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LEGO Unveils Smart Brick Platform At CES 2026
The toy giant is embedding sensors and wireless tech directly into a classic 2×4 brick, starting with app-free Star Wars sets launching in March.
LEGO is pushing deeper into connected play, revealing a sensor-packed “Smart Brick” at CES 2026 that bakes intelligence into a standard 2×4 form factor.
The new brick anchors SMART Play, a platform from LEGO that lets physical builds respond to movement, orientation and context without phones, apps or internet access. The system combines the Smart Brick with Smart Tags and Smart Minifigures, all designed to recognize one another and exchange data locally.
Inside the brick is a custom 4.1mm ASIC chip running what LEGO calls its Play Engine. The hardware stack includes an accelerometer, LED array, speaker and copper coils that detect motion, direction and the proximity of other Smart Bricks. Audio is generated dynamically during play, rather than triggered from fixed sound clips.
Smart Tags — thin 2×2 tiles with embedded digital IDs — and Smart Minifigures provide context. They tell the brick what role it is meant to play inside a build, whether that’s a vehicle, character or structure. “The role of the Smart Tag is to tell the Smart Brick how it should play back with you,” LEGO said.
To tie the system together, LEGO has built a local wireless layer called BrickNet, based on Bluetooth and a proprietary positioning method it calls Neighbor Position Measurement. The goal is for Smart components to communicate directly, with no external controller and no setup. LEGO is positioning the experience as closer to traditional play than to app-driven toys.
Power comes from long-life internal batteries designed to survive years of inactivity. Charging is wireless, with shared pads capable of topping up multiple bricks at once.
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The company is launching SMART Play through its largest licensed franchise, Star Wars. Three initial sets skew smaller and younger than LEGO’s recent adult-focused releases. Pricing runs from $70 for a 473-piece Darth Vader TIE Fighter to $160 for a 962-piece Throne Room Duel & A-wing set.
Pre-orders open January 9, with shelves set for March 1. The debut at CES 2026 lands as toy makers experiment with embedding intelligence directly into physical products — while LEGO makes a clear bet that play should stay off-screen.
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Deezer Says AI Tracks Now Make Up 44% Of Uploads
The streamer says nearly 75,000 AI-made songs now hit its platform each day, even as those tracks account for just 1% to 3% of plays.
AI-generated music is becoming a real headache for music platforms, according to Deezer. The streaming service says it now receives nearly 75,000 AI-made tracks a day, equal to about 44% of all daily uploads to the platform.
The figure is up sharply from 10,000 daily AI uploads when Deezer launched its detection tool back in January 2025. The jump shows how quickly products such as Suno and Udio have made song creation cheap, fast, and easy to scale.
Despite the volume, Deezer says AI tracks still only account for 1% to 3% of total streams. The music gets few human listeners, but upload pressure is rising. The company says it is also seeing more “fraudulent” submissions.
Its response so far has been practical. Deezer has removed AI-generated songs from recommendation systems, demonetized them, and stopped storing high-resolution versions of those files.
The company also says it’s the only streaming platform currently tagging AI-generated tracks at scale, using that claim to position its moderation tools as a wider industry model.
“AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon and as daily deliveries keep increasing, we hope the whole music ecosystem will join us in taking action to help safeguard artist’s rights and promote transparency for fans,” CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a blog post.
Deezer has started licensing the detection technology to other companies, turning an internal control system into a commercial product. It says the tool can already identify music created with Suno and Udio, and can be extended to other generators if training data is available.
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The company is also working on detection methods that would not require training datasets, a harder technical step that could widen coverage as new music models appear.
Rivals are taking mixed approaches. Spotify has rolled out policies aimed at curbing AI music. Apple Music is asking artists and labels to disclose AI-made tracks. Qobuz has begun automated labeling, while Bandcamp has banned AI music outright.
For now, Deezer’s numbers suggest the real issue is not listener demand. It’s supply.
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