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.
The Conference
The event featured over 43 keynotes and seminars and over 200 vendors exhibiting.
Technologies covered include telephony, networking, SIP, call blocking, data, data management, data fabrics, customer 360, AI, LLMs, agentic AI, conversational AI, and bots.
Cautions
Just because a solution ‘works’ doesn’t mean the product was designed with customer privacy in mind.
Platforms that combine multiple functions can look like a quick win unless you already have installed components or desire to switch a specific function to a best in class. Ensure any ‘platforms’ leverage standards for any components. By adhering to standards, customers can avoid vendor lock into the platform and keep the door open for maximum architectural flexibility.
After over 200 minutes of filming, 6 flights of stairs, over 30 fact checks, our coverage of the rebranded event, Customer Connect Expo 2025, or CCE25, comes to a close. CCE25 opened with a grand ribbon cutting ceremony featuring the Global Voice of Customer Experience, Dennis Wakabayashi. TBW Advisors LLC’s clients and subscribers may recognize Dennis from last year’s AMA Industry Whispers event with Dennis. Admittedly, this event is one we always look forward to having covered it in 2023 and 2024 under its previous branding of CCCLV for Call & Contact Center Expo Las Vegas. The event features 4 stages hosting a total of 43 keynotes and seminars. The theaters for the speakers were mixed amongst over 200 exhibitors in expo hall. The keynotes and seminars were full coming in just under maximum capacity. The last two years, there were notable audio issues for the speakers. This year they had a dual audio set up with headphones and speakers. I only heard one major feedback sound the entire event. In fact, the sound worked so well that it kept the audience enthralled preventing them from walking around as much as in previous years. This led exhibitors to politely describe foot traffic as a “slow”. While the total booth traffic was light, the exhibitors did admit that the leads they obtained were rock solid with most easily covering the expenses. In other words, everyone was there was serious about conducting business with not much fluff. Food was also available within the expo hall itself.
While at CCE25, 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: CCE25 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.
During our coverage at CCE25 we were able to catch 4 keynotes and one seminar. The first keynote we captured was by Pfizer’s Wayne Simmons. Wayne reminded all that customers want companies that are interested in partnering for life when possible. In many domains such as banking, it is very inconvenient and takes significant effort to switch companies. One a customer is lost – it is expensive to reacquire that customer if at all possible.
Ford’s Dr. Kalifa Oliver drove home the obvious but too often overlooked point. If an employee is miserable and being treated horrible, how do you think they will treat your customers? A company should not be worried about an employee being happy but rather ensuring they have the tools and support to do the job. The development of employee satisfaction tools tend to be behind customer satisfaction tools but they need not be separate tools. It’s simple, data shows a satisfied and empowered employee is more likely to provide a positive customer experience.
The second day keynotes kicked off with Macy’s Siva Kannan Ganesan on the power of data. Siva highlighted the importance of capturing customer data including every click. A customer experience must be engineered. The two-tower approach was recommended for one’s digital strategy the achieve the ultimate in personalization.
Ring Central’s John Finch was on the Keynote stage to talk about Agentic AI driving the next generation of customer experience. The presentation went beyond revealing the next generation of customer experience tools. Context for the value contributed by conversational AI, generative AI, bots as well as the power of agents and personalized assistants was also provided. Expanding on that agentic AI theme was a seminar on expanding your call center with AI agents. Mitrol’s Francisco Trojano shared their approach to improve contact center’s impact. This seminar included various success stories.
The exhibits had a large variety of vendors including various components of solutions to create the ultimate customer experience. To the surprise of some, fax usage has risen 23%. Faxsipit shared their solution that won’t create a chain of mis transmissions and errors even for 1400-page documents! Perhaps, like many of the exhibitors, you are meeting and speaking with your prospects at a conference and don’t want to miss any of the potential leads. Claritiv shared their solution to capture and enable your ability to analyze these interactions. Need a method to see what the customer is experiencing first hand? With Blitz you can send a quick link that allows them to share their camera view without downloading a mobile application. Perhaps you interact between the physical and digital world and want a vendor that can help you? Put Unified Direct Solution on your radar who specialize in optimizing such a scenario including balancing needs based upon conditions. If you are short of staff and are thinking about outsourcing but not sure you want your customers to deal with outsourced agents, you might want to evaluate Kongusto. Now that you have all this staff, you’ll want them to feel like a team even if they are spread around the world. To that end, Nexgen virtual office shared their next generation of leveraging technology to create the ultimate in virtual office. Regardless of your technology, if you were seeking to market your solution, Greenstar Marketing was there with their services.
There were exhibitors with products focused on bringing your data together and providing insights. Maprehend focused on the expertise of your very best employee and empowering all. Likewise, if you wanted to clone your best sales agent, Verse.ai focuses on the best message on the right channel to deliver results. Enthu.ai connects and consumes all your customer interactions with a side of automation to provide useful customer insights. Diabolocom leverages a proprietary AI solution that is trained exclusively on your data for your private model. Zaon’s approach is to start with the problem or use case and connects the subject matter experts to create solutions.
If you are seeking a contact soluton provider beyond the data and perhaps a solution that is actually a carrier, Nobelbiz is a telephony carrier and can assist if your calls are not getting connected correctly. Assembled is a support operations platform with three pillars. One pillar handles AI agents through all forms of contacts, second is vendor management offering including handling billing, and third workforce management to increase productivity. A platform for omni channel communications highly integrated with AI agents is available through Mitrol as described earlier in their seminar. If you are looking for a platform with a side of business process outsourcing (BPO), Etech harnesses the power of AI to drive your customer experience through calls, chats and all customer interactions. The three focus areas include contact center services, Quality and analytics and customer development. ValueLabs leverages its own generative AI platform built leveraging various LLMs. ValueLabs focuses on four areas: outsourced product development, quality engineering, data engineer and process automation. ProntoBPO offers shared services, rental stations, BPO as well as software development. ProntoBPO specializes in verticals such as Pest, Lawn and HVAC services.
