Brunswick’s newest boats at CES 2026 characteristic edge AI, self-docking capabilities and solar energy

Should you’ve by no means docked a boat earlier than, take into account your self fortunate. There are many fashionable TikTok channels dedicated to shaming those that carry their craft again dwelling clumsily or berth them with one thing lower than finesse. Tough crosswinds, unpredictable surf and even the jeers of passersby could make it a annoying expertise at one of the best of instances.

Brunswick, which owns greater than 50 water-borne manufacturers like Sea Ray, Bayliner and Mercury Marine, has an answer. It is demonstrating some self-docking tech known as AutoCaptain at CES 2026 that makes this course of a cinch, plus a fleet of different improvements that, in some circumstances, depart a number of the good automobiles on the present flooring wanting a bit remedial.

A type of applied sciences is edge AI. Whereas in-car AI is an more and more widespread characteristic, these brokers are completely working remotely, counting on mobile connections to dump all of the processing energy required to drive a big language mannequin.

Sadly, that will not all the time work on a ship.

“One of many issues about AI for boats is you do not have connectivity, so there’s some edge compute required,” David M. Foulkes informed me. He is chairman and CEO of Brunswick.

Most of the firm’s boats do have lively mobile connectivity, however head far sufficient offshore, and also you’re by yourself until you are packing Starlink or the like.

To unravel that, Brunswick is working superior SoCs from NVIDIA and different suppliers that allow working a restricted agent offline — on the sting, because it have been. When offline, Misty, because the on-boat AI assistant is known as, will not be capable of make dinner reservations or craft a 3,000-word treatise on the historical past of America’s relationship with Greenland. It could actually, nevertheless, assist with navigation or boat settings.

“It will assist reply the form of questions that you just may must take out a handbook to grasp and perhaps act as an assistant to make your boating a bit smoother,” Foulkes stated.

When the corporate’s good boats are linked, they provide a point of distant management. No, you possibly can’t drive it across the docks and freak out your pier-mates, however you possibly can examine on the boat remotely to ensure no person’s making an attempt to stow away. You’ll be able to even precondition it to get the cuddy cabin good and funky earlier than you come aboard.

Energy for that, and quite a lot of different onboard techniques, can come from an built-in energy system known as Fathom, which has so much in widespread with trendy good dwelling tech. Photo voltaic panels on the roof (properly disguised beneath a black mesh) accumulate energy to recharge an onboard battery, with numerous sizes upwards of 30 kWh relying on the boat’s dimension. That battery can be recharged by the onboard motors, just like the three 425-horsepower V10s the Sea Ray SLX 360 drydocked on the Brunswick sales space at CES 2026.

The juice in that battery can then be used to energy quite a lot of onboard techniques, even charging a pair of electrical hydrofoils, which one other of the corporate’s boats, known as the Navan C30, had strapped on the roof.

You may additionally discover cameras on the roof of those boats. That is how the AutoCaptain characteristic works, quite a few fisheye lenses scanning the water in each path. Strategy a pier and the AI assistant asks if you would like some assist docking. Simply faucet the button on the touchscreen, then sit back and let Misty do the driving.

Between automated docking, the in-cabin AI assistant and the good energy distribution system, Brunswick’s boats supplied some spectacular tech. However then they’d should, given the price. The Sea Ray SLX 360 Outboard has a beginning value of $586,000. The smaller Navan C30 is a quite extra attainable, however nonetheless excessive, at $227,500. That’s nonetheless in all probability cheaper than hiring an actual captain, although.