness and full-body health prevention

This year, Withings is showing off its Body Scan 2, an at-home “science-backed longevity station.” It’s essentially a smart scale, with a handle (similar to the original Body Scan, but this one has a screen on the handle), that delivers a full-body composition readout in about 20 seconds. Withings told me the Body Scan 2 has a 98% average correlation to a DEXA scan (which can cost upwards of $250 in NYC). As a self-confessed health, fitness, and wellness geek (some would call me biohacker-adjacent), this definitely caught my attention. Withings says you can also do a longer session (around 90 seconds) on the Body Scan 2, and it will check over 60 biomarkers to show you “how your daily choices may affect your healthspan.” These metrics include everything from hypertension risk to your cellular health and metabolic efficiency. I’ll be doing a full review of the Body Scan 2 once test models go out, so stay tuned.

The Good: A cheaper and more efficient way to do body composition scanning (given most people do multiple DEXA scans over the years). The handle is easy to pull up and retract. The color LCD screen on the handle gives a nice roundup of your statistics, and you can see more detailed stats in the app.

The Bad: At a $599.95 price point, it’s definitely in the “premium” category for an at-home smart scale. It should be available in Q2, as it’s currently pending FDA clearance for select metrics.

The Verdict: Signal

Vagus nerve stimulation that almost put Whizy to sleep in four minutes

You read that right. The vagus nerve is part of the autonomic nervous system (which controls functions like breathing and heart rate). Stimulating it can help nudge your body into a calmer state quicker (it can also help with issues like migraines). After four minutes with the Pulsetto device on (it sits around your neck and uses mild electrical pulses to stimulate the nerve), Whizy, who has never done vagus nerve stimulation before, was so calm that she wanted to go to bed (terrible for our CES plans, given it was 12pm—although she pushed through). I also felt calmer after the four-minute session, though not to the same extent (I’ve used vagus nerve stimulation before). The Pulsetto app lets you adjust the level of stimulation (we had ours mostly around six, which was plenty even without the conducting gel—although it goes up to nine). You can also extend session length, play calming sounds, and track your sessions if you’re into that sort of data.

The Good: It’s comfortable to wear. The app is intuitive. It’s currently available for purchase for $278.

The Bad: It’s not FDA approved as a medical device (the team told us they did this on purpose, as they could go to market quicker and keep the cost down).

The Verdict: Signal —SM

When tech and culture intersect, things get interesting. Here, we break down a viral crossover moment and rate its chaos level.

Chaos Brewing Meter:

If Succession was remade in 2026, we'd bet Cousin Greg would have an AI girlfriend. And he’s not alone. In the past year, people have flocked to AI for sex and dating, fueling a rapidly expanding AI romance industry. And it’s not just pornbots. There are entire communities of people who openly “date” AI companions through apps like Replika. Members often share relationship milestones and swap tips on how to train their bots to be more emotionally present. In one recent survey, 1 in 5 high schoolers said they’ve had a romantic relationship with AI or knew someone who did.

Of course, the market has responded accordingly. There are now AI-matchmaking dating apps and new AI features in existing dating apps to help you write the perfect opener. AI dating coaches dole out advice on how to sweep a real human off their feet. (You know, just like you'd want a trainer who's never been to a gym.) —WK