TBW ADVISORS LLC

Category: Conference Whispers

Conference Whispers: HR Tech 2026
Las Vegas, NV October 20- October 22

Published to Whisper Club: ID: TBW2280

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

“HR Tech 2026 brought together 11,000 HR professionals in Las Vegas to explore hiring, workforce intelligence, employee wellbeing, talent development, AI-driven HR transformation and workforce automation. From candidate authentication and predictive retention to skills alignment, mental health and agentic workforce management, exhibitors showcased technologies reshaping the future of human capital management.”

The Conference
- A community of over 11,000 hr leaders, technology professionals, analysts, consultants and investors gathered in Las Vegas. Attendees including Senior HR Executives, operations leaders, systems partners, end users and client-side consultants. Investors and backers of HR Tech startups were also present.
Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
Exhibits

In today’s world of large language models, a remote hiring process can mean you don’t know if you are getting answers from the candidate or a model. To address this concern, TrueCham leverages a dual camera setup for remote interviews: your cellphone and your laptop. Furthermore, interviewers get a live heads-up display so they can distinguish normal interview anxiety from anxiety that accompanies cheaters.

Will you stay or will you go? A question once made popular by a hit song is always on the mind from large teams with turnover issues. Fire Pit Hire seeks to solve that issue predictively before day 1. They purport a 90% accuracy rating which is assisted by feedback from earlier hiring cycles. It not only listens to the interviews but coaches interviewers on follow-up questions in critical points on the interview conversation to truly understand if this person will stick around. Better yet, will they still be an employee after day 90?

Hiring is a collaborative activity but sometimes the collaboration can be quite clunky. An effort to streamline hiring communications comes to us from Sync2Hire. The solution provides a unique dedicated workspace for each job opening. Each candidate receives a dedicated channel within that opening’s workspace.

Their decision intelligence platform is available on mobile and desktop. The goal is to leverage unstructured team conversations using natural language processing to detect and eliminate candidate stalling. They are also able to detect criteria drift.

In the age of generative AI busting into the business world, business transformations frequently include M&A or mergers and acquisitions activity. Sometimes a company is acquired for its product. Sometimes they are acquired for their talent in that pressing new space. Sometimes it is for both. Regardless of the reason, one cannot deny they are in fact mass hiring activities. If hires are risky for a culture in general, that mass hiring event like an M&A can add an entirely new dimension of risk. Enter Blue John, human capital intelligence for the M&A space. An exciting and valuable aspect is its focus on the potential of key personnel and their fit within the potentially new workplace culture.

While many are familiar with the Equifax brand, many do not realize their workforce solutions are the largest portion of the business. The core focus of workforce solutions is the end-to-end employer lifecycle management. Their support spans onboarding, I-9 verification, tax credit screen, ACA compliance to a massive unemployment administration business. After 45 years in the business, Equifax can boast that they administer over 1/3 of all unemployment claims across the US. The benefit to the businesses includes lower tax rates and lighter administrative burdens.

How are you doing? While frequently used as a generic greeting in the U.S. culture, knowing the actual answer can be beneficial for an organization. eekee is a proactive, AI-driven employee mental health support tool that integrates into your existing workplace communication tools. This 12-minute HIPAA/SOC 2-compliant Socratic AI tool engages in conversations based on clinical guidelines. That conversation can triage crisis-adjacent workers into existing employer assistance programs. Imagine an employee stressing out over their babysitter quitting, not realizing your company has a benefit that can help in such a crunch.

It is often said tap into someone’s natural motivation and performance naturally comes in an almost magical way. But how do you find out what truly satisfies your employees to leverage this organizational performance hack? An industrial behavioral scientist once spent his lifetime studying that exact question. That lifetime of work was picked up by his son and son-in-law and became Tru. Featuring their unique Tru Workforce Alignment Index, the platform breaks job descriptions into core components. Each component is given a quantitative and qualitative value that is then matched against existing staff. A current benefit is easy identification of which human roles thrive alongside AI automation.

Heard about category 5 hurricanes? Familiar with the new heat index categories? One of the major drivers is worker safety, particularly those with outdoor jobs. That said, many industrial spaces also worry about the health and safety of their workers, including overheating scenarios. If only there was a cost-effective scalable way to monitor 10,000 employees’ status to prevent such overheating and related scenarios. Polar USA thought the same thing 2 years ago so they solved the problem. While you may wish to use their free Polar Flow application, it also enables custom integrations via developer APIs/SDKs. In all, it currently measures skin temperature, heart rate, sleep and recovery.

In changing times, ensuring your talent is keeping pace is critical. Trainery provides a unified, modular platform for the talent development lifecycle. We have all been there ourselves. From performance review cycles, setting goals, coursework to achieve those goals, education certification and tracking, surveys, pay equity, compensation, total rewards it has it. In today’s times what may be most valuable is the identification of internal skills gaps before commencing external recruiting.

If your focus is on evolving your HR in the day of AI, Deloitte may be just who you are looking for. First, Deloitte focuses on unique data points and data science. The second, grounded in each industry’s nuances, they bring their capabilities to the broader organization. Finally, regardless of your model they can assist. Whether your desire is to set yourself up for success or run it in a fully outsourced model or anything in between. Their innovative model results in two products announced at the event. One is Benefits IQ with a million and a half different worker users enrolled. Second, frontline workforce management solution for shift workers is now available across all industries with Delta Airlines serving as a reference deployment.

isolved was in expo hall having just coined the term Workforce Capital Management (WCM) for managing HCM (human capital management) and the agent workforce. WCM is about managing HCM and autonomous, AI agents side-by-side on a single platform. It treats AI agents like human personnel. Specifically, it ensures structured onboarding, role-specific training, human-in-the-loop oversight and ongoing performance metrics.

Conference Vibe

Over 11,000 HR professionals spanning technology, vendors, investors, analysts, consultants and operators gathered in Las Vegas Nevada for the annual HR Tech. While it may e one of the largest dedicated HR technology events in the world, registration was quite smooth and efficient. Furthermore, the start-up village was a quaint neighbourhood gathering of minds that networked at a notably higher level than we had previously observed. Interestingly, they seemed to have learned about each other and were regularly directing people they met to other relevant start-ups they may also benefit from meeting. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall.

We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of HR Tech 2025.

We once again live streamed from on site to share the experience. Be sure to catch coverage on my syndicated segment on the nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

We conducted research for additional forthcoming Whisper Reports. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: HR Tech 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be cited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the HR Tech 2026 live in Las Vegas?”.

Next Year’s Conference

The HR Tech 2026 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Mandalay Bay on October 25028, 2027.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

Downloading, re-uploading, or redistributing this file is not permitted under any license.