CCE conference will unfortunately move to Atlanta, GA 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Publicly Published with video edition: April 27, 2025Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli
ABSTRACT
CES 2025 allowed over 141,000 attendees to see more than 4,500+ exhibitors including 1400 start-ups. Attendees and exhibitors agree the phrase that best described the event was “tech that is available.” While CES 2024 brought concepts, CES 2025 brought available products with realized agentic AI, mixed reality, brain computer interface – even in consumer technology, autonomous, solid state, flexible, and with alternative power means across all aspects of life, work, and play.
The Conference
The first Consumer Electronic Show (CES) was held in New York City in 1967 with 17,500 attendees1. It is an industry conference focusing on all aspects of technology. 2025 is the first event where CES is not officially an acronym. The conference features new product announcements in product categories and marketplaces across consumer, enterprise, and industrial computing.
CES 2025 was held in Las Vegas, Nevada and had just over 141,000 registered attendees, with 4,500+ exhibiting companies.
If 2024 was the year of this is what we are planning, 2025 was the year of its here and available.
Attendees at CES 2025 hold titles such as CEO, Founder, Investor, VP, Director, Chief Marketing Officer, VP of Engineering, VP of Product Development, data scientists, lead engineer, and buyer.
Cautions
Care must be taken when creating a CES schedule. CES 2025 spanned multiple venues; buses and the Vegas Loop were provided with convenient routes between all venues. To this end, one’s schedule must allow for the transport or walk time between events. TBW Advisors’ analyst found that 30 minutes was sufficient between LVCC and Sands Convention Space; attendees should plan to allow one hour for transfer between other venues.
Just because a product has advanced AI and is designed for the home or office, doesn’t mean that your privacy was fully taken into consideration. Adopters must verify data location and policies for any new products before they are brought into the home or office.
After 36 hours, 76,000 steps, 20 flights of stairs, 1 Vegas loop ride, 136 videos, 140+ fact checks from around the world, our coverage of CES 2025 closes. If attendees had complaints in 2024 CES, it was that when asked, where can I buy it? They were told, “this is just a concept”. In 2025, the attendee complaint of the day was that they saw it all before. YES, as prototypes last year. Today you can buy it, and it has a consumer edition available on Amazon. Even the Flying saucer is available for pre-order with delivery in 2 years; more on that in the mobility section.
CES 2025 had some 141,000 registered attendees and 4500+ exhibits including 1400 start-ups* that spanned multiple venues. Mandalay Bay always opens the shows with two days of Press events. Mandalay Bay was the site for Showstoppers Launch it hosted by Jethro, Unveiled which is the first preview of CES Exhibits for member of the press only, and CTA Tech Trends, a presentation of CES’s hosting organization on all the data about the sector. They even had breaking news on the estimated impact of the forthcoming tariffs, estimated to lead to $90-143 Billion dollar decline in spending. Any of the host hotels or the airport provided badge pickup capabilities, minimizing lines. Aria hosted the Hollywood and AI content which echoed our NAB Show coverage. Over at the Las Vegas Convention Center or LVCC, South Hall is home to design predominantly downstairs while South Hall upstairs hosted the sourcing.Central Hall is home to the Big-Name Brands and CES Mainstays such as our LG Tour you’ll read about later. The North exhibit hall – not just the meeting rooms – was open post construction and showcased the exciting enterprise meets innovation exhibits. There is a walkway that connects the North Hall to the West Hall across the street. The Vegas Loop is also available to commute between the various LVCC sections. Buses are available between locations and run frequently but it is advised to stick with one location per day if you want to maximize your time at the actual event versus traveling. Speaking of getting around, the LVCC West Hall is home to mobility and autonomous solutions. CES is the largest automotive show in the world after all.
Most years at CES were extremely visual and easy to see the innovations. There were no robots one year– next year there are robots with very limited functionality. Many of the innovations in 2025 were most appreciated at the detailed level; thus, those that quickly walked by seeking visual stimulation likely missed a lot of what was shown. Fortunately, since media can specify their interest areas, many of the great products found TBW Advisors so to quote the theme of CES 2025, let’s dive in.
CES is known for its amazing sessions. If you suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out), be prepared. At any given moment, at any given location, I have found there is always more than one session to select from that I believe I would genuinely enjoy. A session that at some recent point in my life, I have been in a conversation where that may have been useful to know they thought. CES 2025’s sessions made it difficult to choose location anchor days to minimize transportation time waste as well.
Diving right in to the Creator Stage outside of LVCC Central Hall, Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am shared his exciting news and his feelings about LG’s XBoom relationship and how it came about. In addition, Will.i.am announced his FYI beyond radio project, an innovative technology space and AI environment for creators that allows you to create a channel for LG’s ecosystem also accessible on the web.
Agentic AI was the hot topic for the session titled, The Rise of AI Agents. The year 2025 is not just about generative AI but rather a coordination of AI agents working together to solve complex problems for users and businesses – autonomously or with HITL (humanin in the loop). The panel shared that only 15-17% of projects have been successful but equally important, they provided three keys for a successful AI project. First, it should be viewed as a business project. Second, you must have the right data for the project. Finaly, they suggested starting small.
In the maximum capacity talk on The Race for Generative AI and LLM Supremacy, the panelists discussed the competition amongst the solutions. The challenge of every LLM developer is getting good solid data. Thus, the conclusion of the panel is that the race for LLM supremacy will provide the prize to the entity that holds that best data set. That right, it’s the data set that ultimately determines who wins the race.
