Every year, CES brings us closer to a space that we once thought to only exist in science fiction. This year, they have introduced something truly transformative that truly stood out, a bracelet. Not the ordinary ones we have seen, but like a smartwatch with a twist, it listens to all your conversations.

It is the reality we are living in right now.

I found it interesting that it does not just track fitness. It is the next evolution of smart wrist wearable that actually listens to your daily conversations, uses AI to summarize them in real-time as in the case of meetings and reminds you of follow-ups or decisions you made.

Imagine a bracelet helping you in turning spoken chaos into giving clarity by summarizing the details. For a professional, it is like having a personal secretary on your wrist which is always attentive and really efficient.

But beneath this convenience lies a question of concern, that are we ready for our wearables to become witnesses to our daily lives?

From fitness to listening

Smartwatches started off with simple steps like heart rate monitors mainly to track fitness. Over the years, they have evolved to be our health companions that are capable of detecting several irregularities related to our health. Now, there is this new device that does not just track the body but extends to more like interpreting our words, moods and interactions.

The CES 2025 bracelet marks an important turning point. It does not just capture data but it captures each context. By listening continuously and analysing our speech, it offers summaries of meetings, extracts key decisions and reminds you about tasks you might have mentioned in any conversation. It makes your job simpler. You do not have to take notes and there would be no missed details. It acts like a passive meeting assistant that works in the background of your life. It gives a glimpse into a future where our devices not just connect it to our bodies, it also connects it to our identities.You talk, it listens and AI interprets the words.

You must be thinking how convenient it is!

When convenience meets surveillance

But as fascinating as this sounds, it also brings us to think about one of the most complex ethical dilemmas that circles around it. It is the dilemma between convenience and privacy. What happens when your wearable does not just know your heart rate, but also the private conversations you had with someone? What if it listens to some confidential discussion? It offers no privacy. These are not any hypothetical concerns, they are the new realities where devices fade into the background but in reality, they never truly turn off.

As someone working in the health tech field, I find this both thrilling and at the same time deeply concerning. The personal data are not exactly personal. And that changes the definition of ‘personal data’. As developers and engineers, we often celebrate what is possible. But rarely we pause to ask what is actually allowed or permitted.

Our challenge as developers is not about technology alone, there are ethical challenges. Building an AI powered product that can transcribe speech, analyse sentiments or generate summaries is pretty common today. The real complexity lies in ensuring the consent and protection of the data that are captured and used. There should be certain principles to be maintained like:

• Should the user have full control over what is being recorded?
• Should others be notified when the device works in shared spaces?
• Should they be allowed to work in sensitive environments?

The responsibility that lies ahead

We are actually entering a privacy battleground. It is an open space where innovations will constantly clash with the individual rights. In health tech, how much data we can collect is no longer the core concern but how responsibly we can handle it is the key. When technology begins to view our lives this closely, every single element in designing it becomes a moral decision. Innovations are unstoppable but it should never be non-negotiable. This is not just a change in the tech game. There is an underlying aspect of change in trust. To maintain the trust of the user is the responsibility of the developers.

As someone deeply rooted in IT and ethics, I believe that our generation of developers carries a burden as well as a privilege to shape the moral and ethical foundations of tomorrow’s technology. We ought to not just build tech products, we should build ethically binding tech products.

So, finally the question is simple: Are you ready to take up the responsibility of innovating health tech ethically?