Category: Conference Whispers

  • Conference Whispers: HR Tech 2025

    Conference Whispers: HR Tech 2025

    Las Vegas, NV September 16- September 18

    Published to clients: September 22, 2025                  ID: TBW2097

    Published to readers: September 23, 2025            

    Published to Email Whispers: September 24, 2025

    Public with video edition: September 24, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): D. Doreen Galli At HRTECH 2025, more than 10,000 attendees gathered in Las Vegas to explore the technologies shaping the full employee lifecycle—from recruiting and benefits to human capital management. With 433 exhibitors, including ninety-four startups, the expo floor was the largest in the event’s history. Our team captured over 120 minutes of footage across forty-nine videos and three livestreams, documenting not just the tech but the tone of the conversations. While generative AI continues to blur lines with legacy automation, the real story lies in how HR leaders are rethinking org design, talent matching, and employee care.

    The Conference

    • A community of 10,000 gathered for HRTECH2025. The event featured 433 exhibitors including ninety-four startups.
    • HR Tech featured technologies a human resource professional and department would need through the entire employee relationship lifecycle.

    Cautions

    • The conflation of AI for artificial intelligence that has been around for decades and the newer generative AI that can hallucinate continues in prevalence.
    • 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 49 videos and over 120 minutes of video including three livestreams and over forty-five fact checks, our coverage of HR Tech 2025 closes. HR TECH 2025 gathered 10,000 human resource technology enthusiasts from around the world including USA, Canada, UK, Sweden, Germany, Japan, China, India, Australia, and UAE. Expo Hall was just shy of 100,000 square feet and displayed 433 exhibiters including ninety-four startups surpassing all year’s prior! Registration had no lines whatsoever. We were able to capture the breakfast on Wednesday.

    We once again live streamed from on site. On Tuesday requesting those attending to find me to answer Questions 1-3, Wednesday to let you know about upcoming events we have scheduled and to introduce all to TBW Advisors LLC, as well as Thursday from Expo hall itself requesting assistance. Specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the September 20th broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

    While at HRTECH 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.

    1. Whisper Report: What’s the biggest AI risk in HR no one talks about?
    2. Whisper Report: How should CTOs rethink org design with GenAI?
    3. Whisper Report: What HR tech trend will disrupt engineering hiring next?

    Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: HRTECH 2025 Playlist in its entirety. Once the video edition is available, the playlist will be sited as a pinned comment on the video edition. It is also easy to locate any previous Conference Whispers playlists through TBW Advisors LLC corporate website.

    Recruiting

    One of the more fascinating aspects of HRTECH 2025 was to see how recruiting may be expanding or dare I say, finally improving past trying to box engineers into keyword searches, Booleans, and over filtering. Endorsed AI is an agentic solution that understands, for example, all the nuances and behaviors software engineers are involved in providing a fuller picture to match talent over traditional systems. Understanding that interviews do not accurately represent how one will perform as an employee, FitFirst allows organizations to identify the talent they want. Gem is an AI first recruiting platform focused on finding you your next gem of an employee. HeyMilo focuses on recruiting at scale even providing adaptive interviewing capabilities.

    If you need is strictly on technology to parse resumes, RChilli specializes in exactly that! However, if you want to find tech beyond ATS (applicant tracking systems) perhaps with a side of Employee of Record tech (EOR) – olamee can handle even mid-size organizations.

    Benefits & Employee Care

    An important aspect of recruiting and maintain employees is that of benefits. As such, it is no surprise to find technologies in the benefits space. If managing benefits on a global scale has got you overwhelmed, Benifex specializes in global benefits for 120 countries. Seeking a modern benefits platform leveraging AI from the ground up vs bolt on legacy solutions? Aptia would be one to add to your evaluation list. If, in caring for your employees, you simply want a direct answer to the question, “How are you doing?” Lollipop was on site sharing their solution. If you are seeking analytics in general over everything about your employees, One Model was on site.

    If you are attempting to make training interesting in your organization, Atensi has a gamification solution ready for you to evaluate. If your challenge is more about the acquire, deploy, cultivate/train and redeploy life cycle of employees, Eightfold AI may be on your radar. However, if your employees are demanding payroll in a stable coin crypto current – Pebl has a solution already worked out for you to deploy quickly.

    HCM Human Capital Management

    If your business employes front line workers, Fountain has a front-line worker operating system design to give you speed across the entire process. If you are in the SMB space, BambooHR is designed to empower your HR teams. Perhaps your HR team is exceptionally lean and you need technology so you can still get the job done? HireRoad was designed with you in mind. An enterprise HCM solution that also provides an Employee Gateway Management Systems, Darwinbox believes their solution will make all the difference. If you are seeking an HCM solution with a side of services, Paychex was in expo hall for you.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    HRTECH 2026 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at Mandalay Bay Convention Center on October 20-22, 2026.

    *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.

    TBW Logo

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    ©2019-2025 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, The Answer is always in the Whispers, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo 2025

    Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo 2025

    Las Vegas, NV September 2- September 7

    Published to clients: September 15, 2025                      ID: TBW2093

    Published to readers: September 16, 2025            

    Published to Email Whispers: TBD

    Public with video edition: TBD

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): D. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    “After 79 videos and 175 minutes of video including 3 livestreams and over 45 fact checks, out coverage of Commercial UAV Expo 2025 closes. Our coverage from Commercial UAV Expo 2025 explores the evolving landscape of drone innovation, enterprise operations, and regulatory strategy. This research highlights examples shared across keynotes, technologies, and industry use cases. Readers are encouraged to explore the full edition for insights into the trends shaping unmanned systems and their impact on commercial and strategic decision-making.”

    After 79 videos and 175 minutes of video including 3 livestreams and over 45 fact checks, out coverage of Commercial UAV Expo 2025 closes. CUAV brought together over 3393 drone enthusiasts from over 62 countries. Registration had no lines whatsoever. We were able to capture the lunch served on Wednesday as well as breakfast on Thursday. This time we once again tried out the live streams with one on Tuesday requesting those attending to find me to answer Questions 1-3, Wednesday to let you know about upcoming events we have scheduled, as well as Thursday from Expo hall itself requesting assistance. Specifically I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the September 6th broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

    While at Commercial UAV Expo 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.

    1. Whisper Report: What’s the biggest UAV threat CIOs aren’t ready for?
    2. Whisper Report: How will drones change enterprise data strategy?
    3. Whisper Report: What’s the most underrated UAV use case in industry?

    Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo 2025 Playlist in its entirety. Once the video edition is available, the playlist will be sited as a pinned comment on the video edition. It is also easy to locate any previous Conference Whispers playlists through TBW Advisors LLC corporate website.

    Keynotes and Sessions

    At the Commercial UAV Expo we were excited we could cover the keynotes this year. The opening monologue set the stage. Buzz Solutions Kaitlyn Albertoli kicked off the event with 5 tips for overcoming inaction in your drone problem. This was followed by a great case study fireside chat with her client Dominion Energy. Dominion’s Thomas F. Butler emphasized that collaboration is the key to success. This was followed by a fascinating case study of how drones were used to capture the stunning beauty of the Grand Canyon.