Fortunately for all, there was the session on a topic so hot, we drew a crowd so large they knocked over my camera on Data Collection, Privacy, and Why you Should Care. (Bias disclosure) TBW Advisor’s own Chief of Research had the privilege of moderating and thus was on stage and could not hold the camera. Part of the cybersecurity track, this session reminded all that if you are not paying for the product, you are the product. Globally data privacy laws in practice are frequently leveraged as a tax. The need for resiliency for some nations can challenge the reality of data boundary laws. The panel touched on a very big debate: the data protective minimalists vs agency-assured data maximalists. The panelists also discussed what happens with your information once it has been compromised.
The Cybersecurity track had a very exciting announcement. All Conference Whispers: CES printed editions over the years have carried a stark warning in the Cautions.
“Just because a product has advanced AI and is designed for the home or office, doesn’t mean that your privacy was fully taken into consideration. Adopters must verify data location and policies for any new products before they are brought into the home or office. – Conference Whispers: CES 2020“
We cannot contain how excited we were to see the session on the announcement of the US Cyber Security Trust Mark! Coming this year, products can go through official certification. One is no longer left to wonder or forced to annoy your nearest tech relative to do an architecture review before you buy a baby monitor or a device for office use! Soon this mark will be as ubiquitous as the UL certification or EnergyStar certifications. US Cyber Security Trust Mark – get ready to look for it in 2025.
An additional session in the cybersecurity track was that on finding cybersecurity talent. Given how many engineers have hit the market due to generative AI coding solutions, one critical point the entire panel agreed on was that the required cybersecurity skill set required is evolving, Specifically, cybersecurity now requires a more consultative approach. Perhaps due to the fact the human-in-the-loop are frequently the source of compromise.
While we once described the robots seen at CES being combination of “the house roaming vacuums, the technology of the smart speakers, and an iPad,” that is no longer true in 2025. We witnessed a solution ripped straight from a ConExpo coverage preview while at Unveiled. The fully autonomous HKCRC Rebar tying robot achieves 99.6% accuracy! This next robot is for you if you are not in construction but rather a service industry. Maybe hospitality or healthcare? Temi by Robocore is a general-purpose fully autonomous service robot ready to come to your service. Another fully autonomous solution from unveiled that could easily be cast in a Disney theme park is Jennie by TomBot. Jennie the robot dog is a service dog for dementia patients providing comfort without risking the safety of the animal. Jennie always drew a crowd just like a real puppy as well!
Our first example of the powered trend arrived at Showstoppers Launch it and featured a bionic leg by Bionic M. This powered leg assists the amputee with movement though its internal power versus just existing and leaving all the work to the recipient. For some, self-powered movement is not possible. Venetian Expo Hall featured an exoskeleton for those physically unable to walk therefore enabling movement for all by Cosmo Robotics.
Seeking to build a robot? Showstoppers Launch It featured all the details on the very popular Jizai robot developer kit. At the same event, we captured all the details on Thinker, the pre-touch sensor one can integrate into your own robot design. Need an entire humanoid hand? Mimic in the Swiss Pavilion shared their highly nimble humanoid hand that is the perfect solution to eliminate repetitive movements from actual humans! If you are focusing on vision capabilities of your robot or autonomous vehicle, then Eye2drive which enables human vision on a chip may have caught your attention in Eureka Park. If motors are involved, then rotary position sensors are a must to ensure proper functioning. Magnetic Tech shared their rotary position sensors for all to incorporate into your designs. Mobiltech sensors and digital twins also exhibited in Eureka Park. Mobiltech is a Nvidia partner for lidars and camera sensors providing precise synchronization between multimodal sensors. Interfaces are another area of innovation with Kyocera sensors creating floating displays and precision technology. TBW Advisors LLC had an exclusive Press Interview with the creator of realized Holograms at PXE Imaging discussing their technology. Holograms are now real! Who is ready to be beamed up in the new year?
Power is a big topic of innovation at large. CES North Hall featured a very popular flexible paper battery! Their entire booth was constructed of cardboard. InnoPhase IoT gave us an exclusive look at the Talaria 6. The Talaria 6 family of system-on-chips (SOCs) provides an ultra-lower power over Wi-fi solutions. The Taleria platform spans smart home devices such as lights, thermostats, and door locks for voice activated ecosystems such as Alexa, Siri and Google Home. Solar panels are getting a real makeover in 2025. First, they can be quite flexible and even 3d such as the flexible solar panels by Coatema. Second, the electrodes are getting an upgrade! In fact, Coatema featured one of the vendors we met in the Swiss Pavilion, GraphEnergyTech. GraphEnergyTech created new electrodes to replace traditional solar panels’ electrodes. Their solution saves 87% of the cost for solar panels while being 97% greener for the planet. How is that for an exciting technology jump?
There is a relationship between power in electronics and cooling. CES Innovation award Winner AirJet by Frore systems brings solid state active cooling to reality. Passive cooling creates bulky devices.
Prior solutions at active cooling meant a large noisy fan. Not anymore! Frore Systems have a variety of AirJet models available to meet your design needs. Enjoy these examples shared with TBW Advisors during our exclusive booth tour that demonstrate the impact of the AirJet. Specifically, common devices had their power measured. They then removed the existing cooling solution and replaced it with the AirJet. The power of the device was measured again and demonstrated the increased power when leveraging their AirJet. Furthermore, AirJet is not just a concept, is available in products today.
In the Manufacturing and Industrial/Commercial solutions space, we will once again discuss energy. This time a unique solution we found in the Swiss Pavilion by Enerdrape. For those unfamiliar, energy is the largest cost to run a data center outside of the servers. All the heat generated by the technology must be displaced for optimal performance. Enerdrape is a geothermal system that collects ground heat and requires no drilling to install. Depending on location, the Enerdrape sheets collect an average 100 to 200 W/sqm harvested continuously. This harvesting corresponds to a heating/cooling output of 350’000 Wh/sqm per year or 950 Wh/sqm per day. We will be keeping an eye on this technology going forward.