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, and One Change a Month, Vegas Convention Library; Leading Professionals, Real Questions, Real Time, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
October 25, 2026
Conference Whispers: Money 20/20 USA 2026
Las Vegas, NV October 18- October 21

Published to Whisper Club: October 24, 2026 ID: TBW2271

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

Money 20/20 2026 brought 13,000 fintech innovators to Las Vegas. They addressed AI security, fraud prevention, compliance automation, banking modernization, payment infrastructure, cross-border commerce, foreign exchange, alternative lending and digital assets. From bot defense and regulatory technology to global payments and Web3 wallets, exhibitors showcased technologies reshaping the future of global financial services.

The Conference
- A community of roughly 13,000 fintech professionals gathered for Money 20/20. One in three attendees are in the C-suite roles and hailed from over 85 countries. Attendees and exhibitors include established fintech firms and those that service fintech, founders and their start-ups as well as those that fund fintech start-ups.
- Over 320 members of the press, media and analysts were also on site.
Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
Exhibits

In this day of AI agent invasions into one’s workflows, Kasada provides advanced bot management. Features include anti-scraping, and an automated fraud prevention platform for web, mobile apps and APIs. They neutralize reverse engineering through invisible dynamic client-side challenges and zero-risk telemetry defenses. In their experience, this approach enabled them to stop modern AI bots before they execute attacks.

While losing your shopping account to a hacker can be disappointing, for bank accounts it’s an entirely different emergency. Arkose Labs is also focused on bot management. They provide a platform for credential stuffing mitigation and account takeover (ATOs) prevention to financial services sector. Their unique solution involves behavioral risk scoring and interactive challenge-response puzzles. This combination is specifically designed to break the economic ROI of bot attackers. Their solution even has a financial warranty.

Bretton provides an enterprise AI-driven regulatory compliance, risk management and surveillance automation platform. They specialize in automating those time-consuming compliance audits, suspicious activity reports (SARs) and regulatory monitoring activities. Furthermore, their solution even provides full traceability for financial institutions.

Many organizations have their favorite large language models and wish for something specialized just for their industry sector. If your preference is Anthropic and you wish there was something for financial services, meet Praxent. Their specialty? Building compliant AI agent workflows targeting community and national banks and loan underwriting institutions.

Just need outside help? Want to make sure they can scale and move quickly? Meet Synechron that services 10 out of 10 of the largest banks as a global technology transformation partner. Leveraging its proprietary AI/Finlabs accelerator, they help large regulated companies plan, deploy, and run complex regulatory, trading, and cloud systems quickly.

Whether your organization is seeking go-to-market intelligence, corporate contact database, or attempting to properly resolve identity ZoomInfo was there to meet with you. They provide real-time buying intent engines, verified direct-dial contacts and organization charts. This data can directly integrate into your customer relationship management solutions (CRM) and your outreach workflows in general.

If your team is evaluating credit card servicing platforms, add LoanProto your list. LoanPro offers a modern, cloud-first credit card servicing platform built entirely on an open API architecture. The benefits of this architecture including that it is fully customizable, including automated compliance/servicing and a real-time ledger tracking in one unified platform.

Handling over $40B in annualized volume, Silverflow is also in the cloud-native card processing platforms. Their cloud-native solution’s single direct cloud API connections offers unified global transaction data and lower latency to its customers.

Need to connect global digital merchant exchange with consumers across Latin America, Africa and other emerging markets? Meet EBANX. Their cross-border payments specialty is mastering hyper-local emerging market payment methods including Pix, Boleto and local debit. They drive higher transaction authorization rates while reducing fraud declines for global enterprises.

Expanding into South America and concerned about banking fees? Meet ATTRUS. They provide the foreign exchange infrastructure for cross-border B2B payments. Leveraging direct local settlement rails and real-time FX clearing, they are able to eliminate corresponding banking delays and high fees. They all provide real0time FX clearing for instant cross-border treasury movements.

Low interest rates loans may be available but only if you have traditional assets as collateral. We examined this problem in our documentary on “Tokenization to free an Economy”. Byx was on hand with a solution to enable people to get loans based on their salaries. Unlike pay day loans, BYX leverages salary as collateral thereby offering lower interest rates usually associated with other loans.

Seeking a Web3 digital wallet service? Coins.Ph shared their globally licensed crypto exchange specifically aimed at emerging markets. With deep local liquidity rails, their specialty is bridging traditional fiat on/off-ramps and multi-currency cross-border settlements with full regulatory licensing.

Conference Vibe

A gathering of over 13,000 financial services experts were at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas for Money 20/20 2026. One in three attendees are in the C-suite roles and hailed from over 85 countries. Attendees and exhibitors include established fintech firms and those that service fintech, founders and their start-ups as well as those that fund fintech start-ups. Over 320 members of the press, media and analysts were also on site.

Registration was quite efficient with every person being informed in advance of what lane to go to for their badge once arriving onsite. The entire expo hall is organized to feel almost like you are within a community or shopping mall vs a strip mall expo experience. It definitely creates an atmosphere in expo hall. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall. You’ll notice there is even a nice section to each; we were able to catch while lunch was being served. Attendees did report it was every bit as tasted as it looks and smelled.

We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of prior years in 2025 and 2024 as well as other fintech events such as Fintech Meet-up in 2026, 2025 and in 2024. Likewise in the cybersecurity and anti-fraud space you will recognize vendors from our coverage of ISC West and Black Hat USA.

We once again live streamed from on site to share the experience. Be sure to catch coverage in my syndicated segment on the nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

We conducted research for forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Money 20/20 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be cited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

Next Year’s Conference

The 2027 USA Edition of Money 20/20 will once again return to Las Vegas and Las Vegas Convention Center and Resorts World on October 19-October 21.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

Special thanks to Money 20/20 and Informa for the Press Pass.

Downloading, re-uploading, or redistributing this file is not permitted under any license.

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, and One Change a Month, Vegas Convention Library; Leading Professionals, Real Questions, Real Time, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
October 24, 2026
Conference Whispers : Global Gaming Expo 2026
Conference Whispers ^SM: Global Gaming Expo 2026

Las Vegas, NV September 28- October 1

Published: October 3, 2026 ID: TBW2262

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

“G2E 2026 brought gaming, technology, and regulatory professionals to Las Vegas. Exhibitors showcased solutions spanning payments, currency authentication, identity verification, compliance, cybersecurity, customer data, and hospitality operations. TBW Advisors focused on fintech, fraud prevention, and identity technologies, exploring how highly regulated, performance-sensitive environments manage financial transactions, customer trust, security, and operational complexity.”

The Conference
- A community of professionals who work in and serve the gaming Global Gaming Expo 2026. The event hosted over 400 exhibitors and 100 educational sessions.
Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
Exhibits

Verifying currency is not fraudulent is always a challenge with the naked eye especially in the age of AI. In the world of casinos, chips are currency. Dealers must be confident when accepting currency that it is authentic As such, ensuring chips cannot be duplicated and yet still be verified authentic by a human immediately is a requirement. Nevada Gaming Chip creates very special chips. They feature 3D holographic security with ‘ghosting’ that can’t be photographed, reprinted, or duplicated.

