The event featured over 12,000 transportation stakeholders, 2400 fleet operators and over 400 exhibits.
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.
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.
Voltra enables end-to-end energy management via a software solution. This solution integrates into your charging infrastructure, cellular connectivity, battery storage, and solar generation. The data from this integration is leveraged for advanced diagnostics and streamlined deployment.
FractalEV charges and optimizes your fleet. You no longer have to use an unintelligent charging station for your fleet. FractalEV integrates asset management tooling directly into the charging hardware station. This integration enables management of power loads and data across multiple units. As a Level 2 hardware manufacturer, your fleets will be fully charged overnight as is required at the enterprise level.
If you are moving to electrification, it is not just your fleet that needs updating. You must update your facilities. That update will require the assistance of a professional engineer. Fortunately, ACT Expo had professional engineering firms on hand such as Colliers Engineers. Colliers Engineering specializes in local coordination including the critical steps of coordination with the local municipalities and jurisdictions, an often-forgotten step.
Total cost of ownership of your fleet weighing you down? Burns & McDonnell would like to help you through any power transition to maintain business advantages. With 130 years as an engineering construction firm, they are a top power contender across the USA. From coast-to-coast they have worked with utilities leveraging offices in all 50 states and across Canada.
Triz Engineering is offering what they call, “Engineering Certainty” through an OEM vehicle designed for you from the ground up. This customized commercial vehicle is designed to fit your needs and processes. The resulting product is designed to meet your requirements as opposed to imposed requirements. This enables the vehicle to simply slip into your fleet issue-free.
If you are a smaller to mid-size OEM or even a start-up and in search of an electrification control unit, Ecutron was in Expo Hall. Ecutron was excited to share that their flexibility in terms of cost and timelines enables them to even serve the start-up market. To top it off, their support assists customers in successfully moving through the entire process.
In need of a natural gas fuel system? Hexagon was excited to share their system for heavy-duty trucks. Specifically, the range enables most sleeper cab use cases with travel up to 1200 miles or 1900 kilometers on a single fill. With flexible installation, Hexagon can go behind the cab OR on the rails depending on the exact truck leveraged. We were also able to capture an exclusive summary of when Hexagon discussed leveraging the right fuel for the right applications.
After 40 videos including a livestream and over a dozen fact checks, our coverage of ACT Expo 2026 closes. ACT Expo featured over 12,000 transportation stakeholders including 2400 fleet operators and over 400 exhibits. Registration and badge pick-up was quite efficient even as Expo Hall was ready to open. The event was hosted in West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall. ACT Expo made the choice to allow one of the few rooms with an overhead view of the entire expo hall to be used as the press room. Enjoy the View!
Those at the booth excitedly shared, there was no fluff at the event. Everyone who they met and spoke with was there to do business. While no details specific attendance numbers were shared at press time, the hosting organization excitedly shared there were a lot of people. The body language seemed to indicate a lot more than expected. Perhaps, recent historical events creating a surge in demand for fleets to consider advanced clean technologies. One of the more interesting features was the ride and drives. Located around the LVCC West Hall Vegas Loop Drive, it was fascinating to watch with all the huge truck cabs driving around in circles.
We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage. Given we always lean towards the enterprise, you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of other events that had some related technology such as the Manifest 2026, SEMA AAPEX, and even CES. For research on really-large vehicles, we recommend our coverage of CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2026.
We once again live streamed from on site. On Tuesday requesting those attending to find me to answer future Whisper Report Questions, 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 9th nationally broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
We conducted research for four 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: ACT 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 ACT Expo live in Las Vegas?”.
The ACT Expo will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center on May 17-20, 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.
“NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas convened over 58,000 media and broadcast professionals across production, distribution, and operations. On the show floor, conversations centered on evolving broadcast stacks, asset management realities, creation workflows, and physical infrastructure. Examples on display reflected shifts toward flexibility, scalability, and integration without consensus on where standardization ultimately settles across the industry today.”
The Conference
A community of over 58,000 media and broadcast professionals gathered at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
70% of the attendees were buyers with 48% were first-time registered attendees.
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. It is critical to validate a technology including its false positive and error rates.
The Lexi Language Layer by AI Media acts as a secure regulated gateway for major broadcasters ensuring captioning and language services meet strict broadcast standards. With an incredible 80% market share, this platform enables AI native tool integration at the final point of broadcast distribution. This in turn enables the capture of valuable viewer and content insights. All of this capability has been moved from a traditional Capex model to an Opex model enabling broadcasters to quickly update their equipment.
Brightcove is all about scale achieved through strategic innovation and investment. In fact, Brightcove was acquired by Bending Spoons resulting in over 20 new major features and capabilities since the closing a year ago. Brightcove brings their end-to-end solution to Broadcasters, Media Networks, Sports Networks, and Publishers.
Moving coverage from the platform to networks, one of the longest desires in broadcasting is the ability to leverage Internet-based flexible workflows. Zixi started with this goal in mind and delivers a dynamic protocol translation including IP. They are excited about the ease with which they enable their customers to create regional variants for thousands of events at once. This enablement spans language, cultural, and local requirements without physical hardware in every market.
WOWZA provides media infrastructure that can run on your laptop, avoiding monthly cloud fees. Their claim to fame is the ability to connect users to live video feeds. Since it can run on a laptop, they are able to operate behind firewalls to provide a video intelligence framework or the plumbing to apply AI. This AI can be applied to live video in real-time. Furthermore, this solution runs on a Java stack enabling portability across Linux, Windows, macOS, and containerized laptops.
Many in media have mountains and mountains of data but have no idea what they have or more importantly cannot find what they want on demand. Axle AI enables semantics search over all your videos. Thanks to an acquisition since we last covered them, they now feature extensive capabilities for photographs as well. If your organization insists data must remain localized for security and data control reasons, Axle AI has you covered. Finally, the solution runs in a browser.
One of the more difficult tasks in media workflows is how to ensure everyone has access to what they need without extensive delays. The IT team worries about the network costs of constantly moving massive amounts of data. In the meantime, legal is terribly worried about having the organization’s IP spread everywhere. Lucidlink prides itself on enabling global instant access to media teams from centralized storage without massive, constant file movement.
Planetcast provides an end-to-end broadcast ecosystem powered by 100% Planetcast intellectual property and code. This ownership enables full control over the infrastructure enabling flexible, hybrid, workflow operations. A key focus today is empowering customers with searchability and meta indexing for asset management.
Endless sessions run throughout the event. For example, here is a quick peek at, “How fortune brands are betting on Creatives”. In this session, it was emphasized that organizations should develop ecosystems and relationships as opposed to strictly transactional. The best relationships have the most impact over time, not just a one-off advertisement hit piece.
So how can one create these wonderful assets? Coming soon to a Library, Media Room, or Shared office space near you is Studiomatics’ One-button Studio Go recording kiosk. Enjoy the demo to understand how easy this sophisticated system is to operate. From auto user detection to integrated digital lightboard, whiteboard, and easy content sharing, everything is automated right to the delivery of the created video.
A software solution that aggregates asset libraries, collaboration tools, enterprise features, Freepik enables IT and security over all AI models. Furthermore, their complete creative studio enables real-time collaboration and offers support and training.
Backpacks are an asset in any industry, but in media many carry sensitive, heavy equipment, particularly cameras and related gear. The Wandrd backpack shared their solution that provides 3 different sizes and 7 colors portfolio. Each pack works with a series of modular interior camera cubes. This flexibility alongside their designs with zippers anywhere you might need one, it’s a fun product to evaluate for your needs if you’re in media or simply want a highly useful, flexible, backpack system.
