Austin, Texas, USA, February 25, 2026
Futurum Connects the Acceleration of Agentic Adoption in the Consumer Segment to the Growth Rate of AI-Enabled Hearables
For years, the Smart Home segment served as the hub of the voice interface revolution: from the kitchen counter to the bedside table, smart speakers were the primary beachhead for “ambient computing.” Fast-forward to 2026: the voice-enabled AI ecosystem has grown well beyond smart home use cases and smart speakers, encompassing a broad range of devices and platforms that now also reach automotive environments. New data from Futurum Research’s latest AI Devices Market Forecast, in conjunction with market insight from the recently released Futurum Research 2026 Key Issues & Predictions report, point to sales of mobile, contextually aware devices like AI-enabled earbuds and hearables outpacing sales of static, home-bound smart speakers as an early signal of growing consumer demand for ubiquitous AI assistant and agentic solutions and experiences.
“For an AI assistant or agent to be truly effective,” explains Olivier Blanchard, Research Director and Intelligent Devices Practice Lead with Futurum Research, “it requires three things: a continuous, low-latency connection to the cloud, frictionless wake word capability, and extreme portability. For an AI assistant or agent to be truly effective, it has to be wherever its user is: at the office, at school, at the gym, on the commute, at the store, and so on. The challenge for smart speakers is that they simply aren’t as naturally portable as mobile phones, smart watches, AI glasses, and AI-enabled earbuds.
By the Numbers: The Growth Divergence
This isn’t to say that the smart speaker market is in trouble. Sales are projected to reach roughly $23 billion in 2026, but their growth appears to be stabilizing at a CAGR of roughly 15-20% (depending on the region). As healthy as that is, the residential market appears to be reaching a growth plateau, at least for now.
The AI-enabled hearables market (which includes earbuds), however, is surging. With a projected CAGR of 25%-28%, the AI-enabled earbuds segment alone is expected to reach $7.42 billion by the end of 2026. When we broaden the scope to include the total TWS (True Wireless Stereo) market, unit shipments are already eclipsing smart speakers by a significant margin, with total headphones and earphones shipments exceeding 831 million units annually. By the end of 2026, AI-enabled hearables as a whole are set to outsell stationary speakers in both unit volume and total revenue, with a market value reaching for the $40 billion mark.
Table 1: 2026 Projections: Voice-First AI Devices
“The risk/opportunity equation for businesses is twofold,” explains Blanchard. The first is Contextual Blindness/Awareness: Home-first AI knows what you do in your home – search topics, kitchen activity, media consumption, etc. But portable AI, by interfacing with a user’s mobile device, vehicle, laptop, tablet, AI-enabled wearable and AI glasses, can know where a user is, who they are talking to, what media they are interfacing with everywhere they go – not just at home – and through sensor fusion, what they are looking at and hearing in the real world. This is exceptionally powerful data for marketers, tech vendors, and the utility of agentic solutions. The second is the transactional wall: As consumers increasingly delegate tasks to agents while on the move, agents need to be portable 24/7. Solutions vendors whose agents and voice assistants are locked into stationary form factors and use cases may find themselves at a severe disadvantage.
About Futurum Intelligence for Market Leaders
Futurum Intelligence’s AI Devices IQ service provides actionable insight from analysts, reports, and interactive visualization datasets, helping leaders drive their organizations through transformation and business growth. Subscribers can log into the platform at https://app.futurumgroup.com/, and non-subscribers can find additional information at Futurum Intelligence.
Follow news and updates from Futurum on X and LinkedIn using #Futurum. Visit the Futurum Newsroom for more information and insights.
Other Insights from Futurum:
Amazon CES 2026: Do Ring, Fire TV, and Alexa+ Add Up to One Strategy?
Google Debuts Pixel 10A Amidst Minimal Hardware Evolution
Qualcomm Unveils Future of Intelligence at CES 2026, Pushes the Boundaries of On-Device AI
Author Information
Olivier Blanchard is Research Director, Intelligent Devices. He covers edge semiconductors and intelligent AI-capable devices for Futurum. In addition to having co-authored several books about digital transformation and AI with Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman, Blanchard brings considerable experience demystifying new and emerging technologies, advising clients on how best to future-proof their organizations, and helping maximize the positive impacts of technology disruption while mitigating their potentially negative effects. Follow his extended analysis on X and LinkedIn.