    Commercial UAV Expo’s team content manager, Matt Collins welcomed all back on Thursday morning. The Keynote panel was hosted by Cyberhawk’s CEO Chris Fleming. Collaboration was the key emphasis and produced one of our favorite quotes of the event. “Safety is not Proprietary”. The session also provided many insights for succeeding with FAA paperwork be it waivers or permits. The morning keynote was concluded with the awarding of the 2025 Eric Talley Memorial Award to Officer Matt Rowland.

    DRONES

    When one attends a Commercial UAV expo, it is not unusual to see a lot of drones including a variety of specialty drones. IPET drones’ propellers and motors come as a set, easily snap on and off, and are notoriously quiet. These propellers also enable very quick maintenance. If you are seeking a variety of drones including nano drones, Ascent Aviation shared their wares. Need to cover remote areas? Starling’s drone in a box even can automatically manage between the three batteries possible in the box with the drone. Perhaps you need to deal with the chemicals of agriculture? Central UAS drones are specifically designed to handle the agricultural and pest spray space. If chain of custody regarding the cargo for applications such as medical deliveries, blueflite drones have you covered. Heavy cargo? FlyingBasket can handle 100 kilo cargo with a 200-kilo capable drone coming by year’s end. Parallel Flight Technologies are hybrid drones and can handle 100 pounds for 1.4 hours or 50 pounds for almost 3 hours. Finally if you want a tethered drone or want to convert your drone to a tethered drone, ELISTAIR came to Vegas all the way from France share their solution.

    If you were seeking a distributor for drones, there were a number of options on site. One example was Frontier that represents product lines from over 40 different manufacturers. Another example was Multicopter. They consider themselves a drone provider with their advantage being NOT offering services. This eliminates competing with the manufacturers themselves. They enjoyed speaking both with drone manufacturers on site as well as customers seeking a great source to purchase their enterprise drones.

    Finally, one of the great challenges for all drone manufacturers is testing their drones. Filing all that paperwork and enduring the FAA delays can interfere with business. Ukraine, represented by their San Fransico Consulate, Consul General Dmytro Kushneruk wanted drone manufacturers to know that you are welcome in Ukraine. Unlike the US, it is only a matter of a few weeks to get approval for testing. They also have scenarios not generally available. This has resulted in over 2,000 drone producers coming out of Ukraine.

    Communications

    A universal need for drones is the ability to communicate either back to their controller or back to the enterprise. Teal.io specializes in mission critical infrastructure. With one SIM card you can connect to 100’s a networks via a single pane of glass including the ability to switch networks. GEODNET represents the largest RTK network – real-time kinematics makes GPS significantly more accurate which is required with drones. If you are concerned about GPS getting jammed, TUALCOM operates in anti-jam, electronic warfare, data links, flight termination, terrestrial navigation, and 4G and 5G as well as telemetry devices. Of course, alternatively one could leverage Anello Photonics’ World’s smallest optical gyroscope to ensure your navigation in the event GPS is blocked, spoofed or jammed. This year they brought their new maritime solution to expo hall.

    Components

    As many drone manufacturers are gathering, those creating components and parts for drone those very manufacturers are also exhibiting. On the power side, if you are familiar with the benefits and challenges of hydrogen, H2MOF does not store it as a gas or liquid – enjoy their video to learn more! Do you want to further reduce the weight of your aircraft? Are you hoping to save a little money over carbon fibre? Mag Materials, a magnesium specialist, may be the vendor you have been looking for. If you need LiDAR sensors but could use help on the entire end to end picture? Green Valley International is looking forward to speaking with you. Finally, if your drones deal with harsh, hot environments? Pelican Wire has heat resistant custom wire to fit your needs. In fact, they had three different types of specialized wire on display. In addition to the heat resistant, they shared their Thermocouple/RTD wires which measure temperature, resistance wires that generates heat, and various other custom engineered wire solutions for specific customer applications.

    Compliance

    With the October 6, 2025, deadline to comment on Part 108 for the FAA’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking fast approaching – it was the talk of the town. We were able to capture an exclusive summary of the panel discussing everyone’s primary concerns. This conversation highlighted many areas of concern and critical tips to ensure your comments are counted and matter. Once 108 passes, many drone manufacturers may be seeking components that can enable compatibility with the rules. To that end, uAvioni has been developing technology aligned with the proposed rules and is ready to serve. Part 108 is all about making the skies safe and enabling objects to navigate amongst each other. For pilots have concerns, DSPA – drone service providers alliance -is a group advocating exclusively on behalf of pilots on the local and national level.  

    Drone Operations

    At the enterprise level, drone operations require a lot of strategic thought, planning and technology. We first heard of the enterprise AI powered visual intelligence of Buzz Solutions during the keynote. The emphasis is always getting all of the information out of the data you can for all the use cases available for a given data set. Collect once, use many times was a common theme at the event this year. AirData provides a fleet management solution to manage all your UAS fleets, pilots, certifications, checklists and the likes. If your industry requires the handling of special care cargo, Apco Defence has a highly innovative drone recovery systems with technology to provide a soft landing. If your challenge is understand where that fleet of drones and aircraft are flying, ALOFT can enable you to visualize your airspace.

    Frequently, drones are requested in locations a great distance from population making them difficult jobs to accept. Some drone operators got together with Custome Trailers to create a remote operating hub for drone operators. The result is Drone Pro Trailer and the Drone Ops Company.

    Pilots are a required part of every organization. If you want enable them to virtually practice, Zepher has your covered over a large variety of aircraft. Looking to prepare your pilots for certifications? USI shared their enterprise solution. Expanding the team? The Neuro Diversity Works organization may have just the talent you are seeking!

    Next Year’s Conference  

    Commercial UAV Expo 2026 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at Caesars Forum on September 1-3, 2026.

    *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.

    TBW Advisors LLC Logo

    Corporate Headquarters

    2884 Grand Helios Way

    Henderson, NV 89052

    ©2019-2025 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, The Answer is always in the Whispers, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: Black Hat USA 2025

    Conference Whispers: Black Hat USA 2025


    Las Vegas, NV August 2- August 7

    Published to clients: August 11, 2025                                 ID: TBW2089

    Published to readers: August 12, 2025                  

    Published to Email Whispers: TBD

    Public with video edition: TBD

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): D. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    After 61 videos including 4 first ever onsite livestreams, 150 minutes of recording including multiple exclusive shots – our coverage of Black Hat USA 2025 closes. Black Hat USA 2025 featured over 100 briefings and 120 sponsored sessions, with coverage spanning keynote presentations, technical sessions, and exhibit hall innovations. Topics ranged from AI-driven threat detection and agentic SOC platforms to identity verification and proactive risk management. Trends in cybersecurity regarding defence, use of AI agents, and focus on resiliency continue to grow.

    The Conference

    • Black Hat USA 2025 featured over one hundred briefings and 120 sponsored sessions. Attendance numbers are forthcoming. 2024’s edition featured over 20,000 in person attendees.