A common required asset in the media, commercial, LED displays, unlike those of consumers’, are specifically designed for long, often continuous operations. GCL was excited to share that they have a warehouse full of inventory in Dallas, Texas. Their inventory is ready to go them with 3-year local support. GCL has been manufacturing LED displays for 27 years.
After over 50 videos including two livestreams and over a dozen fact checks, our coverage of NAB Show 2026 closes. Registration was quite efficient and was available at every hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center sans South Hall that hosted another event – Wrestle Mania Fan Fest. West Hall featured the AI Innovation Pavilion, Start-Up Pavilion, and Sports Theater. Central Hall hosted the Creator Center, TV and Radio Headquarters as well as a massive networking lounge. North Hall hosted the Main Stage and vendors related to production workflows. The standard transportation options were available at the Las Vegas Convention Center be it the Vegas Loop or taking the West to North Hall connector bridge. Likewise, the standard eateries across West Hall and Central and North Halls including their shared food court.
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 NAB Shows in 2025 and 2024, as well as InfoComm.
We once again live streamed from on site. On Sunday from North Hall and Monday from West Hall. Specifically, we request those attending to find me to answer Questions 1-6, to introduce all to TBW Advisors LLC, and request assistance. Specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my syndicated segment on the April 25th 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: NAB Show 2026 Las Vegas 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 NAB Show live in Las Vegas?”.
The 2026 Vegas NAB Show will once again return to Las Vegas Convention Center on April 4-7, 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 of products in the same category may have also been on display.
Fintech Meetup 2026 in Las Vegas filled the show floor with live discussions between banks, fintechs, and platform providers. Demonstrations clustered around fraud controls, identity and onboarding, data context, lending infrastructure, payments flow, and applied AI. Across booths, emphasis shifted from point tools toward systems designed for scale, speed, and operational continuity.
Fintech Meetup featured over 50,000 meetings, with over 1,000 CEO’s and Founders, and over 700 Financial institutions
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.
To fully enjoy this event, be sure to meet the deadlines for filling out your profile, requesting and accepting meetings. One should also pre-register for the table talks.
Fintech is not a simple space to secure. Security isn’t a single tool but rather it’s a system. That system starts before money moves and ensures the sender and the receiver of the transaction are known. Deploying separate technologies to manage fraud, compliance, and risk in your organization? Sardine AI likes to pack all that functionality into one tidy platform to stop fraud BEFORE the payment is made.
While most Financial Crime investigation tools only see and investigate the tip of the iceberg, Unit21.ai would like to change that. Garnering the most attention are high risk alerts which the most sophisticated criminal organizations know how to avoid triggering. This leaves many Financial Crimes such as human trafficking undetected. But what if you had unlimited trained agents to investigate? By leveraging agentic AI, Unit21.ai enables an organization to conduct an in-depth review of every single alert. No hiring backlogs. Just results.
Growth in Fintech often means getting additional clients. Such growth comes with risks. Is this new client really who they say they are? Getting this wrong is very, very, expensive. Sumsub would like to simplify this risky onboarding task. Their unified solution combines identity verification and fraud prevention. Enabling quicker decisions without increasing the risk profile. This opens the door to growth, in real-time.
Enabling frictionless, seamless access, Alcatraz is a vendor in the identity and access space and the physical cyber space. Knowing your customer and knowing your business or KYC and KYB are risk areas that get a lot of attention. To conquer this space, Alcatraz leverages facial authentication to ensure security without compromising privacy.
Banking and Fintech, like many industries, still suffer from siloed data. While identity creates signals, data gives those signals context for action. Real-time precision is a constant requirement. tacnode shared their unified data platform to provide a single source of truth. This next-generation data infrastructure platform provides a common context for your heterogeneous regulated data environment.
Effectively applying metacognition with a GPT over all customers channels for the benefit of the organization in a unified brain has arrived. Meet BankGPT by interface.ai. BankGPT enables lessons learned on customer voice interactions to improve interactions on chats or mobile applications. Whether you are seeking an employee co-pilot or a smart collections AI agent, interface.ai supports 148 languages.
The credit lifecycle is critical to Financial Institutions. From lead generation to evaluation and credit decisioning or simply educating lenders, CRS Credit API offers a comprehensive solution. Their platform covers the entire lifecycle for business-to-business or direct-to-consumer. They were also excited to share their new authentication and evaluation products with attendees.
LendAPI introduced their holistic ecosystem enabling comprehensive functionality spanning loan origination, loan management, and loan core. This compliance-ready solution provides all-in-one features enabling all the tools including consumer communication.
Placing its differentiation on its order of operations, World Connection Outsourcers focuses on using AI to ensure first contact resolution. They prioritize AI, then journey mapping, the outsourcing. From their perspective, this enables the right answers at the right time.
If your desired platform would be to unite the entire payment stack in one place, Sokin heard your request. Sokin handles cross-border payments, FX, treasury management, and checkout solutions. Not stopping there, on and off-ramps for Stablecoin to USDT and USDC are now also available.
After 48 videos and over a dozen and a half fact checks, our coverage of Fintech Meetup 2026 closes. Fintech Meetup featured over 50,000 meetings, with over 1,000 CEOs and founders, and over 700 Financial institutions.
Registration was quite efficient. Pastries and snacks were scattered throughout expo hall. Mandalay Bay Food Court was also open. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall*. One of the most unique aspects of Fintech Meetup is the networking! Beyond the talks and expo hall, Fintech Meetup is known for their one-on-one meeting schedules. Attendees must be on the look out to fill out their profile, request meetings, and accept meetings in order to participate. In addition, this event holds round tables break out rooms ensuring a true capability to build your network while you are there.
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 USA 2025, or our coverage of Fintech Meet-up both in 2025 and in 2024. Likewise in the cybersecurity and anti-fraud space you will recognize vendors from our coverage of ISC West, Identiverse, and Black Hat USA 2025.
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: Fintech Meetup 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition. Be sure to monitor the syndicated broadcast of Computer Talk Radio for additional coverage of Fintech Meetup. All related syndicated links will be shared in the Whispers membership area of our channel.
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 Fintech Meetup live in Las Vegas?”.
*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.
ISC West 2026 brought the physical cyber security community to Las Vegas and the Venetian Expo for a week of live demonstrations, field conversations, and on‑floor video. Coverage spans frictionless screening, threat detection, control infrastructure, and emerging AI and identity capabilities, reflecting how vendors are approaching scale, connectivity, and modernization across real‑world security environments globally.
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. It is critical to validate a technology including its false positive and error rates.
One of our first stops was technology everyone at the show wished TSA Adopted yesterday! Xtract One Technologies enables screening without stopping and unpacking one’s bags! The technology provides an image of the person with the threat in their bag, identifies the threat and its location within the bag without slowing down pedestrian traffic through the screening gate.
Physical security systems have a variety of access systems from badge readers to keys. The problem with keys is key management. Introducing InVue’s OneKEY, an adaptable smart key and related system. If you think the best part is only having one key, versus the notorious janitor key ring you are in for a treat! This smart key can communicate via IR to unlock devices and provide wireless energy transfer to lock mechanisms. Furthermore, every action is tracked, logged and fully auditable.
Common to all physical security systems, is equipment that is plugged in and subject to power surge damage. DITEK was in expo hall with their exciting modular surge protection solution. The time saving feature of being able to simply replace a module after end of life versus the entire surge protector is sure to be popular. Hot Swapping modules are easier to change than a printer cartridge. Friendly reminder that licensed electrical contractors are generally required to service 120 volts and up.
Identification of objects with surveillance videos is another tough challenge that was taken on by Everon. Their combination hardware, software, and processes solution is focused on deterring unwanted activity in its protected space.