At TBW Advisors, we love data solutions, data technology, and all things sensor data. Fortunately, Showstoppers Launch it and Unveiled had us covered. Caddi presented their manufacturing data platform at Showstoppers. Seeking digital twin as a service for your factory? Enjoy CalTa’s Showstopper presentation. Prefer to focus on process automation? CalTa’s digital twin as a service can also be leveraged for process automation as described at Unveiled.
Real-time and continuous monitoring were terms we heard multiple times at CES2025. Fortunately, the Swiss Pavilion’s AeroSpec is able to continuously monitor air quality at the edge. This continuous monitoring of air pollution is a significant step forward over spot air quality check. Realtime, continuous, air quality is critical to keep populations aware of the true air quality conditions outdoors as well as indoors. Unfortunately, many commercial buildings (and residential) suffer from radon gas, a known human carcinogen. Continuous indoor air quality monitoring particularly for Radon is available from Radoff. Another continuous real time monitoring solution, this time to measure for target liquid monitoring was shared by AI Cubic K. CES occurred during the Cold, Flu, RSV and Norovirus outbreaks. To continuous disinfecting corporate or industrial spaces, Germpass offers a variety of solutions to automatically keep common touchpoints free from germs.
For anyone developing in and around the factory or industrial solutions, perhaps involving Siemens equipment, the AWS/Siemens developer kit should be on your radar. We were able to catch all the details in their joint presentation in the middle of Eureka Park. Concerned about the rapid retirement of the industrial workforce and all their related tribal knowledge, Rimon just might be a solution to put on your radar.
We witnessed exciting innovations in safety tech for manufacturing and industrial solutions. The Swiss Pavilion’s Wearin created wearable devices specifically designed for firefighting and other dangerous industrial jobs. The devices gather information about air quality around the worker, encrypts it, and sends to their software solution. This solution leverages an open design that can accommodate different sensors and models to monitor what is critical for a given scenario.
Safety glasses may not seem exciting if you walk by quickly. However, if one stopped for a conversation, you were in for a surprise. That’s right, mixed reality has been realized for industrial environments. Virnect shared all the details on their mixed reality safety glasses in our exclusive interview. One final safety equipment innovation we would like to share, safety ear Budz for construction. Not only providing location and information on action, Budz can also monitor the employee’s wellbeing and temperature to prevent heat exhaustion or hyperthermia on the job.
Mobility
In 2024, CES declared itself the largest automotive show period. CES is not just about Cars, it is about every mode of transportation as seen on Media Days. TBW Advisors was able to capture the entire briefing made by Invo. For those of you not familiar, Invo is an EVTOL or electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle. Invo is not a helicopter as it has no exposed blades. Invo is not a fixed wing drone although it is fully autonomous. Most would describe Invo as something ripped right from the Jetsons as it resembles a flying saucer! And Invo is taking reservations for delivery in 2 years for a mere $350,000.
Another complete press announcement we were able to capture in the mobility space remarkably familiar to our clients, subscribers, and followers is John Deere. We frequently run into John Deere at ConExpo and were excited to see their update. Overall John Deere announced they are live with automation in 4 major areas: field, orchard, quarry, and grass. It is amazing to see how far they have come with their technology albeit I wondered if they fixed the issue with solar flares1. Their solutions rely in GPS and GPS can have its issues. Fortunately, at least the Orchard solution also leverages lidar technology. The question arose as it is fair to assume that in non-peaceful times, GPS may become a weapon either through spoofing experience in Ukraine or may become unavailable like with solar flares. But food isn’t optional. Of course, per our coverage of the Commercial UAV Expo, the technology exists to solve this problem. Of course, clients will recall ANELLO Photonics optical gyroscope. Anello Photonics allows one to navigate even in GPS denied or spoofed environments in air, on land, or by sea and was in the LVCC North Hall.
CES 2025 Editor’s Choice Award winning AI dashcam was found upstairs at Venetian in the Swiss Area. This AI Dash cam by Vueroid leverages low power so it can monitor things even when you are away from your car for extended periods of time. Leveraging HDR, even in the lowest light it has clear video and recording of its environment and any license plates it comes across. Visibility in the dark is a challenge for recording and safety. Unveiled brought us RheoLight Paint designed to maximize reflection ensuring visibility. Applications span Motorcycles, Helmets, Work Trucks to any mobility device you want to ensure the best chances of it being seen in the dark. Another fleet solution that leverages existing tire sensors on vehicles to provide new insights. Sensing Core turns any tire into an intelligent tire. Their solution will be unbelievably valuable for fleet owners desiring preventative maintenance.
Bicyclists desiring extra safety, visibility, and documentation of their rides should evaluate Inen’s soluton. Prefer roller blades or make that power roller blades and your comfortable going 80 miles per hour. Enjoy the Atmos Gear overview and DEMO!
CES 2025 had exciting technology for municipalities. That’s right no one was left behind in the innovation. Continuous and real time once again describe a solution this time for water quality monitoring. Instead of spot checking, this innovative solution simply monitors the health of Mollusks in the water by MolluScan Eye. Yes – this solution leverages existing Mollusks like clams, oysters, mussels, and squids found in your fresh or sea water. Since these creators live in the water and are so sensitive to changes, by monitoring their health the water quality is continuously and real-time monitored. The Mollusks are now the canary in the mine for water quality.
If you are a city administrator and want to make your city smart, Ask Jules can guide you through 500 smart city capabilities. For those in very hot climates like those of us in Vegas, SoCold enables cooling without power. This special coating provides passive active cooling that doesn’t consume energy. Instead, SoCold uses the sun and sky to create sub ambient temperatures below the coating. Another desert issue is the conservation of water. Leaks are a waste of water and must be found. Water leaks also cause mold and other health conditions. Netsensi developed by Mathclick enables one to detect and find interior water leaks in residential or commercial buildings.