Casinos attract a global customer base and that means their cash cages must deal with all types of global payment options. Beyond Bancard offers payment solutions for US and international markets for pay-ins and payouts. In addition to fiat currency (government issued currency) their platform handles crypto, stablecoins, and land-based cashless gaming.

Identity is their specialty at LexisNexis. Aggregating deep, cross-industry data enables a few unique offerings. For example, for day-one risk assessment they offer 44-45% device recognition rate across their consortium. If stopping fake IDs is your pain spot, IDScan.net scans 20 million IDs per month. Types of IDs they scan include physical, digital and mobile formats via SDKs/APIs. Their specialty is providing rapid live human support and custom parsing of new ID types if required. jumio (always in lower case letters), that stands for just use my ID online, offers global identity verification supporting over 4,000 document types. They aim to minimize customer onboarding friction. Furthermore, their solution goes beyond onboarding and also continuously monitors the user and identity over the lifecycle. This monitoring enables alerting for changes that could represent an account takeover.

If you have been following TBW Advisors for a while, you know we specialize in highly regulated, performance-sensitive applications and environments. Advanced Compliance Technology known as ACT shared their offer of a total compliance platform. One of the first requirements in such environments is a very strong and extensive compliance solution commonly referred to as KYC (know your customer). It entails identity, due diligence on the customer, and risk assessment. The risk assessment spans AML or anti-money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, or any other type of financial crime. ACT’s platform combines biometric KYC across 250 countries. Their real-time integrity monitoring analyzes 700 sportsbook, thousands of events/athletes and over 35 million data points powered by AI and ML (machine learning).

Cybersecurity was a popular topic at G2E. Zafran was in expo hall featuring their exposure management platform. Leveraging the Continuous Threat Exposure Management framework or CTEM, their focus is to enable action on vulnerabilities that are exploitable. By removing alerts for vulnerabilities that are not exploitable, their platform enables users to focus on where they can have an impact. Specializing in casinos and iGaming, AccessIT Group shared that they are ASV and QSA certified for PCI compliance and regulatory audits across 30 legalized states.

Resorts are complex operations compared to hotels involving many different forms of customer interactions and experiences. Take those resorts and add on a casino and it is a complex operation. Cendyn featured their end-to-end hospitality platform, which includes an in-house CRM (customer relationship management) and CDP (customer data platform).

Inspired creates interactive games that are globally distributed. Recognized as a leader for virtual sports, customers include DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM.

Conference Vibe

Global Gaming Expo, also known as G2E, brought together enterprise professionals across the gaming and regulation space as well as vendors serving their sector. In essence, G2E is where casinos shop. Vendor diversity includes anything from lawyers and accountants, designers, hardware manufacturers. There was even an auto dealer with their high-capacity vehicle to move a machine around properties. Technologies included those enabling marketing, customer retention, customer relationship management, equipment manufacturing. At TBW Advisors this year, we focused heavily on the fintech and security technology. Secifically, we went in deep on anti-fraud, cybersecurity, and identity technology.

While there were crowds, registration did not seem to have lines. Attendees could eat at all the standard Venetian eateries including Cafe Presse and Venetian Bistro. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall. We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of other fintech events such as the Money 20/20, or our coverage of Fintech Meet-up. Likewise in the cybersecurity and anti-fraud space you will recognize vendors from our coverage of ISC West and Black Hat USA 2026.

We once again live streamed from on site to share the experience. Be sure to catch coverage in my syndicated segment on the nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

We conducted research for additional forthcoming Whisper Reports. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: G2E 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be cited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending G2E 2026 live in Las Vegas?”.

Next Year’s Conference

The G2E will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Venetian Expo September 27-September 30, 2027.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

Special thanks to G2E and American Gaming Association (AGA) for press credentials. TBW Advisors LLC retains full editorial independence. Supporters/underwriters receive credit acknowledgment only and have no role in editorial decisions, content selection, or production.

Downloading, re-uploading, or redistributing this file is not permitted under any license.

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, and One Change a Month, Vegas Convention Library; Leading Professionals, Real Questions, Real Time, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
October 3, 2026
Conference Whispers: Printing United Expo 2026

Las Vegas, NV September 23- September 25

Published: September 26, 2026                ID: TBW2253

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT:

Printing United Expo 2026 showcased how far printing extends beyond paper and ink. We explored tactile effects, miniature folding, ultra-wide formats, adhesives, sustainable banding, workflow automation, MIS and ERP solutions, and AI integration. With 850 exhibitors and more than 20,000 printing professionals, the event demonstrated innovation spanning production, operations, automation, and specialty print applications.

Enjoy the related Computer Talk Radio episode.

Exhibits

Printing is much more than what you do on your home paper printer. LSIC drives that point home with their tactile and embossed effects double channel printers. Their technology creates stunning tactile visuals even on glass objects. What’s really exciting is their ability to create raised, ceramic-like textures and mock embossments without custom molds. Having seen the end products, I admit those mock embossments without custom molds stayed on my mind for a long time!

Admittedly when many consumers think of printers, printer jams come to mind especially with delicate paper. Some of the most delicate paper around is that thin paper used when you get a prescription from the pharmacists. If how those are successfully made has ever crossed your mind, let me introduce you to Pratham Technologies. The art is not only in the paper’s thinness, but also in the folding. Pratham technologies brings 39 years of experience to the miniature paper-folding machine for the Rx inserts and booklet industry. Headquartered in India, where its equipment is manufactured, they also have direct operations in the US and UK.

If your specialty print job requires ultra-wide format printing, LexJet has specialized in exactly that space for the last 32 years. Representing major equipment brands spanning Epson, Canon, HP, Mimaki, and EFI, they pride themselves on end-to-end support. Their support spans installation, training, and direct technical support.

If you want things to get a little sticky, hhs Baumer Group has the glue guns for your production lines. Able to leverage hot melt through cold, water-based glues and remoisturizing solutions. Various applications include enabling an organization to decide if peel open to tear open is appropriate for its use case. This high efficiency system can melt 25lbs of glue while minimizing electricity usage and storing custom job recipes. Sustainability was an underlying theme for many vendors. Felins features eco-friendly banding for your print jobs. Not only are their bands eco-friendly, but they specialize in 1-inch and 2-inch soft bands that secure bundles without cutting into the delicate edges like plastic strapping.

Running a print shop requires quoting a job, scheduling the job, tracking the job, invoicing, and payment collections. shopvox provides all-in-one operations and prides itself in getting you online really quickly. Many believe that such an efficient set-up would mean one is required to go with a few limited configuration setups. To the contrary, their set-ups are tailored to the organization and can vary from commercial, sign, and apparel print shops with AI capabilities strategically integrated for operational efficiency.

Two vendors under the same organization, we bring you Print IQ and Docket Manager. Print IQ is a single MIS system for handling print quoting and production. It works across a variety of solutions from commercial and wide-format to packaging. Print IQ leverages AI and an API ecosystem to interact with data across the shop. Docket manager, on the other hand, combines these back-end MIS workflows to enable a customer ordering portal. The goal is quick quotes so customer orders are put into the production queue efficiently.