Physical Cyber Security solutions often involve communications from the field where it can be noisy. Whether the noise comes from the chaos of the emergency or is inherit in the location such as security at an F1 race, it doesn’t matter. The human voice communication must still be possible! Roanwell Corporation also shared their adjustable noise suppression solution leveraged by security personnel, first responders, fire fighters, and war fighters like.
These threat detection and response systems also cannot function in isolation. They must stay connected Teal.io’s eSIM solution provides the ultimate in reliable mission-critical connectivity. Their global technology ensures devices always connect to the best available network. The best part? Their solution frictionlessly provides connectivity so surveillance and robotics solutions can effectively stay in communication.
At the other end of the spectrum, some organizations require surveillance systems that are deliberately disconnected. RGB Spectrum provides air‑gapped security for surveillance environments designed to operate on isolated networks—or no network at all. By leveraging unidirectional HDMI sharing, RGB Spectrum demonstrated an approach intended to prevent external access paths, positioning the system, by their design, as resistant to remote compromise.
Scaling is their middle name at Matrix ComSec. Matrix ComSec manufactures surveillance cameras and access control hardware with a system capacity of 4 to 96 channels. To provide further context, a single gadget can support up to 255 doors.
Focusing on the control center and providing a unified pane of glass for clients, Hartman Controls welcomed all with their booth right outside Expo Hall’s Main Entrance. Established in 1998, Hartman’s engineering-first approach provides hardware flexibility offering traditional and edge-style enclosures. The solution can be deployed on premise, the cloud and is easy to migrate in either direction should your architecture and requirements change.
Maintain the theme of cloud or on-premise availability, Keri Systems shared their Open Platform for access solutions. In addition, Keri’s flexibility enables it to support up to 12-13 different hardware platforms. Furthermore, the product is built to explicitly support multiple vertical markets.
One difficulty in purchasing security equipment is many of the manufacturers started in one sector such as fire. Then after success they expanded by creating another isolated division for go to market. Napco took a different approach. Napco is an integrated security manufacturer providing a single ecosystems spanning fire alarms, access control, security systems, and locks.
Many organizations regardless of their size may not be large buyers when it comes to physical security equipment. In these circumstances it is common for organizations to leverage buyers’ groups. PSA is a buyers group for this space with terms up to 120-day terms for its clients.
IQSIGHT, formerly Bosch Video, operates across hardware, video management, and analytics with capabilities that now include generative AI. Their specialty? Providing the WHY behind what you are seeing through, what they like to call, careful, thoughtful, deployment of generative AI. Today, context is everything.
Moving beyond video capture and on to surveillance intelligence, March Networks was excited to share their new brand resulting from their merger with Vivotek under the Delta Group. By layering advanced business intelligence directly onto their video surveillance systems, they are enabling organizations to transform raw visual data into actionable insights that drive operational improvements and increase profitability.
Many organizations already have the security equipment, the cameras, and video installed. Today the challenge is getting AI for all this physical security equipment without replacing it all! Stepping up to the plate is omniQ, ready to bring AI to physical security equipment at your organization.
Safetrust is known for being major supporters of open IoT-based ecosystems. Manufacturing advanced sensors and equipment Safetrust also produces the software to access the sensors. Their key disrupters are cloud-based firmware updates, federated identities, and an interesting neural adapter panel. This panel eliminates the need for expensive hardware panels and related copper wiring. Specifically, the neural adapter panel functions by leveraging a combination of PoE (power over ethernet), panel emulation, and direct software connection. One final exciting feature, Safetrust is incorporating Dilithium and Kyber into their technology, providing post Quantum readiness.
Physical Cyber Security is often a fragmented, world of antiquated hardware being asked to provide sophisticated access control. The difficulty often can be simply connecting to the device to get its data into a system to enable any type of analytics or intelligence. Braxos understands this and brought their solution to ISC West with over 200 connectors. Their connectors span elevator systems, parking management, vending machines and intercoms.
After over 50 videos and two dozen fact checks, our coverage of ISC West 2026 closes. Registration was quite efficient IFF you printed your badge at home and went to the correct line; otherwise it may have been a flashback to your TSA experience to get to Vegas. Overall, it was a very engaged atmosphere where attendees could literally feel the momentum of the crowd. Everyone’s meetings seems to go as planned with the expected mixture of vendors. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall. Venetians standard eateries were open throughout the convention including the various Bistros and the Café Presse locations.
We always try to bring you fresh perspective to our coverage of an event over prior coverage as well as new vendors but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout. For additional coverage in physical cyber security, cybersecurity and identity and access management enjoy our prior coverage of ISC West, Identiverse, and Black Hat USA 2025.
Unfortunately, the connectivity at the event was too challenging to be able to live stream. This also caused an interruption to upload videos in the hall versus from expo hall.
We conducted research for five 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: ISC West 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition. Be sure to monitor future broadcasts editions’ of Computer Talk Radio for the forthcoming coverage of ISC West 2026.
Finally, 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 ISC West live in Las Vegas?”.
The ISC West 2027 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Venetian Expo on March 31 through April 2, 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.
“HIMSS26 in Las Vegas spotlighted healthcare’s shift toward real‑time data, patient‑driven insights, and quietly automated workflows. Printers, paper bottlenecks, and cyber hygiene revealed how much unstructured data still shapes care. The through‑line: trusted data powering emerging AI. A community‑driven push toward interoperability and smarter infrastructure defined this year’s experience on the ground.”
The Conference
The 2026 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition brought together roughly 25,000 attendees from across the global health ecosystem, hosted by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas.
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.
Have you ever found yourself trying to figure out what is wrong with you or a loved one? Every doctor running their own test but no one is communicating and you are left in the dark with no answers? Thanks to b.well consumers can now control and manage their own health data and get the answers they need. Coverage includes most medical practices in the US, Apple Watch, Samsung Watch, Aura Ring, Walgreens, Samsung phones, Google apps, and ChatGPT.
When you have an emergency, you want your EMS attendant to have the best possible information. Furthermore, you want the information created in the ambulance given to those in the hospital treating you. Good news, ImageTrend is focused on closing that exact gap enabling true continuum of care.
For anyone who has ever used an auto feed on a copier or scanner, you know they can be finicky. Successful execution has been considered an art form – for decades. Witness this Ricoh demonstration. Very quietly and with one push of the button, these scanners digitize hundreds of pages in seconds. They scan all types of hospital paperwork -forms of varying size, thickness, orientation, black and white or color. Today, auto size, auto orient, auto color detect, silent enterprise document scanners are realized.
Symphion provides turnkey services for establishing, maintaining and proving cyber hygiene of edge devices including printers. Protections include inventory management, detection and response, firmware security and password management. Focusing on healthcare native protocols including DICOM (an international standard for printing data storage, transmission and retrieval of medical information) and HL7, SecurITe (pronounced secure IT) protects networks by analyzing and securing its healthcare-related traffic.
At this point, you may be noticing a trend we also encountered in distribution during our coverage of Manifest and Retail, Supply Chain and Logistics Expo – a lot of discussion on printers. That means physical, unstructured, not digitized data. This causes problems on a few fronts. How are medical practices going to get reimbursed – paper is not part of the FHIR standard (pronounced FIRE standard) required to get paid. Interestingly the answer for this technology challenge comes from eFax from Consensus Cloud. They literally have transformed the old-fashioned traditional faxing into intelligent digital processing.
