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

For those who’ve by no means docked a ship earlier than, contemplate your self fortunate. There are many common TikTok channels dedicated to shaming those that deliver their craft again dwelling clumsily or berth them with one thing lower than finesse. Difficult crosswinds, unpredictable surf and even the jeers of passersby could make it a worrying expertise at the perfect 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 referred to as AutoCaptain at CES 2026 that makes this course of a cinch, plus a fleet of different improvements that, in some circumstances, go away 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 function, these brokers are solely operating 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 advised me. He is chairman and CEO of Brunswick.

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

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

“It’s going to assist reply the form of questions that you just would possibly must take out a handbook to know and possibly act as an assistant to make your boating a bit smoother,” Foulkes mentioned.

When the corporate’s good boats are related, they provide some extent of distant management. No, you’ll be able to’t drive it across the docks and freak out your pier-mates, however you’ll be able to test on the boat remotely to ensure no person’s attempting 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 methods, can come from an built-in energy system referred to as Fathom, which has quite a bit in widespread with fashionable good dwelling tech. Photo voltaic panels on the roof (properly disguised beneath a black mesh) acquire energy to recharge an onboard battery, with numerous sizes upwards of 30 kWh relying on the boat’s measurement. 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 methods, even charging a pair of electrical hydrofoils, which one other of the corporate’s boats, referred to 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 function works, quite a few fisheye lenses scanning the water in each course. Strategy a pier and the AI assistant asks if you would like some assist docking. Simply faucet the button on the touchscreen, then chill 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 need to, given the associated fee. The Sea Ray SLX 360 Outboard has a beginning value of $586,000. The smaller Navan C30 is a relatively extra attainable, however nonetheless excessive, at $227,500. That’s nonetheless most likely cheaper than hiring an actual captain, although.