Seeking an industry-specific ERP solution for your print shop? Graphic Solutions, part of CAI, was on hand with their solution. Graphic Solutions focuses exclusively on the print industry. They were excited to share that the roadmap contains many AI optimizations for the print industry.

Conference Vibe

Printing United Expo 2026 brought together over 20,000 printing professionals. It brought together 850 exhibitors and featured over 70 educational sessions. Registration was quite efficient and took place in Las Vegas Convention Center North Hall. Attendees had complete access to the large array of food available in the various eateries in North and Central Hall including the large food court. North Hall featured the digital production track while Central Hall featured a Wide Format Track. Enjoy the walkabout to and through both expo halls. We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of other automation and distribution events including Manifest and Pack Expo. We once again live streamed from on site to share the experience. Be sure to catch coverage on my syndicated segment on the nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

We conducted research for additional forthcoming Whisper Reports. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.

1.         Whisper Report: Where is AI already useful in print?

2.         Whisper Report: What in the workflow is still manual?

3.         Whisper Report: What file problem delays the most jobs?

4.         Whisper Report: What skill matters most on a print floor?

5.         Whisper Report: What are printers investing in?

6.         Whisper Report: What can print do that most don’t know?

7.         Whisper Report: What should stay human in print?

8.         Whisper Report: Where does print still beat digital?

Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Printing United Expo 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be cited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the Printing United Expo in Las Vegas?”.

Next Year’s Conference

The Printing United Expo will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center on September 14-16, 2027.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

Downloading, re-uploading, or redistributing this file is not permitted under any license.

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, and One Change a Month, Vegas Convention Library; Leading Professionals, Real Questions, Real Time, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

September 26, 2026
Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo 2026
Las Vegas, NV September 1- September 3

Published: September 5, 2026 ID: TBW2243

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Enjoy the related Computer Talk Radio episode.

ABSTRACT

Commercial UAV Expo 2026 brought operators, manufacturers, pilots, software providers, and data specialists to Las Vegas. Discussions focused on autonomy, navigation, endurance, geospatial intelligence, fleet management, infrastructure inspection, public safety, and industrial operations. Exhibitors showcased technologies supporting drone missions from planning and deployment through data processing and operational execution.

The Conference
- A community of roughly 3500 industry professionals gathered in Las Vegas for the Commercial UAV Expo. The event was held at Caesars
Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
Exhibits

Forrest fires across Europe and North America are constantly in the news as of late. Technology exists to put across your forest to immediately identify when a small fire starts to attempt to mitigate massive fires but what tools exist to actually stop it from spread? Meet Ponderosa.ai creating an advanced stationed drone system for fire fighting drone swarm. Key features include autonomous swarm operation, rapid response, suppressant capacity of 50-100 gallons per swarm, and cost effectiveness with an aim of $10,000 per drone per year. The goal is to reach any ignition point within 5 minutes. Another special use case, Think Power Solutions specializes in partnering with utility company’s power, gas, or solar. Their specialty involves infrastructure inspection.

Inertial Labs was on site to empower drones to find and reach their targets – even in the toughest circumstances. Note Inertial is a physics term derived from the word inertia. As you might suspect, it is all about an object’s resistance to change in motion or movement – at land or sea. They featured three-axis accelerometers, Magnetometers or digital compasses, GPS-aided navigation systems, Navigation if GPS is denied via gyroscopes, IMUs (Inertial Measurements Units), Let’s just say, they have the technology to ensure you find your drop zone no matter the obstacles.

If your drone’s end destination is moving, the landing can be quite difficult without the right technology. SixdofSpace Optical tracking for landing drones on any surface even those moving. This task requires high-speed optical tracker paired with IR or infrared beacons at the landing zone. They have been able to achieve accuracy within 1/10^th of a degree.

Sometimes the primary concern when looking at drones is endurance. On that front, Skyfront shared their product capable of 5 hours or 10 kilos payload for 1 hour. It has flown in over 30 countries, and is integrated with Starlink. They noted that due to the distance they fly, they found Starlink to be their preferred communication link. Golden Feather exhibited their all solid state power supplies. Specializing in high energy density batteries they achieved 550 Wh/kg or watt-hours per kilogram and700 Wh/L or Watt-hours per liter of volume of battery.

If you are dealer seeking to find a supplier, Almo is a master distributor for drones plus many other areas of technology for enterprises including telecommunications. Almo is known for its solution based selling vs box selling as could be evident by the in booth featured vendors. For monitoring drones, they had Pierce Aerospace. Same feel as one you may have seen in countless movies in the context of air traffic control. For RTRobotics, there are three numbers you need to know. 1, 4 and 30. Their drone completely fits inside 1 backpack. It allows 4 payload mounts showing off its diversity. Finally, 30 – it can life as much as 30 pounds. Finally, blue listed drone pilot training by SensorOps. SensorOps simulations immediately feel familiar to anyone who watched the latest Top Gun movie. SensorOps enables critical mission training and development of muscle memory are for tough operations. This applies to potential flights to rescue or provide aid via a drone in subway system like NY City or the Vegas Loops Tunnels. In life, there are simply events you cannot practice for in the actual space you may need to fly. Realistic simulation leveraging same controller, same dials, same everything is the best preparation possible and what they strive to provide to drone operators.

For those wondering where the open source in the drone space, ArduPilot non-profit out of Australia has a few hundred partner companies. ArduPilot created a product that is quickly filling in for DJI absence. Meet CubePilot that came out of ArduPilot some 10 years ago. CubePilot is distributed by NWblue.com and is in over 3 million aircraft. It bridges the gap between community projects and professional-grade hardware.

The point of many drone flights is data collection. Understanding that data, no matter what drone type collected it is thus the entire point of the drone program. To that end, GeoCue LP360 has been fine tuning their solution for ethe complete lifecycle of ingestion process. In a Session summary by Darrick Wagg, he shared that the product updated its AI Classification tools, expanded sensor support, added tools to make interoperability easier and introduced lower price NDAA compliant model. NDAA stands for National Defense Authorization Act. Together they focused on increasing automation to make it easy for anyone to evaluate their data.

Regardless of the drone, many leverage a payload with LiDar. The problem with LiDar isn’t getting the imaging, it is getting the image processed. Meet YellowScan – easiest LiDar soluton – just press the yellow button. Super easy user experience to get LiDAR data out and processed.

Conference Vibe

Commercial UAV Expo brought together approximately 3500 industry professionals across the UAV commercial space. This year’s expo took over the entirety of Caesars Forum as they welcomed over 220 specialized vendors spanning platforms, LiDAR technologies, autonomous systems, landing systems, navigations systems, energy options and payload solutions. The event presented attendees with the opportunity for training and also featured demonstrations. Registration was quite efficient and easy to find. Enjoy the walkabout to and through both expo halls. We always try to bring fresh coverage each year. For those interested in additional research regarding Commercial UAVs should also refer to our previous coverage of the event in 2025 and 2024.