Behind every credible clinical AI, there’s one non-negotiable: data you can trust. Expo hall featured Drummond that explicitly focuses on the accuracy and completeness of the data once digitized, providing data validation for health care data. Many are also trying to create such intelligent products to serve the health care sector. The first requirement is that of data to train and create their models. For those seeking to depersonalize their healthcare data for training OR create fake data, Tonic.ai was ready to meet your needs. For organizations creating healthcare products requiring not just privacy and governance for their data but the ability to run really, really fast AI, OneSource Cloud was looking to meet you. As a dedicated cloud provider, they gain priority access to GPUs ensuring they can meet your needs. Their architecture is optimized for speed by optimizing the storage compute connection with an IB Switch or InfiniBand switch. For those not familiar, IB switches are designed for Ultra-low latency, very high throughput, RDMA (remote direct memory access for zero-copy communication) and offer high scalability. This is a feature one cannot directly request and manage in public clouds today.
Hospitals are some of the most high-tech buildings one can come across. Penetrating 40% of healthcare facilities, Schneider Electric is there to support the industry. Schneider Electric specializes in digitizing physical infrastructure for operational efficiencies. Hospital efficiencies start with smart, efficient infrastructure.
With the exhibits covered, we now shift towards the bigger picture shaping healthcare’s future. Admittedly as a member of the press, one of the highlights is when HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) President and CEO, Hal Wolf, hosts the press for a round of questions and answers. Hal truly emphasized the last S in HIMSS for society. It’s that society that is going to enable healthcare to evolve with the injection of AI. He emphasized the impact AI is having on operational efficiency from supply chain management to bed utilization. Moving towards a translational AI Ecosystems, his hopes lie in seamless connectivity and true interoperability being achieved. One final message was the direct correlation and causation relationship between health and the economy. Specifically good physical health and well-being is required to drive a strong economy.
After 48 videos including a livestream and over a twenty fact checks, our coverage of The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2026 Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSS26 for short, closes. HIMSS26 brought together approximately 25,000 healthcare technology and systems professionals from around the world. Exhibitions expanded and covered the entire upstairs expo hall at the Venetian Expo as well as the entire downstairs. Downstairs exhibitions were also known as, “The Park” also featured private meeting and demo spaces. One could buy food at the Venetian’s Café Press or at any of the Bistro locations. In addition, The Park featured snack time ranging from home made cookies you could smell a mile away on Tuesday. Wednesday attempted to top what Tuesday brought to the table with homemade scones.
We once again live streamed from on site. We let everyone know we were at HIMSS on the ground covering it as well as requesting assistance. Specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the March 14, 2026 broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
We conducted research for twelve 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: HIMSS 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 HIMSS 2026 live in Las Vegas?”.
Unfortunately, next year’s conference will be in Chicago so we are not scheduled to attend or cover the event unless our coverage is sponsored. HIMSS27 will be taking place April 5-8, 2027. We look forward to its return to Vegas in the future.
*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.
“CONEXPO‑CON/AGG 2026 delivered a packed week of press announcements, massive exhibits, and next‑generation jobsite innovation, 140,000 attendees and over 3 million square feet of exhibits. Press Day highlighted electrification, repairability, and asset intelligence, while the show floor showcased automation, telematics, lifecycle support, and equipment spanning every hall and lot of the LVCC. We live‑streamed daily coverage and completed research for six forthcoming Whisper Reports. Readers can explore the full experience through the Conference Whispers playlist and upcoming video edition.”
The Conference
A community of over 140,000 attendees from 128 countries including 2000 vendors gathered at CONEXPO-CON/AGG. The event spanned over 3 million square feet of exhibit space.
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.
CONEXPO-CON/AGG featured an entire Press Day on Monday, the day before the formal opening. We were able to capture a few of the events. First, we captured Moog Construction’s event featuring their Adaptive Electrification Management System – AEMS. Moog is a motion control company, provides electrification solutions for heavy vehicles, aiming to improve motion control systems. Moog technology enables any manufacturer to use any type of electric solution they would like. Their design is focused on improving simplification through design and reducing costs. The result is a modular solution that achieves remote diagnostics and over the air updates. If someone can physically replace a module, over the air capabilities flash the module to act like it should in that specific system. The solution is targeted at 6-25-ton compact loaders and excavators.
The right to repair is alive and well in Europe but that is not the only thing that has come to life. Cojali USA solution focuses on the ability to maintain and repair a fleet of heavy equipment across manufacturers. Bringing you telematics that can act enabling not just predictive maintenance, but remote maintenance is also realized.
The equipment leveraged in construction and agriculture are rather expensive. Even smaller tools are highly expensive and can be quite costly if lost or stolen. Samsara Asset Tags leverages industrial strength Bluetooth to help increase your chances of recovery. Each asset added to the network adds to the network’s density in tracking other assets. Their network is connected to an inbuilding network for asset tracking thus covering all the highways and major commercial building across major geographies.
CONEXPO-CON/AGG saw an announcement of the arrival of Twins! Mack Trucks press event announced the updating of their very popular Granite Model of Mack Trucks. The second announcement that their every popular Pinnacle Model was being replaced with Keystone. The Keystone includes everything the Pinnacle model included plus additional chassis and sleeper options. The MP13, a13-litre engine in the Granite, now has 540 horsepower and a whopping 1950 torque.
Beyond the press events, Exhibits are always massive and physically impressive at CONEXPO-CON/AGG. John Deere didn’t just bring the equipment but wanted to make sure you know they support the entire lifecycle. Specifically, John Deere’s highlighted its connected support and the massive span of maintenance it represents to the customers. Bobcat introduced their RogueX3 concept machine which is electric, autonomous and module leveraging Moog’s electrification technology from the aforementioned press event. For those seeking brand agnostic, machine agnostic, roof mounted automation, CNF more commonly known as simply Case, shared their patented adaptable solution. Komatsu burst into expo hall with 7 brand new models across their lines. Epiroc not only shared their machines and automation, but also their customers appreciated span of services offering. Hyundai had a detailed display highlighting their leaps forward in advanced telematics improving reliability. Sometimes it is not about the machine as much as it is the components. Does your excavator or loader need a new bucket? Weir Group’s ESCO division exhibited their innovative buckets optimized for safety, durability, and performance. If your reason for hesitation in upgrading is moving your older assets off the books, have no fear! Ritchie bros. specializes in rotating equipment so you are free to upgrade your equipment today!
For OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in construction and agricultural equipment seeking to automate and optimize their equipment, MOBA Automation was hoping to speak with you. If you are an OEM and you really want to connect your physical equipment with the digital world, Trimble bridges the divide. Their massive booth highlighted their hardware, software, and services for positioning, modeling, analytics, and connectivity. Of course, predictive maintenance, remote maintenance, automation and all of these advanced capabilities that shined brightest are only possible IF the OEM installed the right sensors. To that end, sensor manufacturers were also on sight such as SIKO featuring location sensors. These location sensors can ensure you are never lost – even if GPS is denied in your location.
After 66 videos, three livestreams, and over two dozen fact checks, our coverage of CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2026 closes. CONEXPO-CON/AGG welcomes over 140,000 construction professionals from 128 countries. CONEXPO-CON/AGG occurs once every three years in Las Vegas Convention Center – the only Convention Center built strong enough to be able to house heavy equipment indoors. Featuring over 2,000 exhibitors, the event spanned over 3 million square feet of exhibit space. The massive event spanned every inch of the Las Vegas Convention Center including exhibits* in all of the lots including the massive new lot in front of the Fontainebleau the current Diamond Lot. The diamond lot featured next-generations jobsite solutions including attached robotic systems. The traditional Silver Lot featured demonstrations for brands. West Hall was the hub for smart construction technology and interactive workflow solutions with over 40 machines and 20 brand new models featured. North Hall focused on operational innovations. Central Hall was very concrete and asphalt centric including mixing equipment. Both South Hall Upper and Lower were leveraged for this event. South Upper was the prominent exhibition area for power equipment including electrified engines. South Hall features the ultimate in large scale equipment. As is customary, food was available throughout the convention center with all the normal LVCC eateries open and ready to serve including the major food courts including West Hall and North/Central Hall Lobby Food Court. Transportation options included shuttles, buses, and of course the famous Vegas Loop connection South, Central and West Halls.