In the Swiss Pavilion, acknowledging bees are the critical component in the World’s food supply but are subject to mites. Smart Beehive designed by a 7th generation Beekeeper has solved that with their smart hive LifeHive. Another Swiss highlight for those desiring a classroom for their children but lack continuous internet or power. BeeKee enables a digital classroom anywhere in the world regardless of local infrastructure.
CES 2025 featured technology to enhance every aspect of your life. Adding sunlight to a workday for desk workers is critical is said to improve one’s health and mood. Fortunately, SunLed Life has invented a small sunlight creating device you can just flip onto the top of your laptop. For those in IT or others that leverage a keyboard all day, and prefer a split keyboard, Naya BB also provides hinges and adjustable modules for the ultimate in user experience. However, if you have a shoulder injury, you will want to evaluate Auto Keybo. AutoKeybo is specifically designed for those with shoulder injuries and removes the need to move the arm left to right to access mouse and other functionalities.
Does your job require travel and presentations on the road? The Splay Collapsable Display is an incredibly convenient solution for travel featuring a display that collapses like an umbrella. Available today with a 25-inch screen with a battery that last 2-4 hours, the 35-inch display is coming midyear and will launch through Kickstarter. Another exciting innovation the traveling engineer can leverage is the new and first smart drive by iodyne leveraging FroreSystems AirJet. This portable secure drive provides enterprise class storage you can carry. Featuring RAID 6, AES 256 encryption, pass keys, pass key enclave, data separate, NFC chip it is the ultimate secure travel storage!
Having a challenging time answering all the cybersecurity questions in your organization? Certy is a speciality helpdesk chatbot designed to answer cybersecurity questions. Seeking to optimize your IT processes? AWIT created an intelligent IT process automation solution designed to help you meet and exceed your KPIs. We will be on the lookout for any case studies that result from its deployment to fully appreciate its impact.
Tasked with creating an augmented reality solution for your products but don’t have weeks? Once again the Swiss Pavilion featured Identic enabling one to create AR identic solutions for your products in hours. Identifying and stopping deepfakes ruining your sleep? Unveiled featured Cyberette that can stop deepfakes in 2 seconds with 99.7% accuracy whether video, audio, or text. Are you trying to create a generative AI solution but lack the data? GenGen AI generates and provides training data for your AI training days. Finally, in the age of Agentic one needs a multi-agent AI coder and Koder AI is there with their solution. They are the first multi-agent solution with each agent taking on a different role just like a real software engineering team. In addition, this multi-model solution allows you to bring your own models if you choose.
One press conference we expected to cover in Mobility was about the home; specifically, Toyota’s exclusive press conference and the discussion of the Woven City. If you are working on any smart home, smart city technology be sure to connect with Toyota. Another highly produced press conference was held by Samsung. The event covered their entire vision for smart homes and intelligent lives through Smart Things. As a follow-up to Conference Whispers: CES 2020, Balle will be available this year. Enjoy our private booth tour of a versatile solution meant to please any engineer that has ever used a device with a battery presented by Lithel. First the Lithel lawn mower with its interchangeable batteries was shared. Then, it was explained that that same battery can power anything. Any lawn care equipment, a portable fridge, your phone, your computer, an entire product line designed around a single universal rechargeable cell. All I kept thinking was, someone finally got it! At Unveiled, we uncovered a fully autonomous mower by Lymon. Not just any autonomous lawnmower, but the toughest lawnmower you may have seen. There are videos of it succeeding with thick country grass, over rough country acreage –having lived in rural country – my jaw dropped.
There was a classic late night television commercial for a revolutionary device called The Clapper. This device is installed between a lamp or radio and the outlet then it became the boss of that device. If you clapped according to how it was programmed the light would turn on or off. A 2025 solution of course would not be to clap but to make that engineering reachable by an IoT solution. At Show Stoppers Launch It, Obniz shared their solution for making anything in your home connected. Another modernization solution spotted at Unveiled was Pixilwall. Pixilwall is an interchangeable solution that allows one to enjoy their photos in the physical world. Prefer the picture larger and to leverage multiple frames – they have the AI to manage it for you. If you would prefer a mirror on the wall to tell you your fitness data and the likes, Withings OMNIA Smart Mirror integrates with all Withings products and other leading health and fitness electronics. A Speediance Smart Home Gym with Digital Resistance shared details on their solution so you can look tone in any mirror.
Moving to the Kitchen and family room, TBW Advisors was able to set up – yes – a private press tour of the LG booth. We view this technology from the perspective of the art of possible achieved. Understanding the complexities of the sensors and solutions involved in achieving what they are describing is where the work took place! Interesting to understand by adding what technology brought what features to the customer. Think about the data being collected and shared. The first appliance was the LG Signature Range Smart Microwave that does everything including air frying. It is so sophisticated the front is a video of your food cooking as it has no window. That screen is also a general-purpose entertainment screen for TV or internet programming and has generative AI built in. That video can become your next viral hit if you like as well. Or just enjoy the video on your phone so you know how the food is doing. The intelligent full double oven has AI browning technology to make sure you cook your food perfectly. LG has taken the guesswork out of cooking. LG Dual View Fridge once again has displays on the door so no need to open the fridge to see inside. As one might expect, it can suggest what you can make for dinner as well. While in CES 2024 LG told the world about its Transparent OLED, this year you can have it in your home! LG had a stunning display celebrating their Transparent OLED’s we were able to capture for you to enjoy. Turning your home into a short-term rental? Taskbeast.ai is designed to take the stress out of short-term rental management.
Fraunhofer that specializes in audio codecs shared their exciting news regarding advances in standards. We had an exclusive briefing on the xHE ACC codec for the ultimate audio experience. We also received an in-depth briefing on the exciting MPEG-H Audio which is already live in Brazil. We were most excited to understand a viewer can turn up the volume on the dialog independently if one chooses with this new standard.