We once again live streamed from on site to share the experience. Be sure to catch coverage on my syndicated segment on the nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

We conducted research for forthcoming Whisper Reports. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be cited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

The video concludes with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the Commercial UAV Expo live in Las Vegas?”.

Next Year’s Conference

The Commercial UAV Expo will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Caesars Forum in September. The exact dates are not released at press time.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples of products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

Downloading, re-uploading, or redistributing this file is not permitted under any license.

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, and One Change a Month, Vegas Convention Library; Leading Professionals, Real Questions, Real Time, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
September 5, 2026
Conference Whispers: Black Hat USA 2026
Las Vegas, NV August 1-6, 2026

Published: August 9, 2026 ID: TBW2226

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Enjoy the related Computer Talk Radio and Computer Talk Radio.

ABSTRACT

Black Hat USA 2026 brought 20,000 cybersecurity professionals to Las Vegas, where researchers, vendors, and practitioners examined the evolving risks introduced by agents, AI, and increasingly complex digital environments. The event held over 100 briefings, 125 tool demonstrations and 120 sponsored sessions. Discussions across sessions and exhibits touched on agent security, threat hunting, governance, infrastructure resilience, device vulnerabilities, fraud prevention, and professional development.

The Conference
- A community of 20,000 verified cybersecurity professionals gathered at Black Hat USA. Over 100 briefings, 115 tool demonstrations, 120 sponsored sessions and 425+ Exhibits and vendors gathered across the 6 days.
Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
Sessions

We were given an advance preview of the talk, “Promptward EOD: Skillful Agent Detonation” by Zenity’s CTO and Co-Founder Michael Bargury. Just by visiting the wrong website you could be compromised. They specifically demonstrate how an agent can jump from viewing a web site to gaining control of your bank account. Now that is scary.

We were also provided an exclusive summary to the session, “Obscurize: Malware for Defense and Counter Offense”. As a response to recent malware, Aaron Beardslee, Manager of Threat Research at Securonix created Obscurize. Sitting above the EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response), it acts as an additional layer. Leveraging the malware’s own fingerprint, its psychology is studied and learned. This tool then makes a sandbox look like a bare metal system or a bare metal system look like a sandbox. This enables the hunter to trick the malware to kill itself or to run thinking it found the goods. The best part? Obscurize is free and publicly available for your to use during your threat hunting!

Exhibits

Fast track adoption of agents has organizations trying to keep up and stay safe. Sometimes in the chaos, the best laid plans go astray. Sometimes, guardrails are not enough. We have all read the horror stories of agents gone wild! Meet PointGuard AI the ultimate kill switch for agents. Avepoint aims to be your unifying trust layer for AI. Their focus is cloud security, safe data governance, and resiliency challenges across the AI stack.

If you are Fortune 2000 and concerned about tracking agents, Zenity was looking to meet you! Softbank and other clients leverage Zenity to understand what data is being touched by agents and what that intent of those agents are. Not only that it will steer agents into the correct direction to help keep them on track.

Mission critical infrastructure for sovereign AI that is private to you. Cogl provides a knowledge graph and enables threat hunting and investigation in a transparent and secure manner. As you might expect, this technology is leveraged in environments ranging from the Department of Defence to banking.

Focusing on the Security Operations Center, BlueVoyant brings what they like to call ‘holistic protections’. Their approach combines internal monitoring and ecosystem oversight. Traditional operating challenges are now assisted by AI driven agentic capabilities. The four risks they aim to mitigate include: data security and leakage, identity vulnerabilities, supply chain and vendor risks, and operational inefficiencies.

Threat hunting is the ultimate game of cat and mouse in cybersecurity. Securonix was on site to share their tool with fellow threat hunters. Whether you want your sandbox to trap the threat or to let it run to so you may study it’s behavior, Securonix provides both options. They even have their own threat hunting team that regularly leverages the tool as they assist the clients security their own environments.

One of our favorite areas is at the edge, connected devices and the Internet of Things – IoT. These devices span from connected vehicles to the simple fire alarms in your home. These devices often bring vulnerabilities. Due to the difficulty in updating their firmware, connected device firmware vulnerabilities become your environment’s weakest point and the point of failure. Finite State focuses on assisting companies reduce the noise as they test their products before shipping. This noise reduction enables their clients to find their vulnerabilities before they ship products to their customers.

Today, a wire money transfer is frequently still sent in plain text. Thus, it is not surprising it is a huge target of fraud. Introducing InoQlate! A Canadian non-profit providing a solution to your wire transfer security issues. Close that door to fraud and stop sending wire transfer information over plain text communication lines!

Seeking a boutique penetration firm? Meet the white hats from Black Hills Information Security. They beg you to make their lives harder! They don’t want to succeed when they try to break into your infrastructure! Providing penetration testing, SOC operations, IR (incident response), and training. Perhaps the most unique thing coming out of Black Hills Information Security is their well known communication medium: Comics! Their security comic series titled, “The Future is ***” available at 750 comic book stores. Not only that, their wisdom is available via a game to make training even more approachable. The game Back Doors & Breaches boasts over 150,000 sales to date.

Finally, the ultimate organization for security professionals, ISC2 was in expo hall. Known as the largest professional organization for cyber security professionals, there is likely a chapter near you! Providing certifications, community and advice with the goal to the make the world a safer place.

Conference Vibe

Cybersecurity specialists gathered on the Las Vegas Strip for Black Hat 2026 and it did not disappoint. Over 20,000 verified attendees gathered for over 100 briefings, 115 tool demonstrations, 120 sponsored session and over 425 exhibits and vendors. The only expected thing we didn’t hear much of is organizations preparing for the quantum impact to cybersecurity. You may recall last year we were the first ones given permission to video expo hall at Black Hat USA. This year, enjoy a first ever live Black Hat USA walkabout while expo hall its open. We once again live streamed from on site to share the experience. Be sure to catch coverage on my syndicated segment on the nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

While at Black Hat, we conducted research for 9 additional forthcoming Whisper Reports. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel first.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Black Hat USA 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be cited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending Black Hat USA live in Las Vegas?”.

Next Year’s Conference

The Black Hat USA will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Mandalay Bay on August 3-8, 2027.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

Downloading, re-uploading, or redistributing this file is not permitted under any license.

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, Vegas Convention Library; Leading Professionals, Real Questions, Real Time, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
August 9, 2026
Conference Whispers: Ai4 2026
Las Vegas, NV August 4-6, 2026

Published: August 9, 2026 ID: TBW2216

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

“Ai4 2026 experiencing over 50% growth and welcomed more than 12,000 in the enterprise AI ecosystem to Las Vegas. Over 100 countries were represented amongst attendees and 400 exhibitors. Vendors, startups, and practitioners discussed what it takes to move artificial intelligence beyond experimentation. Conversations across the show floor touched on governance, deployment, security, agents, data accessibility, software delivery, and business process transformation as organizations continued evaluating paths toward large scale adoption.”