We once again live streamed from on site. On Media Day Monday letting you know we are on the ground covering the event. Tuesday we shared the excitement of Exhibits officially opening. And Wednesday specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the March 6th broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
We conducted research for twelve additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The reports spanned research on improvements to jobsite output, automation, uptime, telematics, innovations in safety and those affecting the labor gap issue. 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: CONEXPO-CON/AGG 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 the Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the CONEXPO-CON/AGG live in Las Vegas?”.
The event is held every three years with the next event scheduled for March 13-17, 2029 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
*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.
“Manifest 2026 brought together 7,350 attendees in Las Vegas, showcasing supply‑chain innovations across cold chain, warehouse automation, robotics, and logistics solutions. TBW Advisors LLC captured extensive on‑site coverage, including 62 videos, two livestreams, and over a dozen fact checks. Twelve Whisper Reports were also researched for deeper analysis across emerging operational challenges. Exhibits highlighted end‑to‑end supply‑chain platforms, automation breakthroughs, sensing technologies, and AI‑enabled workflow solutions across the expo hall.”
Attendance at Manifest 2026 saw an increase from 2025 with a whopping 7,350 attendees!
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.
After 62 videos including 2 livestream and over a dozen and a half fact checks, our coverage of Manifest 2026 closes. No lines for the 7350 attendees at registration as the process was quite efficient and took place right outside of expo hall. Venetian came through for attendings with delicious food. If you were not already hungry, the smell from their Tuesday lunch and the Pasta station that accompanied Wednesday lunch was sure to get you there. 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 distribution sector events such as Pack Expo and Retail, Supply Chain, and Logistics Expo. One observation we would like to share is the unique way Manifest physically sets up their track sections within the Venetian. It creates this great gathering space for people in between sessions not seen at other events. We were able to get a great video of the space while all were at the keynote. Vendors at the booths frequently strongly complimented the event. One attendee denoted that there was a highly desirable mix decision makers or their direct reports.
We once again live streamed from on-site. We streamed from outside of expo on Tuesday right before its grand openings requesting those attending to find me to answer Questions 1-6. On Wednesday we were back but from inside expo hall and reminding all to show us which videos you enjoy as assistance for my segment on the February 21st broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio. Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Manifest 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.
We conducted research for twelve additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be exclusively distributed first via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
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 Manifest live in Vegas?”.
For our coverage we will start with the easy and complete, end-to-end supply chain solution for brand owners by Aptean Supply Chain who’s logo was seen all over the registration area. Enlightening operations teams by answering the questions, “Where their stuff in the supply chain?”, Surgere enables better decisions. If ‘when’ it arrives is critical, C.R. England would like you to know their trucking services are on time 99% of the time! Moving things cross borders? Ascendia operates in 17 countries with an extensive footprint in Canada. Executives looking to automate their operations but truly desire support may appreciate finding Engineering Innovation in the expo hall.
This year we also explicitly covered some cold pack technologies and vendors leveraged for perishable goods and transportation of items that must remain refrigerated. ColdTrack is a cold chain 3pl, shipping, pick pack and storage services provider for the perishable market direct to consumer. If you need to transport up to 10,000 lbs of cold chain, Reefer Van Network was on site showcasing their solution. Wondering if your solution maintained acceptable temperature? Willog, a South Korean standout, brought their six‑metric supply‑chain intelligence to the USA. Concerned about how to get packages from an automated supply chain all the way to the door? Specifically, are the last 10 feet causing you concerns? Rivr.ai was once again onsite this year albeit capable of even heavier loads! This robot can get packages from a truck to humans at a door or a package from the human to bring to the truck.
Moving into the warehouse, for those creating machines meant to be around people but don’t want to force your customers to wear cautions vests? Matrix Design Group created robot technology enabling your system to avoid people without putting requirements on people or their clothing! Do you desire automated inventory for your cold chain inventory even though your freezer gets down to -10 degrees? Dane Technologies robots not only answer the call but come with increased safety and efficiency technology for your workflows. Perhaps loading the trailers is your pain point and you are having difficulty finding dock workers. You simply need to load and unload them and don’t want any complex technological integrations or have to bug the IT department? Expand that dream and what if I told you automation exists to load that trailer AND that it can be done in under 5 minutes? That’s right Slip Robotics has expanded their line up! Now the Slip Lift is separated from the Slip Carrier – watch how this innovation can load and unload a truck in 5 minutes. Do you want to add automation but are concerned about complex training in your brownfield facility? Yondu.ai’s drop in robot might just be the adaptable, quick-learning automation you are seeking! Order consolidation your pain point and hoping to find an automation solution? Unbox Robotics can even handle orders with multiple pieces of the same inventory and move vertically.
Moving deeper into the warehouse, Rufus Labs is redefining how one can get labor statistics with their multi-purpose hand scanner. It is valuable to note that this scanner is on the back of one’s hand, not handheld in the palm enabling. This placement enables the user to maintain full dexterity and capacity of their hands. Simply require package dimensions. This year’s show we captured FreightSnap’s dimension solution in the expo hall. For those seeking back office agentic solutions, freehand declares you no longer need to outsource. You can insource with your own AI agents!
The Manifest 2027 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Sands Convention Center on February 8-10th, 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 of products in the same category may have also been on display.
CES brought together over 148,000 attendees and 4100 exhibitors in Las Vegas. TBW Advisors LLC captured over 152 videos including 6 live streams spanning the event and locations. TBW Advisors also prepared twelve Whisper Reports for deeper analysis on emerging technologies from CES 2026. Press briefings revealed major trends, including AI adoption and global tech market projections for 2026. Captivating exhibits showcased robotics, smart home innovations, health tech, and cutting-edge enterprise solutions across multiple venues.
The Conference
A community of 148,000+ attendees gathered in Las Vegas across venues to attend CES 2026. Over 4100 exhibitors were featured.
Cautions
Just because something works and is convenient doesn’t mean your privacy is protected. In 2026, even paying for a product is no guarantee that you and your data are not also the product.
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.
Conference Vibe
After 152 videos including 6 live streams over 75 fact checks, our coverage of CES 2026 closes. CES 2026 featured over 148k+ attendees including 6900 media, and 4100 exhibitors. Registration and badge pick up occurs across all of Las Vegas from the airport to all of the hotels. Likewise, CES spans all of Las Vegas. Mandalay Bay hosts the press events on Sunday and Monday. Unveiled is also held at Mandalay Bay at the end of Sunday. Aria host media innovations much like what is shared at the NAB Show here in Las Vegas every spring.
Venetian is home to Eureka Park downstairs. Eureka park features country pavilions so one can metaphorically travel around the world to see how tech is advancing globally. The second floor at the Venetian hosts many sessions and vendor suites. Venetian Expo Hall hosts Health and lifestyle; enjoy our walkabout. Additional coverage on Health tech can be found in our coverage of HIMSS 25 and upcoming coverage in 2026. Each location also hosts its own eateries with the Venetian featuring the Cafe and the Bistro.
