The end of the Sony era in TVs

On The Vergecast: TV tie-ups, chatbot ads, AI hardware, and the future of Racine, Wisconsin.

by David Pierce

Jan 23, 2026, 3:20 PM UTC

David Pierce is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.

There aren’t many tech companies that can claim Sony’s level of influence in how we live our lives. From the Walkman to the PlayStation to the Trinitron, Sony has been making excellent gadgets in multiple categories for decades, which makes this week’s news just a little sad. Sony’s new joint venture with TCL isn’t the end of Sony TVs — and it might even be good news — but it’s certainly the end of an era.

On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David discuss the Sony / TCL deal, Sony’s legacy in televisions, and what it all might mean for anyone shopping for a new set. The deal isn’t done, and we don’t know all that much about it yet, but it’s already pretty clear what’s in it for both parties.

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After that, the hosts wade into the week’s AI news, which all seems to center on a single question: how is anyone supposed to make money from all this technology? OpenAI apparently thinks the answer is ads, because of course it does, because so does everyone else. Apple apparently thinks the answer is hardware, for the same reasons. The hardware discussion leads us to a bigger question about AI gadgets: what is the best form factor for AI? We don’t know. Maybe the answer is none of them. But we rank some ideas anyway.

Finally, in the lightning round, it’s time for another installment of Brendan Carr is a Dummy, plus some talk about Netflix’s upcoming mobile redesign, some unimpressive Telly numbers, the Trump Phone, and the latest real estate plans for Nilay’s hometown.