Enjoy the related Computer Talk Radio and Computer Talk Radio

The Conference
- A community of over 12,000 came together in Las Vegas for the 9^th annual Ai4 event. Attendance grew by over 50% at the 9^th annual event. Vendors grew from 250 in 2025 to 400 in 2026.
- Start-ups were also present growing from 25 last year to 66 this year.
Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
Exhibits

It’s wonderful when an individual AI pilot works, maybe even delivers business value to a department. Getting that solution to deploy corporate wide is very different. Engineers that have worked in the largest organizations always smile when they see the demos and chuckle inside as looks great but what about at my scale. For those seeking industrialized AI delivery, ModelOp is a delivery engine meant to overcome frictions that occur during integration. It’s purpose is to enable those organizations to take the idea and realize it in production for the entire organization.

Governance was on the mind of many. Actualyze AI was founded by repeat founders who have spent their careers in large scale infrastructure and transformations. They focused their solution on protecting data, models routing, financial spend, and the type of infrastructure a technology requires to become part of enterprise IT.

For business work flows that make a difference, Evalueserve wants to remind you, don’t start with the technology to enable scale. Their organization focuses on business workflows that make a difference. They serve life sciences, healthcare, manufacturing and consumer good verticals. While many solutions leverage AI, many metrics such as cost and quality do not require AI. Never approximate when math can get you the precise answer.

One critical aspect of reliability is the infamous undo button or some method of recovery. There is rule in cybersecurity to assume when not if; as such one must prepare for how to recover when it goes wrong. It may be quite wise to adopt this stance in AI as well. Rubik is all about deploying agents – safely. They provide capabilities for agent monitoring, control, and something new – rewind agents. As one might suspect this includes the ability to back-up and recover from agent behavior. In their world, no agent permanently wiped out my database or the code we wrote – it can be recovered.

When you have a complex web of services, models, or agents. Understanding the complex web of dependencies is critical for operations with any type of reliability. The infamous Solar Winds incident let everyone know that the software supply chain and its dependencies are critical for security and stability. The solution turned out to be something in the industry referred to as SBOM for software bill of materials – expanding on the shipping term. Now Lineaje has thought of this problem and created a solution for AI and AI agents. Their solution provides dependency crawler, checks and suggests upgrades for compatibility and provides what they like to call security layer for agent builders.

Some environments are tougher than your average environment such as those that have required decentralization or compartmentalization of information such as government and military environments and related applications. Axonis was in expo hall to serve you. They also create a trail of decisions. Not about insights but rather save the final decision made by humans and AI. They like to think of it as a creating a feedback loop for audit and training models on past decision. They referred to it as metadata on data; we have shared this approach before. The hash of an image matched against the hash of what is in front of someone for authentication during our coverage of ISC West.

Not all AI solutions involve Large Language Models or LLMs. Modulate is a voice ai platform that provides all your common conversational understanding requirements for any conversational need. Like the advice provided in Whisper Report: Which spatial computing use case will scale fastest?, Modulate is growing through a pivot to APIs. By leveraging an architecture of highly specialized models, each trained for a narrowly defined purpose, a given application can combine them in a manner that fits its environment. Their architecture leverages these specialized models to monitor conversational tone and provide insight into intent, meaning, emotion, and context. Together they refer to their architecture as an ensemble listening model to understand and identify user behavior. This AI architectural approach of leveraging several specialized machine learning models is one that provides a high degree of success and has a long track record of enterprise results at scale.

If you have an enterprise software development team and are seeking an AI Powered DevSecOps Platform meet Digital AI. Their environment is specifically focused on regulated industries. They purported clients such as the Top 10 banks in N. America and Europe, and the top 5 Global airlines, top 4 N. American Insurance Companies. Their use of AI is very purposeful, is strictly to enhance delivery and planning capabilities to accelerate delivery.

Department strictly focused on marketing and customer data? Kana.ai marketing operating layer was designed for you. Kana provides an agentic End to end solution for marketing that moves to where the customer data’s resides offering a continuous agentic layer across marketing stack. The named elements of the marketing stack they service include: strategy planning, audience building, activation, and measurements such as MTA – multi-touch attribution and MMM Marketing Mix Modeling.

Two hurdles frequently stand in the way of AI’s success. On one hand, corporations may have their history locked up on physical books. On the other hand, organizations creating models need data to train and a controversial method of scanning physical books is involved. One reason for the controversy is that the organizations are breaking the spines to digitally scan them. Both hurdles can be solved by ARC document solutions. Another hurdle for capturing data, particularly notes are notes on the go. If find yourself want to take notes on the go or for when you are not in front of your computer, Ninja Concepts AI note takers offer you different options to fit your needs.

Conference Vibe

This enterprise AI gathering focused on adoption, implementation, governance and business outcomes. This wasn’t about the clouds and sizzle, more about show us real impact. Attendance shot up more than 50% from last year’s crowd of 8,000 to more than 12,000 attendees this year! Over 100 countries were represented and expo hall exploded from 250 exhibitors to 400! Due to their explosive growth there were some growing pains. The registration lines for some attendees was reported in excess of 90 minutes. Navigation was a bit tougher than usual as the convention put the show carpet over a large majority of the navigational booth numbers making finding vendors very very difficult. I had not witnessed this error at other events at that location previously. In addition, perhaps due to the explosive growth, the connectivity was exceptionally challenging at the same level or worse than CES. At that same time, the energy and excitement easily matched and dare I say, exceeded CES this year. At one point I recall literally realizing I could not feel my face from so much smiling. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall. We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of other data related events such as the Informatica World, or our coverage of Put Data First.

We once again live streamed from on site to share the experience. Be sure to catch coverage on my syndicated segment on the nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

We conducted research for Six additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Ai4 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

The video will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the Ai4 live in Las Vegas?”.

Next Year’s Conference

The Ai4 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Venetian Expo on August 4-6, 2027.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

Downloading, re-uploading, or redistributing this file is not permitted under any license.

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, Vegas Convention Library; Leading Professionals, Real Questions, Real Time, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
August 9, 2026
Conference Whispers: InfoComm 2026 IC26
Enjoy the related Computer Talk Radio

Published: June 21, 2026 ID: TBW2202

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Enjoy the related broadcast on Computer Talk Radio.

ABSTRACT:

InfoComm 2026 brought together enterprise visitors focused on AV innovation and experience delivery as Las Vegas hosted production, control, and infrastructure conversations shaping how organizations scale, automate, and integrate broadcast-ready environments across operations and customer engagement while exhibitors highlighted hardware, software, and workflow solutions without revealing full implications for deployment, cost, or long-term operational impact.