    Cautions

    • Black hat is not a conference to attend without preparation. All of one’s technology should be up to date. One should ensure they are leveraging a VPN and a RDID wallet when intentionally going around black hat. If not using one’s phone, a portable faraday pouch is always beneficial.
    • 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 61 videos and related fact checks, over 150 minutes of recording including for the first time ever – four onsite LIVESTREAMS – our coverage of Black Hat USA 2025 closes. Black Hat featured over one hundred briefings and 120 sponsored sessions. Clients may recall the expo hall restrictions during our coverage of HIMSS which treated the entire expo hall like a surgical operating room from a privacy perspective. Guess what? It was even tighter at Black Hat. Nonetheless, we were able to capture the energy as Expo Hall was opening. Not only that, for the first time ever, Informa (who owns Black Hat) gave permission to someone to do a walkabout in Expo Hall prior to its opening for the day. That’s right – enjoy your exclusive look at Black Hat USA 2025 Expo Hall. Not only that, we were able to capture the mouthwatering lunch served on Wednesday. Once again, unlike most events, the What’s To Eat? Video does not include any attendees enabling us to really get a great shot of the food! A first for TBW Advisors LLC – we did four livestreams while on site. One live stream on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning. One final livestream went out on Thursday as I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the August 9th broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

    While at Black Hat USA 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.

    1. Whisper Report: What’s the biggest cybersecurity myth in 2025?
    2. Whisper Report: Can AI defend against AI-powered attacks?
    3. Whisper Report: What’s the next SolarWinds-level breach waiting to happen?

    Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Black Hat USA 2025 Playlist in its entirety. Once the video edition is available, the playlist will be sited as a pinned comment on the video edition. It is also easy to locate any previous Conference Whispers playlists through TBW Advisors LLC corporate website. Additional cybersecurity conference research is available via Conference Whispers: Identiverse and Conference Whispers: ISC West.

    Keynotes and Sessions

    Kicking off in dramatic fashion, the conference kicked off with an amazing keynote from non-other than the most famous virus hunters – Mikko Hypponen and father of the Hypponen law of IoT security – one of our favorite coverage spaces. Specifically, Mikko said that if a device is smart, it is vulnerable. It was amazing to hear his story.

    On the bleeding edge of things, we received two session summaries from Microsoft’s Thomas Roccia. The first session was his Black Hat session on NOVA – Prompt Pattern Matching regarding a new type of threat gaining traction. The second session is actually at DEFCON – the sister conference where no one would be ignorant enough to bring in modern technology outside of a faraday cage. Fortunately, we caught Thomas while at Black Hat. IN this talk Thomas shared that they are releasing an AI Agent to track crypto currency’s movements including visualization to combat crypto money laundering. The final Microsoft session itself that we captured is the Unmasking of Cyber Villains. I always love when engineers get a very loud boastful ovation from the audience. This stage featured the heroes of MISTIC and Dart who shared how they leverage each other’s strength. MISTIIC stands for Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center while Dart stands for Microsoft’s Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset. In this session, the Microsoft team emphasized that incidents require empathy, speed, and precision. The Darth team is on the ground delivering the empathy and getting the data to MISTIC. MISTIC in turn, provides the cheat codes to the Darth rescue team to quickly combat the incident.

    On the topic of using AI Agents on a team of humans in wish SOC, James Spiteri from Elastic Security shared a summary of his session. “AI without Borders: Extending analysts capabilities in a modern Soc” dove into details how Agents and humans can successfully interoperate in a SOC. James also covered critical questions you need to think about in order to truly operationalize this type of situation. 

    Exhibits

    As with many events, some exhibits span outside of the formal expo hall. We were invited to the Dune Security Command Center on site where we heard about their solution. Their adaptive training uses a personal credit risk scoring model. It targets each employee’s risky actions and knowledge gaps with customized, targeted, proactive program. The goal is to elevate them to meet corporate standards. This theme of preparation, training, and doing things up-front was definitely a theme. Cumulated shared how their solution focuses on resiliency. Given that the proper way to discuss it is always when and not if, it is wise to ensure a quick recovery when it occurs. This preparation and looking out for the threat aligned with Qualys’s Risk Operations Center. This center is focused on assisting organization proactively identify, prioritize, and finally remediate identified risks. Covering all five personas in a SOC (alerts, vulnerabilities, threat intel, case management and DFIR (digital forensics/incident response )) StrikeReady’s platform integrates with 800 tools and is focused on removing each role’s pain points. Continuous Threat Exposure Management or CTEM is the area addressed most recently by Safe Security. Booli also moves things earlier in the process, in their case identity stitching. Specifically at the very beginning of the process including score carding the identity and providing the information back to the identity service. Ensuring stolen credentials are changed once they have been phished and the criminals attempted to leverage them, Mokn was on site to tell attendees about their solution.

    If your organization would prefer to fix vulnerabilities instead of the common security software composition analysis, Heeler Security was the booth to visit. Feeling overwhelmed, by cloud configurations in your organization? imPac Labs was on site talking about their expertise. Admittedly, given my Microsoft Patent application on Policy Profiles, cloud configurations is a problem space on our radar at TBW Advisors. Speaking of high availability environments, HAProxy Technolog exhibited their platform that brings enterprise security performance and configurability into packaged software.

    An area we have discussed in Conference Whispers: Money 20/20, Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025, and Conference Whispers: Fintech Meetup 2025 – verifying the hardware device is a valuable defence vector for fighting fraud. At Black Hat USA 2025 we met SmallStep that enables device identity with cryptographic identity ensuring corporate devices are used to perform work. Leveraging device identification to eliminate deepfakes within a corporation, Netarx leverages multiple models to ensure your corporate communications are safe from deep fakes. Elastic Search – an open-source project known for search – found itself building native security and analytics due to popular demand.

    Moving into the agentic side of things, Microsoft’s AI Agent Challenge was a big hit. Their booth had plenty of specialists on site to answer any of your questions. Focusing exclusively on AI Agents for the Red Team, Mindgard’s solution keeps probing to find vulnerabilities, filters through them based on your target and context. Finally, remediation advise is dispensed. Cyata built a built a control plane for Agentic Identity and includes policy enforcement. Addressing the full lifecycle above and beyond triage, Exaforce shared their Agentic SOC Platform. A demo of Exaforce was also captured. Finally, if you are unfamiliar with the current state of agents or have never seen an agent in action, enjoy the video with Ralph. Ralph comes from Cyber Innovate; a think tank focused on stopping threats from AI Agents themselves.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    Black Hat USA 2026 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at Mandalay Bay Convention Center in August 2026. The exact dates have yet to be announced at time of publication.

    *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.

    TBW Advisors Logo

    Corporate Headquarters

    2884 Grand Helios Way

    Henderson, NV 89052

    ©2019-2025 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, The Answer is always in the Whispers, 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.

  • Conference Whisper: Identiverse 2025

    Conference Whisper: Identiverse 2025

    Published to clients: June 10, 2025                                       ID: TBW2083

    Published to readers: June 11, 2025                      

    Published to Email Whispers: August 18, 2025

    Publicly Published with video edition: August 18, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): D. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    Identiverse 2025 welcomed 3,300+ attendees to Mandalay Bay – nearly a 20% gain over 2024. Featuring 250+ sessions and 150 exhibits all on one floor, the event was smooth and accessible. Keynotes and sessions emphasized teamwork, resilience, and collaboration, while exploring AI in identity, decentralized credentials, and zero-trust implementation. Exhibitors showcased innovations from selfie-based authentication to intelligent access control and secrets vault cleanup. The shift from Aria to Mandalay Bay marked a new chapter for the expanding event, which returns to Mandalay Bay in 2026.

    The Conference

    • Identiverse 2025 was held at Mandalay Bay Convention Center, a move from Aria in 2024. It hosted 3300 attendees, 250 sessions and 150 exhibitors.

