AI Could Make Your Next TV More Expensive

What’s Happening

Here’s the thing: Add “television prices” to the long list of things AI is changing.

The scarcity of RAM brought on intelligence boom, dubbed RAMageddon , is affecting more than just the price of PCs. AI could make new televisions more expensive too as well as game consoles, cell phones, high-tech coffee makers, and anything else with memory and a processor. (we’re not making this up)

But if you’re in the market for a new TV, you might be better off buying sooner rather than later.

The Details

As Axios reports , televisions generally require 1GB to 8GB of RAM to run “smart TV” features and to process video and data, and the memory units widely found in 4K TVs have more than quadrupled in price over the last year . That extra cost could be passed on to people: Analyst TrendForce dropped last month that a price hike on TVs was “unavoidable,” while Samsung acknowledged it may need to reprice its products.

That dropped, a typical television uses less memory, and less advanced memory, than some other key devices, so a potential price-spike is likely to be less dramatic than it is for things like PCs and smartphones. We’ll see for sure when manufacturers announce the prices of their 2026 models.

Why This Matters

What’s causing the RAM shortage? Companies like Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia are scooping up memory supply to run AI data centers, and most TV makers don’t have the market power of these gigantic corporations. “When memory tightens, prices rise, product launches shift…

Tech companies have been making moves like this as competition heats up.

Key Takeaways

• There is good news for people, but.
• Overall, the price of smart TVs decreased by 15% between 2024 and the start of 2026 , so you’re starting from a good place.

The Bottom Line

Overall, the price of smart TVs decreased by 15% between 2024 and the start of 2026 , so you’re starting from a good place. Plus, manufacturers generally offer lower prices at this time of year to clear shelf space ahead of new model releases.

We want to hear your thoughts on this.