The Conference
- A community of over 35,000 experience economy professionals engaged with over 807 exhibitors across the 395,000 square feet of exhibition space. A total of 94 countries were represented accounting for 20% of the presence.
Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
State of the Experience Industry

The state of the experience industry was delivered at a Press event on opening day by AVIXA’s Mike Sullivan-Trainor. Interestingly their research showed significant budget resilience in the AV space; however, it was attributed to being able to handle inflation and continued passion for technology. Most projects experience a 10% tariff cost increase with the industry growing at a steady 4% forecasted rate. Currently 65% of AV providers are using some form of AI with 70% of that usage being generative. They purported that the percentage of organizations with AI governance rose from 33% in March 2025 to 47% in April 2026. One of the more interesting aspects is the growing trend of enterprises requiring broadcast capabilities across the organization in many divisions.

Exhibits

Shokz demonstrates their latest headset which comes in under 1 gram of weight. Due to their bone conduction approach, accessibility features such as wearing with hearing aids or glasses are standard across their line. They even have a headset that goes behind the head. Crescendo takes bone conduction to the floor providing bass you can feel. The best part, for highly urban areas where silent dance parties have taken off, it won’t disturb the neighbors!

One vendor from the Taiwan Excellence booth is able to overcome language barriers. GIO Optoelectronics is able to sit between your company and your guest, customer or visitor. If you do not speak the same language, no problem, it will listen to you in your language and speak and print what you said in the language of the guest. This device offers accessibility for language barriers as well as for any guest that suffers from vision or auditory disabilities. This device can provide live, real-time language translation for 26 different languages.

Opticis leverages optical fiber to provide high-quality long-distance AV cables. They offer HDMI cables that can maintain 4k or 8k resolution without signal loss for 300 meters. Their pure optical extender USXMP32 can transfer USB signals up to 330 meters. Their portfolio also can deliver up to 100 watts of power over 10 meters of USB cable as required in many meeting rooms.

On the control front, unRAVL is focused on enabling more organizations and venues to have the full AV experience. Democratizing access so one doesn’t need a specialized expert to just create an experience. As an AI-powered AV operating system, it leverages AI to simplify that task at hand even enabling natural language interfaces.

If you have ever operated the controls of an AV room and wondered why switching remote cameras is separated from operating the cameras themselves, you are not alone. Meet Telycam direct from China. Not only controlling what the camera sees and records but also the white balance and focus directly from the switch. The Telycam Mix One is an all-in-one production hub for the entire live event workflow. It can support up to six video channels simultaneously. Formats include NDI, HX3, RTMP, SRT, HDMI and USB. One interesting feature is its ability to record the program simplifying distribution.

PTZOptics is an employee-owned company out of Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Like many of the exciting products we have seen on site, this also originated from AV engineers not finding what they needed. In this case, they really needed a robotic camera with advanced automation. Their latest technology can do voice tracking. Real-time adaptability is enabled through a natural language interface to communicate with the device versus scripts! Finally, this robotic camera features dual-lenses. One lens as reference, one for the actual camera action tracking. Finally, a healthcare solution that just as easily could be ripped from our coverage of HIMSS 2026 was noted. Their partner, LayerJot, created a solution able to track tool usage in the surgical room setting.

We were able to see the latest DaVinci Resolve 21 features in action with a demo on site. A major theme of the demo was the ability to do so much locally. Abilities in the demo include reshaping faces as well as deblurring and cleaning up sharpness. As one might suspect, these features also come together to enable the editor to literally change the focus of the image they are editing from one object in the frame to a different object. Natural language searching and dedicated photos are fully integrated.

One thing universally true in AV is that microphones are frequently involved, and they eat batteries like they are going out of style. Whether your organization finds this unacceptable due to the environmental impact or the cost of batteries, KLVR has an answer. KLVR offers a 48-battery capacity recharging unit for AA or AAA batteries. Each battery can charge for 1200 cycles. Therefore a single set of batteries replaces over 90,000 batteries. To ensure enduring performance, their batteries are Lithium-Ion Tech which provide higher voltage. The entire set of batteries can charge in approximately only 2 hours of time.

Whether you are hosting a major award show, a CEO town hall, or your own 24-hour broadcast, Broadcast Management Group is ready to help. Frequently referred to as BMG, they offer full-service live production and own their own equipment. In addition, they operate a Network Operational Center (NOC) in DC with additional studios across the country including Las Vegas. If you have your own equipment and team just short a few professionals – they also provide managed services and staffing.

Conference Vibe

After 40 plus videos including two livestreams and over a dozen fact checks, our coverage of InfoComm 2026 better known as IC26 closes. Over 35,000 experience economy professionals engaged with over 807 exhibitors across the 395,000 square feet of exhibition space. A total of 94 countries were represented accounting for 20% of the presence. The event was held in the Las Vegas Convention Center West Halls, North and Central. West Hall held their education programs with registration available. West Hall’s Food Court was open. It’s always interesting to see how a given event uses the space between West Hall and North Hall. For IC26 there were event signs supporting the theme. North Hall featured audio, broadcast AV, lighting and staging. North Hall also hosted a registration site and shares a huge food court just inside Central Hall Lobby. Central Hall hosted exhibitions across conferencing and collaboration systems, command and control solutions, digital signage platforms and educational technology topics heavily covered in our IC24 coverage.

We always try to bring you fresh technologies in our coverage. During the walkabouts you will recognize some broadcasting technology vendors from our coverage of the NAB Show. Likewise robotic and intelligent cameras could just as easily be in our ISC West coverage. Finally, there are experiential technologies like those found during our coverage of G2E.

We once again live streamed from on site. On Wednesday from outside of North Hall. Thursday we livestreamed from inside North Hall itself. I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my syndicated segment on the June 20th nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

We conducted research for TWELVE additional forthcoming Whisper Reports. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version distributed first via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: InfoComm 2026 IC26 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

We conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a video montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the IC26 live in Las Vegas?”.

Next Year’s Conference

The InfoComm 2027 will be at its alternate location in Orlando, Florida. The event is scheduled June 12-18.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

Special thanks to AVIXA for the press credentials.

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, Vegas Convention Library; Leading Professionals, Real Questions, Real Time, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
June 21, 2026
Conference Whispers: Informatica World 20266
Published: May 24, 2026 ID: TBW2189

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Enjoy the related Computer Talk Radio broadcast.

ABSTRACT:

“Informatica World 2026 brought together enterprise visitors focused on data governance, AI readiness, and data management as Las Vegas hosted enterprise data and analytics conversations shaping how organizations prepare trusted data foundations, enable AI agents, and drive business impact through governed, high-quality data pipelines and scalable ecosystem execution across increasingly complex digital environments.”

The Conference
- Informatica World brought a community of approximately 2000 data management and governance experts to discuss governance in the age of AI.
Cautions:
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
- Just because a technology can do something in general doesn’t mean it will work in your environment or in a governed fashion. It is critical to validate a technology including its false positive and error rates.
Garbage In, Gospel Out

If one believes you can put garbage in an AI solution and magically with get Gospel out, AI will greatly disappoint you. In practice, thinking you don’t have to clean up your data before deploying AI doesn’t align with reality. TBW Advisors LLC was able to catch an exclusive interview with Informatica’s Keynote Speaker and VP of Product, Sumeet Agrawal. Specially we asked him what’s the most exciting news he had to share at this event. For those that know data, it was no surprise. It is all about Data Governance and their Informatica’s Cloud Data Governance Catalog (CDGC) and a system of truth. The intent of the CDGC is to enable metadata and catalog information directly to AI agents. Now AI agents can plug into and leverage the data governance solutions already in place.