    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.

    TAGS

    Identiverse 2025, digital identity, identity security, zero trust, AI in cybersecurity, decentralized identity, verifiable credentials, identity governance, privileged access management, IAM, IGA, cybersecurity conference, Mandalay Bay, authentication, biometrics, secrets management, SSO, MFA, ITDR, access control, enterprise security, digital trust, identity trends, identity innovation, conference highlights, tech expo, identity tech, identity solutions, cybersecurity trends, identity keynote, identity management

    Conference Vibe

    After over 53 videos, almost 200 minutes of content only 2 escalator rides, 30,000 steps and over 25 fact checks, our coverage of 2025 Identiverse ends. The event spanned 4 days, had over 250 speakers, 150 exhibits and with over 3300 attendees – 700 more registered over last year. Registration went very smooth with rarely any waiting time. Interestingly, we were informed many registered late. Executives realize that reducing risks and therefore related losses is a viable path to protecting profits in uncertain times. This year’s event took place at Mandalay Bay Convention Center, a change from Aria last year. Most enjoyed the conference taking place all on the same floor. It was great to see the conference grow and expand. Like all changes, there were the old timers yearning for the days when they all packed into too small rooms at Aria. Unfortunately, some of the sessions located physically further from Expo Hall reported some in person attendance challenges from those too tired to walk to the room. The event featured a full collection of meals. We were able to capture the Tuesday Seminar’s Lunch and the lunch on Wednesday in Expo Hall.

    While at Identiverse, 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.

    1. Whisper Report: How can organizations implement zero-trust security without disrupting user experience?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the latest advancements in decentralized identity and verifiable credentials?
    3. Whisper Report: How can AI and behavioral analytics enhance identity security?

    Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Identiverse Playlist in its entirety. Once the video edition is available, the playlist will be sited as a pinned comment on the video edition. It is also easy to locate any previous Conference Whispers playlists through TBW Advisors Website under Subscribers research/Conference Whispers.

    Keynotes and Sessions

    Identiverse is absolutely one of those events where regardless of the amazing session you choose, you are aware you are also missing an incredible session – or two. Fear of missing out was rampant. Fortunately, we were able to capture 53 videos for our clients and subscribers. The first Keynote featured John Pritchard, CEO of Radiant Logic. Titled, “Identity isn’t a solo Game” it drove home the message that one cannot succeed in identity without collaboration with the professionals around you throughout the organization and with others in the industry.

    Another frequently referred to keynote featured the UK’s Hanna Rutter who is realizing their government digital identity solution. In her talk she spoke about the challenges of such a decentralized digital identity solution and how she is overcoming roadblocks on her path to success. A much in demand topic regarding identity challenges in the realm of AI was presented by Richard Bird. A tech talk held in the expo hall was hosted by Microsoft. Their tech talk covered the hot topic of ITDR, Identity threat detection and response.

    Exhibits

    Identity is a topic found not only in the expo halls of Identiverse, but was also seen in the halls of HIMSS, Fintech Meetup, Money 20/20 and ISC West just to name a few. What is interesting is the different manners of vendors describe their technology. At ISC West, vendors in the expo hall spoke in terms of a solution. They would always emphasize the PII information is not on the badge, rather a hash of the biometric data which enables verification is provided instead. While this was not clarified on the videos at Identiverse, the vendors later disclosed the same technical approach that was taken on the technology captured at Identiverse. If you are seeking a tap-in to sign-in on a shared device for your organization, Imprivata was in the expo hall with their solution. If you would like to verify the customer requesting the high-risk transaction is the same customer who signed up for the account, Panani shared their technology. Keyless offers a solution to authenticate high risk actions with a selfie. If you are an engineer developing a solution and need the capability to onboard customers, no need to start at square one! PropelAuth provides an out of the box identity capability you can add on to your solution to onboard customers! Seeking to manage your remote teams and seeking a cost effective out of the box solution to provide SSO and MFA? Cubeless shared their free and easy SSO and MFA solution made for you. 

    Is managing privileges gotten to be too much for you and your organization? Apono Unified Access Management is an intelligent solution that aims to provide just enough just in time privilege for human and non-human-identities (NHI). Oasis goes one step further in managing AI Agents’ Identity, provisioning, deprovisioning and cleaning up stale accounts. Are your coders overwhelmed trying to identity what secrets vault to use so they land up hardcoding the secret? Is your organization suffering from identity vault sprawl? GitGuardian was on hand with their solution that can assist you in identifying and remediating secrets vault sprawl.

    Expo hall also featured quite a few IGA (identity governance and administration) and PAM (privileged access management) platforms. Omada captured their 25-years’ IGA experience into a free best practice framework. This framework includes use cases and related configuration recommendations for their platform, Omada Identity Cloud. Lumos shared their agentic AI autonomous IGA solution. This solution can even recommend what privileges a new employee should get based on their role and department. If you have a small but complex environment, Clarity Security has an IGA solution targeted at your organization.

    Keeper Security shared their zero-knowledge identity solution for endpoints. Their solution is referred to as zero knowledge as the customer’s data is encrypted on the endpoint with the customers key; meaning, Keeper Security has no access to customer data whatsoever. Bridgesoft shared their complete identity platform that also can adapt and include any components that may already exist in your environment. Specializing at the start of the process, CyberSolve helps organizations commence new identity programs. Looking for IAM services across the portfolio? Simeio was on site there to offer guidance. Clients are reminded to schedule an inquiry to review the current state of your identity program. If you are seeking to expand it or modernize it, we will produce an inquiry plan to guide you along the journey even if you are working with an outsource provider or consultant.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    Identiverse will once again be held at Mandalay Bay Convention Center June 15-18, 2026.

    *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.

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    ©2019-2025 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, The Answer is always in the Whispers, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: Customer Connect Expo 2025

    Conference Whispers: Customer Connect Expo 2025

    Las Vegas, NV April 16-April 17

    Published to clients: April 22, 2025                                                   ID: 2078        

    Published to readers: April 23, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:    

    After over 200 minutes of recording, 6 flights of stairs, and over 30 factchecks, our coverage of the rebranded Customer Connect Expo 2025 or CCE25 closes. The event featured over 43 keynotes and seminars and over 200 vendors exhibiting. Keynotes included discussions on customer loyalty, employee satisfaction, data-driven personalization, and AI in customer experience. A seminar focused on enhancing call centers with AI agenst is also included. Exhibits ranged from technology supporting customer experience and call centers, data consolidation and customer 360, to entire platforms and BPO services.

    Analysis only available to clients at this time.

    ©2019-2025 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, The Answer is always in the Whispers, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: ISC West 2025

    Conference Whispers: ISC West 2025

    Las Vegas, NV March 31-April 4

    Published to clients: April 7, 2025         ID: TBW2069  

    Published to readers: April 8, 2025           

    Published to Email Whispers: July 28, 2025 12pm.

    Publicly Published with video edition: July 28. 2025 2pm.   

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    After capturing almost 50 videos, over 150 minutes of content and countless shorts forthcoming, our coverage of ISC West 2025 closes. Attendees gathered for ISC West 2025 held in Las Vegas March 31-April 4. The event featured innovations in video surveillance, driver-assisted systems, palm vein identity solutions, edge AI, and gunshot detection. Exhibits included AI vision, camera intelligence, and layered security solutions. TBW Advisors was able to capture exclusive content from the live sessions as well as full details on top products at exclusive Press Briefings.