The newly finished Las Vegas Convention Center was absolutely shining for CES 2026. Everything BUT south Upper was leveraged for the event. West Hall featured auto and EVTOLs (electric vertical take of and landing) and related suppliers. West Hall also features it own extensive eatery. One can walk from West Hall to North or take the Vegas Loop ride to Central or South Halls. North Las Vegas Convention Center was also known as Robot Hall with enterprise AI in abundance. North Hall also featured its own in hall eatery. Outside of North Hall enroute to Central Hall there is another massive food court. Central Hall itself hosted smart tech and a lot of the major brands you recognize at home. Now that construction has completed, one can walk from Central Hall to South Hall indoors! Design and source exhibitors were featured at South Hall which also had its very own eatery.
We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage. That said, you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of CES 2025, CES 2024, or even CES 2020. In fact, we spotted vendors from every nearly every event we covered in Vegas during 2025.
We once again live streamed from on site. We successfully livestreamed on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my two segments on the January 10, 2026 syndicated broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio. Note we also discussed CES prepping on December 27, 2025, with additional coverage of CES during the January 17, 2026 edition.
While on site, we conducted research for twelve additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed first via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience or should we say re-experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: CES 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. Specifically, a montage of responses to the Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the CES 2026 live in Las Vegas?”.
At CES, Press coverage starts two days earlier than CES itself. Commencing on Sunday, we frequently begin coverage at Jetro’s Launch It run by Showstoppers. The event kicked-off with a welcome from its leader Mia Kwanda. Each presenter has 5 minutes to present to the press and investors and make their impression. The session featured Swipe, a technology to embed videos that enables viewers to select any of 360 degrees to watch the event. Perhaps seeing everything from any angle is just not enough particularly when it comes to your favorite Anime. Perhaps you wish you could virtually give your favorite character a hug? Then Gakugeki out of Japan just made your dreams come true! Expect to see the tech at your favorite theme park next summer! While greetings your favorite character may send you to the moon with joy, some companies find they want to test in microgravity. The challenge is the wait for time and expense for the ISS Space station for testing. Alternatively, one can get 45 seconds of microgravity from a Jet but that time is just too sparse for any real testing. Meet Innovative Space Carrier ready to provide affordable, autonomous, microgravity laboratories to meet your needs.
Coming back down to earth, maybe you just want an avatar BUT don’t want to spend hours creating one? Pocket RD presented their quick avatars solution ready to deliver in minutes. Just needing some privacy? Maybe so you can hold a sensitive topic meeting despite crowded shared office space? Verne Technologies believes they have the solution that will take off in their auditor privacy providing device. Office not crowded yet as you still need to hire workers but are afraid of AI cheating during the process? AI Proctor is designed to spot and stop cheating during interviews or exams. Not worried about cheating but want a co-pilot to assist in your k-12 workday – even if you are a counsellor? Wiillow may be just what you were looking for. Want to leverage your 3d printer to realize your design idea but can’t get from English to Parts to print? Great news, tokoshie had you in mind when they created their product.
After Jetro, CTA, the organization that runs CES, provides a massive press briefing on the state of the industry and the most recent data. The CTA Tech Trends video is a frequently high-flyers on our channel. Major takeaways include that the global tech and durables market is projected to reach 1.3 trillion US dollars by end of 2026. The US Consumer tech industry revenue is projected to reach 565 billion US dollars in 2026. Finally, awareness of AI exceeded 90% in European, Korean and US markets and more than 40% of people in every country used AI at work. US led the way with 63% of workers leveraging AI estimating 8.7 hours a week saved. If you have not yet enjoyed it – you will want to create a time block to watch CTA Tech Trends 2026.
Monday is another full press day. We stuck to the niche Power Sessions run by Show Stoppers, enabling us to bring you content not found anywhere else. The first session was a rather clever approach to quality control in manufacturing. Specializing in those areas still left to manual inspection due a combination of materials used and shading, Bucket Robotics goes straight from the CAD file’s .step file to quality control. No massive image capture and loading and training. Simply one machine file talking to another application. Bucket Robotics solution itself evaluates the CAD file and can accurately infer what parts match the computer design. It’s as if providing the .step file is a short cut to human intuition, or should we say in providing machine intuition?
The next session asked the question Apple doesn’t want anyone asking. “What if Siri actually worked?” Once the laughter calmed down and all witnessed the demo. We all realized we can once again refer to the phones as smart – as long as they are running AGI.inc’s software! This really is a must see, must experience solution. It was very indicative of what was to come. The realization of what intelligence in our life should and could be like to empower us to spend more time doing human things.
CES has always featured consumer technologies AND the technologies required to realize them including components and manufacturing. While the consumer face tag has officially left the event, the focus remains. With all this intelligence, Industry 5.0 is rushing into realization offering full automation including integrated quality control. To this end, Power Sessions welcomed SRK Techtronics. Born out of expertise in the detailed work of diamond cutting, SRK is a new player that expects to make a huge splash in EMS. It is helpful to note that motorcycles are called tubulars in India while listening to their session. More on their booth tour later.
Whether your facility is for manufacturing or a data center, energy is a common problem for industrial buildings. Stryten Energy is American-built and focused with 11 facilities across the US. Their lead batteries are built with a whopping 95% or more of materials from their previous recycled batteries. In addition, Stryten Energy deploys systems in lithium and vanadium chemistries depending on what your application requires.
Our final press briefing session was hosted by the National Sleep Foundation. After NSF provided a sleep data update, Smart Buds shared their brain-responsive ear buds. Unlike most earbuds that just play audio, these are also packed with three sensors. These sensors enable them to act like an EEG to pick up brain waves required to assist with sleeping. Specifically, they can enhance slow brain waves to maintain a deep sleep longer. Frenz Brainband by Earable Neuroscience is another EEG device was the first EEG wearable that won 3 CES Innovation Awards in a row 2023-2025. It is a band around the front of the head to provide accurate sleep tracking. It has been clinically proven to help you get to sleep faster. Finally, Tonino Lamborghini introduced the launch of her Super Brain product that is a collaboration between Tonino Lamborghini and Frenz for the ultimate sleep and focus device.
With the press days behind us and the show floor officially open, we now turn our attention to the exhibits. Exhibits is where the concepts introduced during briefings come to life in tangible innovations and booth experiences. Our first stop was Unveiled, the exclusive press event that kicks off CES and previews some of the most innovative technologies before the main halls open. Unveiled is a microcosm of CES generally highlighting some of the most innovative and must-see technologies. Once again, we would like to remind you to watch our previous coverage as we rarely cover a technology twice. One top 10 captured technology from last year we did visit was to capture more details including getting an update. Last year we captured the ultimate Chess Rival in Sense Robot’s automated chess game. This year Sense Robot also featured miniature chess boards and a Go board!
Unveiled set the tone for CES with a strong emphasis on innovation, and nowhere was that more evident than in robotics and physical AI. As one might expect, robots were quite popular this year at CES or should we say Physical AI. Yes physical AI is the new marketing term in 2026 as agentic AI pushes the look and feel of robots further forward. X-Origin likes to describe their offerings as Chat GPT in a device realized. On the industrial side, Widemount Dynamics Limited shared their firefighting robot. Despite the harsh temperature, low visibility and unpredictable nature of a fire, they manged to succeed in overcoming these challenges to provide a life saving robot. Additional challenges in creating robots can be the lack of a common operational control layer. Scanbotics declared they solved that problem with their brain control platform for robotics. Is model drift while operationalizing AI your major challenge? You’ll want to explore Memorence AI who aims to bridge that gap for your intelligent solutions. Additional challenges in AI, particularly edge AI is that of communication. Seeking edge connectivity for your IoT (Internet of Things) device? RiseLink would like to speak with you about their solution. Medical insoles with 6 sensors including motion sensors built in were found at the Orphie, Inc. booth. Elite athlete trying to get more data not from your motion but from your sweat? Point Fit has a human applied sweat sensor and related solution ready to provide you more insights than you thought possible. If you find yourself in need of high-speed data transfer rates, enhanced video capabilities and improved power delivery, Hyper showed off their new enclosure. Enjoy their overview of the HyperDrive Next USB4 M.2 PCIe Enclosure. Mechanical keyboard your must have list? EPOMaker shared their much in demand wares. Seeking custom microphones so you come off like a pro during your next podcast? Rode Microphones LLC has an entire portfolio sure to meet your needs. Finally, need the absolute perfect bag to carry everything in? Want your laptop to be truly protected and have an easy time at airports? Targus was thinking of you with their latest announced product.