Pets are always in for a treat at CES. We were able to capture the Pookie Intelligent Pet carriers at Unveiled. This intelligent pet carrier is full of descriptors! It heats, it ventilates, it sanitizes, it deodorizes and of course carriers your pet! It is quite sophisticated use of sensors in a coherent solution with aerodynamic engineering to bring a very sophisticated high-end product to market. To turn any pet collar into a smart pet collar that monitors location, activity, and health, Queva shared their innovation to protect your dog. Prefer Anime over a pet? Unveiled brought Anime Virtual Character Live House by Sybran. This exhibit was ALWAYS crowded. Another Unveiled exhibit was the LiberLive C1 Stringless Guitar – no Nintendo required.
Some robots were meant for home. Meet the simplest and quite popular, turn your phone into robot Looia. As with anything connecting or downloading to your phone, I once again draw your attention to our cautions in the published form of this document. Loona AI is a pet robot that acts like a pet but requires no food or bio breaks. The Robot named Unit can teach a kid how to code but strategy can be found with Sense Robot. Sense Robot can play a physical game of chess with another player. It can set up the board, move its own pieces just like a human opponent completely autonomous with various levels of difficulty. This intelligent robot leverages cameras and sensors to ‘understand’ what pieces the human has moved as well.
The ultimate ecosystem for a child’s myFirst Fone S4 – kids smartwatch, GPS fitness & habit trainer was in the middle of Venetian. This extensive and mature product set provides just enough access to provide safety but nothing more. As would be expected, it integrates with any adult phone via an app. The kid’s smartwatch even has a camera to take pictures! We look forward to hoping it is quick to achieve its US Cyber Trust Mark in 2025.
BCI or Brain Computer Interface was hot at CES 2025. Enjoy the standing room only session we were able to capture. A simple attachment to the skull is making big headlines against depression. But if you thought BCI was only for medical doctors to get involved with, meet the consumer product by Cortex Machina that you can purchase today at your favorite ecommerce site! The importance of sleep for the functioning of one’s brain and body as a whole was emphasized in the Press Conference by the National Sleep Foundation captured in its entirety. Capturing your brainwaves while in a deep sleep and playing them back to you, we once again ran into MyWaves at Unveiled where they shared their new evening device. Want to improve your memory? Meet the generative AI interactive game to improve your memory by Monoxer. Undergoing evaluation for acceptable medical treatment certifications across the globe, keep your eyes on NeuDive. Neudive is a 6-week program that trains autistic patients, particular children, on social interactions. Of course if someone in your life suffers from the issue of dementia, Jennie the fully autonomous Dog for those Dementia is a worthy consideration to evaluate. Moving from the brain to the Vagus Nerve stimulation, Zenowell’s solution is meant to bring Zen into your life.
Non-invasive was also the healthcare word of CES. Unveiled brought us both needle free injections from Flowbeams to non-invasive glucose monitoring by Apollon. Global, universal, and rural healthcare requires innovation. Unveiled brought us cervical cancer screening with the convenience of a cell phone greatly increasing accessibility due to its leveraging of AI. Even blood pressure monitor cuffs got an upgrade from Withings. The variable cuffs and built in intelligence for Withings BPM Vision may not catch your eye during a quick walk by the exhibit, but to the user the of the device, it will make all the difference. Withings also offers an at in app service that compliments their devices called Cardio Checkup. The Cardio Check Up app includes 3 meetings with a cardiologist every year. Can’t get to the eye doctor? Showstoppers Launch it brought you Elcyo universal eyeglasses. We also witness the unveiling of the smart thermometer and camera enabling remote diagnostics by Otiton. The ultimate telemedicine solution enabling rural healthcare was revealed at a detailed press conference by OnMed. Admittedly these innovations bring me back to the days I founded Patient Forward, unfortunately 10 years too early.
Two final health care innovations to share. First the automated pharmaceutical tech by Camelotech which can also be leveraged for supplements. Last and very exciting is MEDIAPLUS, Inc. who brought AI to tackle the bottlenecks in the clinical trail process. In this case, AI was leveraged to modernize how trails are set up and the data is managed. In fact, MEDIAPLUS, Inc. has the World’s largest clinical trial information set – even larger than the NIH!
Confused where you should open a store? The wrong corner of the right intersection can make all the difference. To solve this problem, Showstoppers Launch It brought you unerry. Using a data centric solution, unerry takes the guess work out of finding that perfect location for retail. At that same event, the question for those who must find out the owner of off the market property was answered. Where has all the data you need to track that hard-to-find contact to keep your project moving forward. The next Showstopper is something fast food lovers are hoping is coming to a location near them. VOX AI spoke to us about their AI drive through technology that understands the customers in 90 languages and automatically orders the correct food.
This webinar will feature a panel of engineers that have deployed generative AI and their solution is in customers’ hands. You will be able to take away insights on the selection of technology, the process of realizing a solution, pitfalls, nightmares and what the panelists would do differently next time.
Research Code 2036.
Industry Whispers (SM): Generative AI & Deep Learning in Production – Lessons Learned
Friday, May 24, 2024 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM(UTC-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)
This webinar will feature a panel of engineers that have deployed deep learning and generative AI and their solution is in customers’ hands. You will be able to take away insights on the selection of technology, the process of realizing a solution, pitfalls, nightmares and what the panelists would do differently next time.
Can’t attend? Register and submit your question anyway, the answer will be on our YouTube channel.
Research Code: 2045
Dr. Doreen Galli has 6 degrees including a Waterloo CS Ph.D. in SIMD data storage and 8 patent held by IBM with 2 more pending at Microsoft. She has led significant and measurable changes at IBM, DPWN, Dell, ATT and most recently Microsoft where she was the platform architect for Azure and CTO in Azure’s MCIGET. She was trained as an analyst by Gartner where she was recognized as an expert in all things data from ingestion, quality, governance, integration, management and all forms and analytics including sensor data.