    Cautions

    • ISC West offers the option to print your badge at home. It is important to note that you not only need your badge holder and lanyard on site, but you still must wait in the registration line. Specifically, you must present and verify your ID to get a sticker on your badge for it to be useful. IF you only snag the badge holder, you will land up back at the long registration lines.

    Conference Vibe

    Our coverage of ISC West 2025 includes over 38 videos and over 150 minutes of video content spanning session summaries, product overviews, and answers to three urgent questions. There will be countless shorts forthcoming so save the entire Conference Whispers: ISC West 2025 playlists by clicking on the book mark symbol. Registration was quite interesting for the x attendees as one could print the badge at home but still required face to face registration to get the validation sticker. Held at Venetian, the customary Venetian Café Presse was open as well as the Venetian Food Marketplaces within expo hall if you got hungry. The event seemed to exceptionally crowded as you can feel as all waited for expo* hall to open and was loud enough to trigger a 100db warning on my watch. Upon clearing security, endless exhibits featuring massive amounts of vision AI,  AI video analysis, IoT sensor data, and complex security identity solutions bridging the physical and cyber worlds.

    While at ISC West, we conducted research for three 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.

    1. Whisper Report: How can we enhance our cybersecurity measures to protect against emerging threats?  
    2. Whisper Report: What are the best practices for integrating AI and machine learning into our security systems?
    3. Whisper Report: How can we ensure compliance with new and evolving security regulations?

    Sessions and Press Event

    We are excited to share that we have two exclusive pieces of content where the presenters gave a special overview just for TBW Advisors LLC, our clients, and subscribers. First, we have the session by Intel RealSense. This session focused on the combination the long history in vision and the long history of AI together to successfully create the current generation of facial recognition for the purpose of useful Identity and Access Management via the biometric field of one’s face. Keep in mind, data representing one’s face is PII or personally identifiable information. While not healthcare, the protection of PII requires the same care as all PII data as discussed during our coverage of Conference Whispers: HIMSS 25.

    The second session summary we were also treated to includes a look at when cyber and physical security combine. Operations and IT coordinating to achieve a business function is quite common. As anyone who has been a corporate CIO in an organization with physical buildings knows, security is security. Physical security must interface with IT systems to understand who is permitted to do what. Historically, if physical security fails, IT systems are always at a higher risk due to information being left around or the increased attack surfaces made available via the ability to physically access a network terminal or a server itself depending on the organization. In 2025, the rush to get data from everything connected to survive the pandemic or to rush ahead with AI solutions has increased possible attack surfaces. The confluence of these scenarios together has made the Cyber Physical Security practice space blossom so expect to hear and see a lot more in this space for the foreseeable future.

    Whenever given the chance, we try to bring unique content and details about the companies at the conferences to you. At ISC West we were able to attend a special, press only event held by Taiwan Excellence better known as Taitra. Taitra’s mission is to help spread the word around the world about innovations coming out of Taiwan by featuring some of their companies. The editor in Chief for Security Today Magazine, Ralph Jensen also spoke at this event to kick it off. We were able to capture the full 10-minute presentations for each of the 6 technologies featured!

    The first technology featured is Cyberlink. Cyberlink provides extensive video surveillance capabilities including the ability to successfully track people. In the event of a violent attack or a lost child, finding the desired human being from all the surveillance video available can be quite timely without the right technology. Cyberlink’s people tracking works even if the face is not visible on the video through posture, clothing, or body movement signature.

    Advanced driver-assisted systems (ADAS) are popular in automobiles but for larger vehicles it is still newer due to the complexity and size of semi-trucks. EverFocus gave the press an in-depth overview of their current solution including the company’s success in obtaining many Taiwan and global certifications enabling deployment.

    The third technology presented at the event was Himax with their palm vein identity solution. As this contactless solution works even if a surgeon has scrubbed for surgery and put on their two pairs of surgical gloves, this technology could have easily been featured at HIMSS25 or Identiverse. Himax is not only known for their palm vein identity solution but also for their ultralow power AI processor that runs their solution and is available on the market as WiseEye.

    The fourth and fifth companies presenting both featured edge solutions. Kneron featured a general-purpose secure full stack edge AI solution that support AI services at the edge for a large variety of use cases. One example is combing standard RGB video with thermal camera information for a cohesive image to properly identity living beings or animals in the camera’s view. Likewise, Vivotek specializes in IP Surveillance solutions including network cameras, network video recorders (NVRs) and related software solutions and accessories.

    Exhibits

    The product mix set at ISC West is interesting as it spans AI vision, Camera Intelligence, surveillance, and identity. Let’s start with the best in show new product two-time award winner, Vaidio. Vaidio provides an AI vision platform leveraging their deep AI expertise. Their belief is you should be able to point a camera at anything and make it safer. Safr is a vision AI solution focuses on facial recognition and liveness verification for live video including watchlist alarms. We also had an extensive booth tour by Intel RealSense. As you can see, their solution is quite easy to integrate for developers. Enrolment is quite simple. Their chip/software solution is integrated into many of the products on the floor. They also provided a live demonstration of their solution in action. If you are famous or a high NetWorth  individual and you are not comfortable with your personal identity or other information floating around the web, 360 Privacy was there with their solution.

    Advancis is 30-year-old company that provides a one-stop identity solution that focuses on integrating as many hardware devises as possible. It currently can integrate with over 550 hardware devices on which it can capture and verify credentials. They add support for approximately 30 devices each year. Also playing in the Physical Identity and Access Management (PIAM) space is RightCrowd. RightCrowd specializes in complex scenarios for organizations with many employees, many visitors across many locations. For those seeking a PIAM solution leveraging facial recognition or fingerprints, Bioconnect might be on your radar. Bioconnect integrates with the top 8 IAM platforms in the market. For a layered security approach, dormakaba provided TBW Advisors LLC with an exclusive booth tour walking through their offering and various layers. If any of the biometric or other identity information needs to be put on a secure card with any of the contact and contactless embedded technology, Dascom was on site. Their printer can securely hold up to 200 finished product cards until a batch is completed and retrieved.

    Diving more into the physical security aspects, LVT provides a mobile security unit that is rapidly deployable. LVT’s low power solution leverages cellular connectivity and high scalability for future proofing its deployment. Underneath the surface, LVT leverage the latest in agentic AI capabilities within its solution to provide these advanced capabilities. Another agentic AI solution that

    stops threats without human intervention based on video surveillance, Spot.ai might be on your radar. As an Agentic AI solution, Spot.ai not only detects an issue but can automatically handle the threat in 90% of the cases. Specifically, the solution will automatically be able to execute things like intimidating announcements, spotlights on, and following the potential threat as well as turn on sirens. The solution notifies a humans if the automation determents fail.

    Finally, if safety and security means identification of a gun shot and its source, Databuoy was on hand. With technology funded by DARPA, their solution is just as effective in your closest metropolitan area as it is in a urban combat.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    ISC West 2026 conference will once again be held at the Venetian in Las Vegas, Nevada. The dates are yet to be announced for 2026.

    *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.