From Unveiled, we continue our journey to the Venetian Expo exhibitions. If you found yourself smiling your way through CES, you may just want to stop by Dentomi to ensure you keep that great smile. Bringing a dentist to your phone, Dentomi enables one to leverage a cell phone to check on your gum health. Interested more in spoiling your pets? Perhaps you have a cat that just loves wet food but you find it inconvenient when you go out of town at attend CES? Petkit has you covered with some very intriguing brand-new products. Do you find yourself getting lost and looking for information booths often? This hybrid AI avitar customer support solution by Avita comes straight out of Japan with you in mind.
If you are more interested in building your own products and seeking components CES was there for you as well. If you are motor vehicle manufacturer and are seeking a navigation system, Mapbox can help you get around. Furthermore, if your vehicle is fully automated, the additional information may just provide the added context to ensure passengers feel safe. Seeking to add on a haptic interface to your solution? Haply shared their affordable, portable, flexible haptic solution with all! For organizations seeking software in the loop digital twin solution, dSPACE offers a compelling solution so you can get to market with confidence.
In business, one not only seeks technology advantages but financial advantages when you can find them. To that end, the Kyrgyz Republic was happy to make their presence known. While the country may be small, it packs quite the punch with its legal tax breaks for tech firms and a large base of talent. On site, their Republic’s booth featured .beam who, as outsources, specialize in automation to meet your every needs. A realistic speech tech by NineNineSix.ai was also featured in their country’s booth, albeit they are now based in San Francisco.
We will now move over to the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The LVCC is the largest and most dynamic hub of CES. This is where scale meets diversity, with robotics, automation, enterprise solutions, and cutting-edge components all under one roof. One of the best parts of CES is you can see the long-established companies and new to the market side by side. Part of Merck KGaA, the main parent of the Merck Group, EMD electronics has been going strong 350 years. They believe the key to their success is the 10% tithing of revenue back into R&D and where there to show you their innovations. On the other end we have the new kids on the block for EMS manufacturing with success in hand. Expanding on the press briefing, we visited SRK Techtronics for a booth tour. They shared how they brought the ‘tubular’ product (motorcycle) dream to market while realizing Industry 5.0. Furthermore, if you are seeking an EMS manufacturer, SRK Techtronics deserves a spot on your shortlist. Have an established factory but still have portions that rely on human quality control? Are your materials plastic or metal and prone to shadowing? Bucket Robotics, may be just the vendor you have been seeking. If railway innovation is what you are seeking, Israel Railway was seeking to meet you with their extensive collection of related innovations!
Power is always a great topic at CES. One great solution makes those two unexpected statements true. First, crypto mining is now possible without a separate power source. Second, in 2026, you can now turn hot water heaters into revenue! That’s correct, a water heater that crypto mines is now on the market by Superheat! Got a solar system but need better battery solution? Maybe a portable battery solution you can use away from the building with the solar system? Meet Jackery, an extendable, portable battery back up solution you may have just been looking for! Maybe you don’t need quite that much power but you want an environmental friendly power solution. Meet Flint – one of the stars of our 2025 coverage sharing the secret of their battery’s green footprint. If your requirement is ethanol but you don’t know how to create it out of thin air – meet ANA Carbasia. Yes many things are now possible in 2026.
Unlike many years, much of the technology shared applies to multiple aspects of one’s life and to different parts of the industry. For example, meet Perfect Corp. Their technology is as applicable at a doctors office as it is to providing fashion and make up advice – all in one product and one set of APIs. Speaking of the doctors office, Abbot is always striving to provide patients with more information and more insights to enable all to live life to its fullest. Seeking to enjoy life and get a flashback to the good old days of early gaming? My Arcade has a closed gaming system for retro arcade games. Their products allow one to reexperience the best from the early days of gaming including an Atari, Bandai Namco, Capcom and Sega. Not into gaming but you do want a great keyboard. Maybe you were dreaming of a carbon fiber keyboard and mouse? Announcing Dareu, top Asia market keyboard is now officially in the US.
Last but not least, for those of you who really appreciate beautiful screens. Perhaps you are waiting for all of these technologies to come together and enable the life we always heard technology would provide? Enjoy the LG Booth Tour. We once again captured their ultra-thin screens that were on full display. In addition, we received a deep dive into the LG Signature Fridge as an example of an intelligent screen endpoint. Albeit the tech from the auto sector that allows one to open the refrigerator’s door with one’s foot was also quite exciting and much needed innovation!
CES will once again return to Las Vegas for CES 2027 to take place January 6-9, 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.
Published to clients: November 10, 2025ID: TBW2125
Published to readers: November 11, 2025 am
Published to Email Whispers: November 11, 2025 pm
Public with video edition: November 12, 2025
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
ABSTRACT
AAPEX and SEMA brought together over 161,000 from the Automotive sector to Las Vegas for live presentations, interactive demos, training, education, and networking. TBW Advisors LLC captured over 140 minutes across 61 segments including two live streams and 2 miles of walkabouts across the various exhibit halls and lots. Leveraging over 1.2 million net square feet of exhibit space and additional 1 million square feet outside of the LVCC in neighboring areas including the Westgate, the event concludes with a public event, SEMA Fest.
AAPEX and SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association Show) Consistently attract over 161,000 to Las Vegas including over 70,000 buyers and 3300 media and 2400 exhibiting countries form 140 countries.
The event leverages 1.2 million net square feet of exhibit space and additional 1 million square feet outside of the LVCC in neighbouring areas including the Westgate.
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.
After almost 30,000 steps, including some 500 minutes of standing, 2 Vegas loop rides, 61 video segments including 2 live streams and 140 minutes of content, our coverage of AAPEX (Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo) and SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association Show) closes. AAPEX and SEMA consistently attract over 161,000 to Las Vegas including over 70,000 buyers and 3300 media and 2400 exhibiting countries form 140 countries. The event leverages 1.2 million net square feet of exhibit space and additional 1 million square feet outside of the LVCC in neighbouring areas including the Westgate.
Featuring over 1500 vehicles in booths and throughout the convention center and over 3,000 new products, it is THE place to be in those in the automotive sector. The combined events feature live presentations, interactive demos, training, education, and networking within the global automotive industry. That means the event featured a lot of virtual garage space.
AAPEX leveraged the full Venetian Expo lower hall, the entire upper hall including leveraging rooms for meetings and sessions. The usual Venetian eateries were available including the café, the food marketplace and the bistro! In addition, AAPEX always features the Truck Stop downstairs and a Beer Garden near the bridge to Caesars Forum. Admittedly, it is the only time I noticed the movable temporary eateries named something reflecting the nature of the conference. AAPEX also formally leverages all of Caesars Forum for exhibits.
For getting around, those wishing to zip from AAPEX over to SEMA, Caesars Forum has a Monorail station one can leverage. Buses also ran between all AAPEX and SEMA locations. Within SEMA, the West Hall and North Hall are connected via a connecting corridor that hosted the legendary SEMA Art Walk. One can also take the Vegas Loop from South Hall, Central, or West Halls to get to each other or hotels connected.