An All-American Athlete Collegiate Runner, Dr. Galli enhanced her formal education with process improvement certifications of Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma, and Pull Thinking, along with Technology and Network Transformation Certifications from AT&T. She is a Top 25 Women on the Web recipient and a published author with over 200 articles. Her first book, “Distributed Operation Systems” was published by Prentice Hall in English and Chinese. Her second book, “Galli’s Keys to Success: Optimize your College Career” is available via online bookstores. Dr. Galli has been an invited speaker at such distinguished venues as Forbes Executive Summit, CIO Summit, CIO Academy, Grace Hopper, Network+ Interop Las Vegas, Gartner’s Catalyst as well as The Internet Security Conference.
Omer Segal is the Head of AI at Pixellot, overseeing the AI group responsible for researching and developing automated sports production and automatic game highlights generation for Pixellot AI-automated sports camera systems. He has extensive leadership experience as CTO and R&D Director at companies in homeland security, mapping, and sports technology, where he oversaw the development of innovative AI applications. Omer’s project portfolio includes creating land vehicle and aerial mapping and navigation systems, AR applications for archaeological reconstructions, and athletes’ video analysis applications.
Omer holds a BSc and an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University, specializing in the application of advanced technologies such as deep learning, computer vision, and signal processing.
With 20 years of experience as a Character Technical Director, I bring expertise in motion capture and avatar creation for diverse productions. Originally focusing on rigging for films, commercials, and games, I transitioned to real-time motion capture and game engine rigging over the past five years. Integrating AI into motion capture and avatar systems has been a recent passion, alongside a commitment to exploring new technologies and their synergies. From rigging for TV shows like “The Flash” to contributing to 3D Bitmoji development and virtual concert setups, my journey reflects a dedication to innovation and collaboration in the ever-evolving landscape of AI and entertainment technology.
Heather Osborn was most recently Senior Director of DevOps at Cerebral, an online mental health care company which filled a much needed gap in access to this critical service.
She has worked in technology as a systems and operations engineer and manager for over 25 years. Much of her career was spent working with on premises systems at Ticketmaster, where she helped grow the online presence from a handful of Windows gaming desktops set up as web servers to a global system, a mix of on premises and cloud-based systems that experienced unbelievable surges in traffic whenever a popular event went on sale.
Her more recent career path has been entirely cloud-based, with a focus on AWS and Kubernetes. The goal is to lead teams to creating maintainable, secure infrastructure to enable developer autonomy and rapid iteration.
She will be speaking at Southern California Linux Expo for the second time this coming Saturday with a presentation entitled: Organic Isn’t Always Good for You, which is a discussion of the methodology employed in bringing an organization to a more mature stable infrastructure rather than something that grew organically over time.
She has been actively involved in women’s groups at her companies, including being a charter member of Minority Genders in Tech at Cerebral. She’s also served multiple years as a mentor of young women and girls who are interested in exploring technology. She is drawn to this cause because she’s often been the only woman on a team.
She is also an avid distance runner, technology evangelist, live music aficionado, immersive camping enthusiast, dedicated mother, and cat mom.
Ziyuan(Zac) is the Chief Scientist at Birch.AI, where he spearheads the research and development of LLM and ASR models to automate healthcare call-center workflows. He is responsible for selecting and designing ML models, data processing, production system architecture, and deployment. With over 10 years of experience in speech recognition and natural language processing systems, Ziyuan has a proven track record of delivering production-ready systems for tasks such as classification, named entity recognition, and real-time transcription. Ziyuan holds a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University Beijing and a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University where he worked at the Center for Language and Speech Processing on projects that led to the creation of many open-source NLP and ASR toolkits
IC24, InfoComm 2024, spanned 7 days and welcomed 36,967 registered visitors from 125 countries. It is the premier event for AV professionals (71%) and their customers (29%). Held at Las Vegas Convention Center West and Central Halls in Las Vegas from June 8-14, IC24 had 833 exhibitors. Transparent Micro LED, Kinetic LED and LEDs in all shapes and sizes could be seen along with a highly interactive video boards in the 407,000 net square feet of exhibition space. After over 400 minutes of recording and 9 Vegas Loop rides, and some 35 factchecks, our coverage of IC24 ends.
One cannot help but notice you are at a true AV conference when attendees stand to geek out over the huge sign in the West Hall discussing how it is or how they would create such an item. Something we had not witnessed prior. IC24 is the premier event for AV professionals (71%) and IT professionals dealing with AV (29%). The 36,967 registered visitors from 125 countries had no significant wait time while registering as registration rarely had a line at all.
While CES has a large collection of LED screens, CES is consumer while IC24 is industrial! Thus the AV technology is beyond what one would see in a residential setting such as Samsung’s massive The Wall exhibit that transports you around the world or their transparent MicroLED display. The common theme wasn’t just different but more energy efficient while maintaining brightness such as the exhibit by Nanolumens. For Sony it is about every aspect of sustainability even down to the amount of ink used on the box. Shape is no longer a restriction as can be seen at Pixelflex exhibit. Straight out of Hollywood GCL shared their LED 7680 refresh rate technology as well as their Extended reality screen as used in many Hollywood films.
*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.
As one would expect, there is also a lot of AV tech. Blackmagic Design, a favorite of many at NABSHOW shared their latest release, BlackMagic Replay, a new way of creating live action replays. This is sure to save a lot of AV engineers a lot of time. For those attempting to synchronize many devices connected across cables, a main stage in central hall had a demo on leveraging PTP to synchronize time. We received a full tour of the Belkin booth and saw all their offerings from basic power supply, family/team charging cabinets to secure switches. In the Trailblazer zone we came across HighSecLabs who shared their products specialized to secure AV peripherals.