    ©2019-2025 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, The Answer is always in the Whispers, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: Fintech MeetUp 2025

    Conference Whispers: Fintech MeetUp 2025

    Las Vegas, NV March 10-13

    Published: March 17, 2025              ID: 2065

    Published to Readers: March 18, 2025

    Published to Email Whispers: June 25, 2025

    Analyst(s): Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT:

    The 2024 Fintech Meetup experienced a 25% increase in size, featuring over 50,000 one-on-one meetings. Key areas of interest included development environments, product connectors, customer engagement solutions, and ACH payment simplification. Risk management and compliance were significant themes, with solutions for identifying threats, ensuring regulatory adherence, and verifying new clients. Identity verification and fraud prevention were also highlighted. Global risk decisioning platforms and extensive marketplaces were showcased, along with solutions for digital payouts, gift cards, and depositor retention.

    The Conference

    • Fintech MeetUp 2025 was held in Las Vegas, Nevada and had just over 5,000 registered attendees including over 1000 CEOs, with diverse collection of exhibiting companies. Over 50,000 one-on-one meetings were also scheduled.

    Cautions

    • It is critical you keep up to date with the deadlines as the MeetUp approaches to get the maximum networking from the MeetUp. If you registered in the last month before the event, you are already too late to participate in the meetups.  
    • The event explicitly did not want any of the sponsored keynotes to be recorded or amplified. Sponsors should keep this in mind if they want any attention outside of those able to make it in-person those exact days.

    Conference Vibe

    Having covered Fintech Meetup in 2024, we knew what to expect from the meetups. As you can feel in the energy of the event, it was about 25% larger than last year. This year featured over 50,000 of their infamous one-on-ones – just be sure you register and get your information in early if you want to participate. Our coverage this time focused on the expo hall. In addition, we were able to conduct research for three 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.

    1. Whisper Report: How can we ensure compliance with evolving regulations?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the best practices for enhancing cybersecurity?
    3. Whisper Report: How can we build and maintain consumer trust in fintech solutions?

    Enjoy the entire playlist for Conference Whispers: Fintech Meetup 20205 to more fully experience the event.

    Plethora of FinTech!

    Regardless of your role or fintech need, there was likely a vendor in that specific fintech space. Developers had Gitlab providing  an environment to develop solutions from ideas, through the entire software development lifecycle to production. Creating a solution that requires that is required to connect to various products in the fintech space? Merge shared their vast collection of product connectors regardless of development or integration technique. Perhaps you are specifically focused on improving your customer engagement. Interface.ai provides an agentic AI solution designed exclusively for credit unions and community banks to engage with their customers. If the interface you are most concerned with is ACH payments, Trustly can simplify ACH payments and comes with a side of risk management.

    Money makes the world go around so risk management will always be a significant area of focus within Fintech. A cognitive AI solution to identify missing threats, Thetaray seeks to find troubling patterns before an organization is compromised. More concerned with compliance? Security Metrics shared their capabilities for ensuring compliance not only with FinTech but also Healthcare and other regulated industries. Focused on compliance, and fraud and perhaps but also must increase your customer conversion rate? OnFido shared their combination solution that enables organizations to quickly and correctly verify potential new clients. The risk profile is configurable depending on the specific needs of a given organization at a given time.

    If identity is an area of interest in your organization, TBW Advisor’s research, Conference Whispers: Identiverse is a must read. The identity space also featured quite a few vendors in the identity space. During an exclusive interview, Intellicheck told us about their exclusive access to the data required to strongly identify drivers’ licenses from USA or Canada. If you prefer to leverage phone intelligence, Prove previously covered at Money 20/20, shared an update to their solution that now goes beyond leveraging the chip in the phones. For Fraud, prevention is always better than detection, Aries Fraud Solutions is all about prevention achieved by leveraging different numbers on the card versus the strip. In the area of risk decision and fraud detection, it is also worth to evaluate the extensive offering by Socure with an active customer base across 20 different verticals.

    For various solutions, it is frequently not only about what it can do, but how extensive globally is their coverage? Provenir informed TBW Advisors that their global risk decisioning platform is available in 60 countries serving anything from Tier 1 providers all the way to SMBs. It is a multi-component platform offering a marketplace in 120 categories. On the topic of marketplaces, MoneyLion shared their extensive offering with over 800 3rd party products serving 20+ million consumers and as well as the engine behind the largest enterprise fintech customers.

    The B2C dimension is always a challenging dimension for payouts. Whether it is payouts for the workforce, or refunds, Onbe’s solution is bringing clients into the digital age. If you are focused more on gift cards, Incentive.AI can create customer solutions to fit your needs. Finally, an interesting solution to help retain depositors was shared by Wysh. Wysh enables financial institutions to offer free life insurance to customers based on deposit values.

    Next Year’s Conference 

    While this year’s event was held at the Sands Convention Center of the Venetian, next year’s event will be at Mandalay Bay. The event will be held March 30-April 1, 2026.

    ©2019-2025 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, The Answer is always in the Whispers, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025

    Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025

    Las Vegas, NV March 3-6

    Published to clients: March 10, 2025

    Published to readers: March 11, 2025                   

    Published to Email Whispers: June 18, 2025

    Publicly Published with video edition: June 19, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): D. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    The gathering of Health Information and Management Systems Society, 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSS 2025 allowed over 28,000 attendees from 88 countries to gather. Discussions revolved around the pursuit of global health equity, the impact of digitization on revenue growth, and the importance of security in healthcare technology. Thought-provoking questions were raised about common household medical devices, and innovative solutions to improve patient access and operational efficiency were highlighted. The event centers on the intersection of technology and healthcare, emphasizing the need for secure, efficient, and patient-focus approaches to modern medical challenge.

    The Conference

    • The 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSSS 2025 saw over 28,000 attendees gathered with a net gain of over 2,000 attendees from the previous year.
    • The event spanned the Sands convention center at Venetian as well as leveraged the connector bridge and all of Caesars Forum.
    • Attendees titles spanned clinician, IT director, Chief Medical Officer, founder, investor, security analyst, to Chief Privacy officer.

    Cautions

    • At HIMSS the entire expo hall is treated as a patient operating room from a privacy perspective. Thus, if you want press coverage of any type, one must have executed all planning before the start of HIMSS. Press was not allowed to walk up and film attendees without prior authorization. Many first timers at HIMSS were caught off guard by this aspect.

    TAGS:

    ACH payments, aries fraud, aries fraud solutoins, consumer finance, drivers license, fintech, FM25, Fraud, Gitlab, Identiverse, Incentive.ai, Intellicheck, Interface.ai, Money 20/20, MoneyLion, Onbe, OnFido, payments, phone intelligence, Provenir, risk decisioning, Security Metrics, socure, Thetaray, Wysh

    Conference Vibe

    Every event has their own personality and HIMSS 2025, the conference for Health Information and Management Systems Society or HIMSS annual gathering is no different. In Healthcare, data privacy is not just about protecting data. As attendees regularly shared, health data represents a patient’s whole body, a patient’s being, a patient’s life history, the data represents the patient’s life – not to mention individuals can be fined for making mistakes. Thus, one might expect, HIMSS25 was a very, very private conference. A huge no cameras sign welcomed all to the expo hall and Press were required to be prebriefed and reminded multiple times, no advance permission, no video. As a point of comparison, our video to time on site ratio was 50% of what we were able to achieve at CES. Nonetheless, we were able to work with the system and bring you a whopping 37 videos and over 110 minutes of video, endless shorts to enjoy, and research for 4 different research documents including this one. The Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025 playlist is available on our channel for you to enjoy.