SEMA spanned the entirety of the Las Vegas Convention Center sans the new Central Hall lobby still under construction; TBW Advisors LLC was able to get a sneak speak of its upcoming grandeur. It is valuable to note that many vendors had multiple booths at both events. While in 2019 the event wasn’t sure what a technologist and data expert would do at AAPEX and SEMA, this year, just as last year featured more and more technology for us to dig into especially in North Hall. North Hall was dedicated to first-time exhibitors, business services and mobile electronics and technology. We were able to capture the Healthy eatery in North Hall while we were there. South Hall lower featured the tire expo as well as wheels and accessories. South Hall upper featured collision repair and refinishing both equipment and tools to execute. Central Hall featured racing, performance, powersports, utility vehicles, hot rod alley and the entire restoration marketplace. West Hall features all the speciality recreating, trucks, SUVs, & off-roads speciality equipment including accessories. As is customary, we also caught the food available in West Hall. SEMA is also very well known for the SEMA SHOW outdoor exhibition of cars – enjoy our walkabout.
We once again live streamed from on site. On Tuesday from AAPEX requesting those attending to find me to answer Questions 1-3, and Wednesday from SEMA SHOW to requesting assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the November 8 broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
While at AAPEX SEMA 2025, we conducted research for three additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: AAPEX SEMA 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 a montage of responses to Question 4 — “What’s the best part about attending AAPEX and SEMA live in Vegas?” — capturing the energy and moments that made the event unforgettable.
Touring the exhibits we captured, we will start with the technology to help auto shop owners be found online in the first place, AutoShop Solutions. Need to get your technicians certified? AVTECC is not just talking about certifications, they to help ensure your team has the right qualifications to meet your customer’s needs. Hunter Engineering was on hand with their portfolio of solution. Their focus is making life easier for technicians, more profitable for owners leading to happier end customers to get the word out. Boasting over 50,000 customers world-wide in 35 countries, klipboard provides solutions form point of sale through inventory management, e-commerce, and catalogue including all data for tire and service companies. If you are seeking diagnostics for anything from automotive, heavy-duty truck, all highway equipment, marine and powersport you are in luck! TEXA revealed their 5 in 1 diagnostics solution including demonstrations in their Bay at Joe’s Garage. If the challenge in your shop is diagnosing and calibrating ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) equipped vehicles, Opus IVS wants their intelligent vehicle support solution on your radar. Opus IVS is literally an entire ecosystem for the automotive aftermarket for diagnosing and calibrating ADAS equipped vehicles.
Instead of going to an Autoshop, perhaps you dream of an auto shop coming to you? Perhaps even insisting they bring OEM equipment? Then Elitek is making your dreams come true! If it isn’t necessarily about repair but a complete rebuild? Even rebuilding heavy trucks? Then LKQ has a solution to fit your needs. They can even help create parts no longer available. Have a big truck and want to avoid accidents or more specifically remove your blind spots? Voxx was very excited to share their revolutionary aftermarket product with you. Perhaps it is not so much about blind spots but recording what is going on around your vehicle? Worried about the solution failing over putting a huge drain on your batter? Having a hard time finding one with decent resolution? Or better yet one with both built in privacy so you can share your videos on line and technology to clean up plates images for accountability? One of the stars from our CES coverage, Vueroid, was back at SEMA with their high-res, never fail dashcam.
Perhaps one is seeking a fast car? Turntide was in Central Hall with their Axial Flux Motor in an All-Electric Sierra Echo-S able to reach a top speed of 140 miles an hour. Electric vehicles on your mind but are more concerned with replacing your EV battery on your car in your garage? Greentec has 35 locations across the US and include recycling capabilities. More of a traditional ‘no replacement for displacement’ combustion motors fan but find the ECU getting in the way of your performance dreams? AutoTune brought their solution able to assist you with over 21,000 different cars.
Finally as denoted, many technology companies were there to support the general business functions of the business including Lyncco with their global logistics solutions. Lyncco proudly shared they can help you optimize your entire supply chain – globally.
*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 example products in the same category may have also been on display.
Put Data First’s Inaugural event brought together a few hundred ranging from deep learning AI experts and data enthusiasts for in-depth, detailed conversations. Sponsoring vendors had demonstrations on-site to enable tangibility to their product capabilities. The event featured 23 round tables as opposed to keynotes and speakers providing an intellectually satisfying and successful networking experience for those involved.
The inaugural Put Data First made an impressive splash featuring AI experts with a long-standing track record in deep learning. This led to deep and insightful conversations by all.
Featuring 23 round tables, vendors at the show were prepared to show product demonstrations to attendees.
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.
After 3,000 steps, 30 videos, over 30 minutes of content including demos and a livestream, and a handful of fact checks, our coverage of the inaugural Put Data First held at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas closes. Registration was easy to find once inside the conference section of Planet Hollywood. Rather than endless keynote speakers, this event featured approximately 23 round tables. In addition, vendors had demonstrations so one could tangibly understand the products. What I enjoyed most was the fact that the event was full of those with deep expertise in deep learning leading to deep conversations about the state and future of various forms of AI in our enterprises and society at large. Enjoy the walkabout of the conference space.
We once again live streamed from on site. On Tuesday requesting those attending to find me to answer Questions 1-3, to introduce all to TBW Advisors LLC, and requesting assistance. Specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the November 14th broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
While at Put Data First 2025, we conducted research for three additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Put Data First 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 Question 4, “What’s the best part about attending the combination event live in Vegas?”
As mentioned earlier, Put Data First vendors didn’t just show up, but showed up with demonstrations many of which we were able to capture. Kicking things off as many do with an Agentic Workshop for your leadership teams to get your organization on the right path. Led by established AI author, Neil W. Smith, his demonstrations were live conversations with those that attended and at the round tables.
Putting data first, we will start with Mend.io whose platform can secure you application data. The demonstration shows how they help organizations pull back the shadows hiding what AI platforms are being leveraged withing their organizations. The platform monitors vulnerabilities in agentic and generative systems and tests them to ensure resilience against both known and emerging threats.
If you are seeking to secure you environment, above and beyond and including the latest threats? SafeBreach shared the details of their breach and attack platform. During their demonstration, their shared how one could drill into the various aspects of the score to identify the exact weakness to address. Not only were automated updated possible, but one could simulate a red team or blue team against their environment.
Enjoying all the newest forms of AI and convinced you want your own enterprise agentic solution? Lucky for you AnswerRocket was their to answer your need. If you have never seen or thought of the enterprise use case for the power of agentic AI, do enjoy their demo of its power.
Finally, and perhaps the star of the show, are you tired of your generative models hallucinating? Interested in a fact-based model? Well established deep-learning expert Herb Roitblat, Ph.D. was there to share Reliath AI. The demonstration of his fact-based system quickly reveal the differences behind his straight forward concept. Answer based on building up from known facts. I look forward to watching how fast and far they can run and to discover where it shines most.
Either way, fact-based models will be a critical model type to leverage in solutions that must be relied upon. Experienced AI solution developers know it’s not about a single model. The product/end result is about how a combination of models, methods, and agents are orchestrated to deliver the desired customer experience and required business outcomes that matter most.
If you are embarking on any type of data journey, be sure to schedule your inquiry with your TBW Advisors LLC analysts. You can leverage our first-hand experience through-out your transformation and future proofing processes.
We do not have exact dates for Put Data First 2026 at the time of publication; however, it is scheduled to be mid-to-late July 2026 in Las Vegas.
*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.