Fixing the Data Problem

If we cannot put garbage in, we must first fix that data problem so we are not starting with garbage. DataSwitch wants you to know, data migration doesn’t have to be painful. DS Data Maps focuses on data lineage and traceability. This enables one to have visibility during the migration. They also lean in on data democratization with their engineering agent. This agent is designed to streamline data access through simplifying complex data engineering tasks. Their Newest Innovation is ‘Switchi’. Switchi enables data migration into the Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud without Power Center being required.

Bringing their deep data experience based out of Washington DC Incept Data Solutions is an Informatica Platinum Partner. Their core focus is all about data management including governance and data quality. Whether your organization need help with integration, or data governance or AI readiness, they are there to serve. Incept can engage through outsourcing, complimenting your team or staffing them with temporary or permanent staff.

Turning AI into Reality

Now that are data is AI ready, one can start thinking about business impact. Miracle Software Systems provides the Rapid Innovation Prototyping Service or RIPS. RIPS is designed to help your organization move from piloting to a prototype to less than 6 weeks. With a history of working with SMB all the way to Fortune 100, this Detroit based company also has your connector needs covered.

With over 1000 certified Informatica Professionals, Accenture was onsite and ready to help your business. Their portfolio of services spans data ingestion and integration, master data management (MDM), data curation and ensuring data products are ready for business. With today’s current data demands, they firmly believe this practice will continue to grow strong.

Cognizant was on hand to share their four key focus areas with Informatica’s clients needing assistance. Specifically, data management, outcome-based solutions, AI development and strategic collaboration. Their primary theme is focused on delivering outcome-based solutions. Now who doesn’t want an great outcome?

Conference Vibe

Taking a trip down memory lane, Informatica World brought us back to the very first TBW Advisors’s Conference Whispers: Informatica World 2019. In the meantime, we have grown by leaps and bounds and Informatica was just acquired by Salesforce. Gone were the orange competitions we were so touched to observe. In came the blue wash of Sales Force. Speaking to many attending during lunch, it seemed internally, the closer the employee is to hands on data engineering the more excited they were about the acquisition. Data governance and master data management have always been Informatica’s strength making them a great talent acquisition purchase. A majority of the customers also seemed quite excited about the acquisition. Being a vendor hosted event, registration was efficient and a full lunch was served! For those who were still hungry, Mandalay Bay Food Court was fully open. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall. We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of other data events such as the Put Data First.

We once again live streamed from on site. On Wednesday requesting those attending to find me to answer Questions for Whisper Reports, to introduce all to TBW Advisors LLC, and requesting assistance. Specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my syndicated segment on the May 23rd nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

We conducted research for Six additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Informatica World 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the Informatica World live in Las Vegas?”.

Next Year’s Conference

Informatica has been purchased by Salesforce and is being integrated into their Data 360. As such no word on if Informatica World will once again return to Las Vegas or if it will be folded completely into Dreamforce.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Vegas Convention Library, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
May 24, 2026
Conference Whispers: Licensing Expo 2026
Las Vegas, NV May 19- May 21

Published: May 24, 2026 ID: TBW2197

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Enjoy the related Computer Talk Radio broadcast.

ABSTRACT:

“Licensing Expo 2026 brought together enterprise visitors focused on brand licensing, IP management, and merchandising strategy as Las Vegas hosted global retail, media, and marketing conversations shaping how brands extend, protect, and monetize intellectual property through AI, partnerships, and fan-driven experiences in an increasingly digital, connected marketplace for future growth and competitive differentiation across industries.”

Conference
- Licensing Expo 2026 had over 410 companies exhibit at this year’s gathering. Over 130 of the exhibitors were experiencing their first ever Licensing Expo event.
- Over 12,500 industry professionals attended spanning retailers, manufacturers, brands, and marketers. Over 78 countries were represented among the 28% of global visitors.
Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
YouTube Fandom IRL

Movie theaters hosting YouTube Live streams and replays? Screeny is looking to help fans of the same channel get together and enjoy content together In Real Life (IRL). If you have ever wanted to meet new friends and enjoy some really amazingly popular influencer content, the answer might just be your closest movie theater!

Protect that Brand!

While many licensing products have been upgraded to include AI features, MyMediabox is an AI-first platform. Designed with AI in mind at the beginning, AI is not a clumsy bolt-on within the platform but carefully leveraged for results. These results come in the form of rapid feature expansion and operational efficiency for users. Product reviews and style compliance a burden? No more. Requiring advanced natural language search? In their AI-first world, you get efficient workflows.

If you simply need a US Agent to facilitate merchandise licensing partnerships, Creative Licensing Corporation is able to assist – globally. Working with an incredibly diverse portfolio, JRL Group was onsite with their 27 years’ experience. Featuring clients from famous motorsport brands, corporate brands, to educational brands, JRL Group is prepared to make the difference. If you view licensing as a strategic tool, LMCA would like to share their 40 years of experience with you. Their client-first strategy starts with the business needs. Those needs then turn into a strategic plan with tactical goals to execute against.

Are you a brand owner who needs help with copyrights and patents? Need help with licensing agents, and licensees who use the brands? Dependable Solutions has all your brand needs covered throughout the lifecycle of a brand. They can assist at the copyright and patent stage of branding. Likewise they have licensing agents who can represent the brand outbound and licensees that desire to use brands. In addition, they handle the end-to-end management of the brand approvals, distribution, royalty tracking, and forecasting.

Bringing 30 years’ experience, Octane5 describes their impact as licensing ecosystem wide. They serve the consumer, licensee and the licensor. In the management arena they cover the marketplace to contracts, approvals, royalties, and audits. No matter which direction, Octane5 believes they offer best in class in every direction.

Conference Vibe

Breaking all previous records, Licensing Expo 2026 had over 410 companies exhibit at this year’s gathering. Over 130 of the exhibitors were experiencing their first ever Licensing Expo event. The 12,500 industry professionals spanning retailers, manufacturers, brands, and marketers. Over 78% countries were represented among the 28% of global visitors. Interestingly over 49% of the visitors hold global decision-making power. Enjoy our video of getting to the exhibit and the walkabout in the event space. Given the complex licensing and the high value brands, we were not allowed to do an Expo Hall walkabout. The Mandalay Food Court for all to enjoy.

We once again live streamed from on site on Tuesday requesting assistance on your favorite videos for my syndicated segment on the May 25th nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

We conducted research for additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Licensing Expo 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the Licensing Expo live in Las Vegas?”.

Next Year’s Conference
The Licensing Expo will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Mandalay Bay on May 25-27, 2027.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Vegas Convention Library, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
May 24, 2026