    HIMSS welcomed 28,000 attendees to see more than X exhibits and y sessions with over Z startups represented. The energy was quite high as all awaited the show’s opening and the registration lines moved quickly. The Sphere, right next door, even put on a wild psychedelic show to welcome all. Finally, the moment arrived all were waiting for when the Expo Hall Opened. Food could be found for purchase at both locations. The Venetian had their Bistro open with multiple locations throughout the event. Much like SEMA, the Venetian Expo leveraged the bridge connecting it to Caesars Forum which also hosted HIMSS. For those that were at Caesar’s Forum, food was available at the café known as cash-concessions.

    We were able to conduct research for three 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.

    1. Whisper Report: How can AI be effectively integrated into healthcare systems?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the best practices for enhancing cybersecurity in healthcare?
    3. Whisper Report:  How can telemedicine be optimized to improve patient care?

    Sessions and Deep Dives

    Due to the restrictive privacy nature of the conference, we could not record any keynotes and sessions were limited but we were still able to capture great research. First, enjoy the press Q&A session held by HIMSS very own President and CEO Hal Wolf. This session covered the gambit including HIMSS instrumental role in ensuring citizens around the world achieve health equity. Their mission is independent of any specific government. He has high hopes that private organizations will step in to compensate for any globally shifting landscapes. TBW Advisors was excited to say that we were able to secure HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf’s answer for the Whisper Report based on Question 1 and Question 2 above. These answers are presented separately from the primary session video. Hal Wolf’s answers to Question 1 and Question 2 are in their respective playlists.

    The Alexander Group provided their framework in the session titled, “From Strategy to Success: Rel World Go To Market Studies”.  This session provided their framework for revenue growth in healthcare through digitizing. The framework nicely summarizes the primary objectives of current investment areas that are occurring within healthcare to grow revenue. The session included a specific case study to drive the point home. The session, “Revolutionizing Healthcare: The AI Powered Stethoscope? During this session, Minttihealth CEO Xiaong Zou left attendees with one important question. “Why is there a thermometer in every home but not a stethoscope!?” For those seeking to secure and extended resilience across endpoints used to manage care and smart technologies, Absolute Security provided a session on a model to secure the health enterprise. Specifically, they leveraged a healthcare model to minimize risk into IT Security.

    Front Office AI Applications

    In healthcare, standard business operations are separate from technologies leveraged to provide healthcare. While both may deal with health data, health operations are significantly riskier and more restrictive. There were innovations serving both aspects of the healthcare system at HIMSS. On the front office side, we found one of those technologies you hope the next doctor you see with has deployed. Relatient’s focus is on enabling patient self-scheduling, even for new patients without using the Patient Portal. No more hold time and spending hours trying to get into the doctors’ office. Relatient purports Practices leveraging the technology have realized 70% of self-scheduling are brand new patients with 30% making their appointments after hours. Xcaliber shared their agentic AI solution for healthcare which can anchor to any of your organization’s data stores. Problems they solve include prior authorization and discharge summaries. Aisera is another agentic AI solution for Healthcare with three separate fully developed ontologies for healthcare ready to go. Aisera purports it is designed to leverage agentic AI to build out new workflows opening the doors to endless possibilities.

    Healthcare Support Applications

    When you move from the front office of healthcare to the back office, many things change. Even the keyboards and mice must be different so they can be sanitized. Fortunately, Man & Machine has waterproof and washable keyboards and mice available. The mice can even be dipped in 10% bleach! Warning, do not try that at home with your equipment!

    Keyboards are not the only devices to support providing health,  doctors leverage many handheld devices. Stethoscopes, blood pressure meters, glucose meters and the likes. Telemedicine and AI are also impacting these medical devices. In turn, these medical devices are also becoming more intelligent and capable of provide remote and real-time data such as those now available by Minttihealth. For those in cybersecurity, at this point your head might start to spin at the possibilities of it all. Have no fear, there were many providers on hand to help including Absolute Security. Absolute Security solutions aim to ensure those end points such as tablet and PC’s in use are secure and resilient.

    Some of those endpoints are more expensive than others. Some may be huge expensive machines. Keeping track of all those assets and ensuring the safety of staff require an intelligent location solution. Cognosos provides an infrastructure light, location intelligence solution for your assets – man or machine.

    Moving on to the care side and practitioner support, Evidently provides clinical summarization and decision support created leveraging actual clinicians. Notice it is a decision support tool as the clinician is ultimately responsible for taking care of the patient. We often refer to this as Human in the Loop or HIL. One interesting capability of Evidently is to provide a very clear line where facts originated. This makes it easy for the clinician to decide to agree or disagree with the technology’s suggestion, ultimately building trust.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    HIMSS 2026 conference will once again be held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The announced dates are March 9-13, 2026.

    ©2019-2025 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, The Answer is always in the Whispers, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025

    Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025

    Published to clients: February 19, 2025                                               ID: 2056        

    Published to readers: February 20, 2025              

    Published to Email Whispers: May 28, 2025

    Publicly Published with video edition: May 29, 2025

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    Manifest 2025 allowed over 6,000 attendees to see more than 1,500+ shippers +1200+ startups and investors + 300 Speakers with over 50 countries represented. Key highlights included a case study on supplier globalization, a new AI tool for supply chain communication, and comprehensive logistics solutions. A new international bridge, opening in Fall 2025, promises to streamline trade between the USA and Canada. Innovations in urban deliveries, last-mile solutions, and digital verification were also presented. Advances in data and inventory management were demonstrated, along with AI-driven solutions aimed at optimizing logistics. The event emphasized the industry’s move towards digitization and automation.

    The Conference

    • Manifest 2025 allowed over 6,000 attendees to see more than 1,500+ shippers, 1200+ startups and investors, and 300 Speakers with over 50 countries represented.

    Cautions

    If you were speaking on stage, the terms and conditions of the conference meant that no one, even members of the press, were able to capture even a minute of any session. It is hoped next year the conference will adopt more standard T&C. In the meantime, we did capture some session summaries from speakers.

    Conference Vibe

    After more than 60 videos, endless shorts forthcoming, and research for 4 different research documents including this one, our coverage of Manifest 2025 closes. Manifest 2025 allowed over 6,000 attendees to see more than 1,500+ shippers, 1200+ startups and investors, and 300 Speakers with over 50 countries represented.  The Expo Hall* was full of suppliers across the supply chain and logistics. The event featured a full breakfast as well as a Waffle Station. One could also purchase their breakfast or coffee at the Venetian Bistro. If you were still hungry, it wasn’t long before the extensive lunch was also available. Admittedly, the dedicated pasta station was also a huge hit with the attendees. However, of all the conference food available at the Venetian, it is their desserts that are always the biggest of hit – yes they taste as good as they look! If logistics and supply chain are in your interest area, enjoy and save the entire Manifest playlist so you will be notified when related shorts are posted as well. If you are not a client, it is even more critical you like your favorite videos, so we understand what technology you are most interested in seeing us capture.

    The event opened on Monday with a lot of energy and select sessions. The registration lines moved quickly. Unfortunately, we were not able to record any sessions due to the terms and conditions of the conference. Many sponsors seemed quite upset and are hoping this is fixed for future years. We were able to conduct research for three 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.

    1. Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the biggest challenges of using generative AI in logistics?
    3. Whisper Report: Can generative AI prevent supply chain disruptions?

    Moving Products

    One persistent truth at any conference on supply chain and logistics, there is a knowledge set shared strictly about getting things from point A to point B. While the T&C of the conference meant no one could capture the sessions, we were able to get an exclusive overview of the Super Shipper Case Study by Alibaba straight from the executive at Alibaba.com. Titled, “Shipper Case Study, Globalization of Suppliers” announced several solutions for finding sources. The selections are customizable, extensive, b2b, and are meant to enable optimized scale for even the most sophisticated, and dynamic shipping environments of 2025. A new AI support communication tool, AXCIO, was announced that enables a conversational interface for your supply chain and logistics needs. Alibaba.com marketplace has also received significant update for its fulfilment capabilities particularly for cross border fulfilment. Capabilities include direct access to the logistics marketplace with the ability to get real-time live quotes.

    With explicit and extensive hubs in Reno, Dallas, and Atlanta, ITS shared their end-to-end logistics capabilities and solutions. If you happen to be a freight carriers and your questions is how best to move freight from A to B  – Optimal Dynamics has software designed to help you answer that question if you should use your assets or those of others. Nothing saves time going from point A to point B like a direct route! The Gordie Howe International Bridge announced it is opening Fall of 225. Connecting I-75 in the USA directly to Highway 401 in Canada minus 7 traffic lights!  This new direct route will save time and money through the busiest commercial land border crossing between the USA and Canada.

    Urban deliveries can be difficult and are frequently burdened with the congestion of the population. An exciting solution by Aeroscraft was on exhibit. Aeroscraft is an EVTOL – electric, vertical take-off and landing – like INVO EVTOL we saw at CES. In contrast to INVO, the Aeroscraft is a not a flying saucer for personal transport but rather a Blimp with the smallest model capable of a 9-ton payload – yes 9 tons.

    Furthermore, it launches with a fleet of drones, their chargers, their operators, and massive payload. Once above the urban area, the drone operators get busy with line-of-sight capability delivery packages to the urban area below without adding to traffic! For additional research on drones, see Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo.

    Another challenging space involves delivering small products and the last mile. Hailify is a tech company that focuses on last mile of packages smaller than 2 shoe boxes and under 20 pounds. They focused heavily on the integration for small regional delivery. Likewise, TUSK provides an integrated network of the 9 top tier carriers into a single API, unified pick-up, contracts, everything creating a simple process to leverage multiple logistic solutions. Once you accomplish that last mile, the challenge for many solutions involves the last 10 feet. In theory, the network can be fully automated but how do you get the package from the vehicle to the person expecting the delivery? River.ai demonstrated their fully autonomous solution that can climb any stairs in any weather to take a package from a truck and hand it to a human expecting the delivery or accept a package from the human. That leaves one critical step left – verifying that the recipient and the related supply chain documents are accurate. Fortunately, the expo hall featured Trustd,  a digital verification and identity platform designed for supply chain and logistics.. This solution enables not only verification of humans but document identity as well. Trustd provided an exclusive overview of their talk to TBW Advisors. In their session, “Platform Security in the age of Fraud”, Trustd explained why it is not only critical to verify the carrier, but all of the ‘paperwork’ must be authenticated. Was there supposed to be 3 crates or 6? How many crates did they pick up? Getting that information wrong can be expensive and crime rings have targeted this space. Additional research on Identity and Access Management is available in Conference Whispers: Identiverse 2024.

    Clean Data and Digitization

    During our coverage of Conference Whispers: ConExpo in 2023, we observed the fundamental advantages of construction over manufacturing for digital transformation. Thus, we were very interested to understand the progress being made in supply chain and logistics towards cleaning up the data and digitization. As a first step, one can add intelligence to your existing forklifts with Slamcore. Their solution doesn’t require new forklifts but adds a camera, related sensors, and intelligent platform to suddenly provide forklift visibility to your facility. Barcode scanning and related manual data entry is frequently another troubled data spot – unless you have the right technology. The complex array of barcode layouts can make it extremely difficult to efficiently capture the alphanumeric text. This information represents the inventory and must be digitized accurately. Cloud 9 provided TBW Advisors LLC with an exclusive demonstration how their solution can efficiently handle this complex array of barcodes in the logistics space. Data regarding the size and weight accuracy of inventory is one of the critical pieces of data required in the logistics space. Cubiscan was one of the solutions exhibited that shared their approach involving sensors, cameras, and some intelligent algorithms to provide you what you need.

    Not sure if the address is accurate and want to ensure the recipient didn’t move? Woolpert Digital Innovations is a Google location partner and can help you integrate with anything and everything Google offers in this space. Want to go more granular? Sensos shared their exciting innovations that help one track not only package’s location, but the condition of the package in transport with the convenience of a tiny label that has embedded cellular! As a former AT&T strategist, this capability used to come in something analogous to in size and agility matched only by the original brick cellular phones!

    Inventory is a critical data space in supply chain and logistics. Fortunately 2025 includes autonomous inventory solutions such as the exciting solution from Dane Technologies. Such solutions leverage cameras for each shelf and autonomous technology to navigate the warehouse. Understanding the limits and how they match to your inventory is critical to select the right solution for your warehouse. We were also able to catch the demonstration of Dexory robot in action on the exhibit floor. Of course if you do not want to do inventory but rather pick the inventory for a customer order, then Brightpick is someone to evaluate. Leveraging drones for inventory management vs a moving robot, the Swiss Tech solution by Verity is something to also consider if you are seeking to get efficient clean inventory data.

    If one prefers to just bring someone in to assist in cleaning up the data space, plenty of integrators were also on hand. WMS specializes in business process management for the supply chain space. WMS capabilities include digitizing everything to prepare and leverage the new generation of logistic intelligent solutions. 4flow is another example of someone that was available to enable digital transformation in this sector.

    AI, Robotics, and Automation

    If an organization is fortunate enough to have their end-to-end data clean enough for AI, there are solutions ready to help you become optimal! Want predictive capabilities for freight costs and visibility to your buying power? Greenscreens.ai is a truly predictive solution with an impressive accuracy rate. Vizion provides container intelligence, tracking, and monitoring through its comprehensive consolidated APIs for most freight carriers. The goals are accuracy in arrival time. For those with clean data and seeking to move all the way to agentic AI in logistics, Arnata shared their solution. If you have a factory full of robots and you simply want to know where they all are on a single pane of glass? InOrbit.ai is all about simplifying robot orchestration and giving you that exact unified view. We have exclusive interview with Dexory to understand how their inventory visibility robot works. TBW Advisors LLC was also able to capture an exclusive description regarding the capabilities of Rivr.ai that isn’t stumped by the stairs leading up to your front door! Admittedly, of all the autonomous solutions, the most jaw dropping was the loading of a semi-truck trailer in 5 minutes flat. From the financial reduction of risk to the lessoning of burden on hard-to-find workers, a case study on Slip Robotics in a distribution center would be quite an interesting read.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    The Manifest 2026 conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The announced dates are February 9-11, 2026.

    ©2019-2025 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, The Answer is always in the Whispers, 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.