After over 1500 minutes of recording and 14 escalator rides, and some 35 factchecks, our coverage of 2024 Identiverse comes to a close. Identiverse was at Aria Hostel in Las Vegas from May 28-31. It is the premier event for identity professionals. It spans 4 days, 250 speakers on over 100 topics, 150 exhibitors and 3000 onsite attendees. Attendees witnessed endless examples of identity and privacy solutions including many jokes about SAML (it is NOT dead), examples of passwordless as well as talks about the value of identity.
After over 1500 minutes of recording and 14 escalator rides, and some 35 factchecks, our coverage of 2024 Identiverse comes to a close. Registration for the four-day event kicked off after the long holiday weekend. The event featured 250 speakers on over 100 topics, 150 exhibitors and 3000 onsite attendees. There was so much packed in it was impossible to catch all of the exhibits. They had sessions in the Joshua rooms as well as Marisopa rooms. Opening day was then capped by a mighty keynote featuring John Whelan, President of the Cyber Risk Alliance and Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity and Founder of the Identiverse Conference. The event provided food for the attendees. We were able to capture breakfast Wednesday. The attendees did explicitly find me to let me know they were disappointed with the breakfast due to the lack of protein. I do understand the Microsoft Breakfast did feature sufficient protein. Many attendees complimented the lunch which was served Wednesday as well as on Thursday. The exhibits* were open on Wednesday after the opening keynote. They were spread between two large rooms across from each other.
As one might expect, Identiverse is all about identity. Much to my delight, an entire panel was presented on confidential computing. Confidential computing strength lies in multiparty computations among untrusted parties – something that occurs in the identity space quite often. The session immediately following was on digital identity where they pondered how one could achieve such an exchange – unfortunately those panelists did not attend the Confidential session. On the digital ID panel, it was exciting to see that California is live with a digital driver’s license. Many are still trying to get their real id into their wallet! Australian Bank was on stage for a keynote making the case for the Bank ID. Admittedly this talk created a bit of déjà vu to the days in the bid to become primary certificate authorities. There is no shortage of information to make the business case to adopt passwordless for your organization.
Thursday morning’s keynote concluded with the Power of Passwordless sign-on. This session includes a number of guest speakers from the FIDO Alliance, Clarkson University, Bank of America and Amazon. The net result is that companies love it, their customers are more engaged, and the security posture is improved. Numerous examples of passwordless solutions were shown in the exhibits. AllAUthenticate shared their passwordless solution. Bringing blue collar workers who need to punch in and out into this century, Bio-Key displayed their product leveraging MFA Mellon RFID. If you would prefer your identity solution to eliminate any and all standing privileges, SGNL can get you there and help you stay in that security posture. Zluri is available to handle access control for all SaaS solutions. Aserto is an identity service that considers policy and relationship-based access control. If your service accounts are your pain point or you don’t even know how many you have of what – a start-up just out of stealth mode called Anetac may be someone you want to evaluate. If your organization’s problem is more about non-human identity issue, Natoma can assist in provisioning, deprovisioning and maintenance of non-human IDs. The word of the conference was service and non-human IDs is an area exploding with a reported over a dozen just announced at RSA.
Google hosted an entire detailed workshop on Google Sign-On, Passkey and the use of FedFCM to deal with 3rd party cookies. It was exciting to see they are working to push privacy forward with browser.
An attention-grabbing keynote Thursday morning alerted to the Darkside of identity. Reminding all that identity is the most common entrance point for the uninvited. Another keynote reminded all attempting to forge a path in identity, that the most important thing is to just get going! Furthermore, pay attention to the point of no return. Identity and security are all about depth of defense, spend the effort when there is a big payout. Do not insist on 100% for each program as the last percentages take resources without improving security posture. It is far better to find a new program that will affect the remaining identities with the remaining resources.
One often too difficult aspect of identity is customer onboarding. To that end, Strivacity specializes in the end user aspect of identity. If you challenge is too many identity services and you are having difficulty getting a complete picture, TenableOne provides a unified dashboard to see the entire threat attack surface. If your difficulty is all about connecting identity platforms to other sources and targets, Aquera Platform provides identity connector along with automation and governance in their solution. Saviynt provided a demonstration of their identity cloud with a visual display. RSA Shared their Unified Identity platform that is available on prem or in cloud for SAS saps as well as supporting SAML. Radiant Logic also provides an identity middleware heavily focusing on the data and metadata of identity. This point was also shared during John Pritchard of Radiant Logic’s keynote.
There were options if one is seeking assistance with their identity solutions. AOH offers identity consulting spanning assessment, architecture, execution and maintenance. ProofID offers global managed identity services and are key partners with many of the top identity technology providers such as PING Identity.
Cisco provided an in-depth workshop on defining and building an identity graph. It was very insightful, and the audience was glued to the screen. What caught our eye was the end when they said, “look at that picture – you know what that means. You know what that means you are supposed to do” Even in 2019 when I was at Gartner, augmented intelligence was present so hearing, “look at the picture” was surprising. More commonly is generative AI incorporated so it suggested actions based upon what is seen. Fortunately, Microsoft was there to bring it all back to 2024. There was an Microsoft Entra deep-dive by Nichole Peterson as well as a Microsoft Entra with Co-pilot demo that allowed attendees to zoom back to 2024.
Next year’s Identiverse is held June 3-6, 205. Furthermore, next year’s conference will be at Mandalay Bay.
*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.
This webinar will feature a panel of engineers that have deployed deep learning and generative AI and their solution is in customers’ hands. You will be able to take away insights on the selection of technology, the process of realizing a solution, pitfalls, nightmares and what the panelists would do differently next time.
Can’t attend? Register and submit your question anyway, the answer will be on our YouTube channel.
Research Code: 2045
Omer Segal is the Head of AI at Pixellot, overseeing the AI group responsible for researching and developing automated sports production and automatic game highlights generation for Pixellot AI-automated sports camera systems. He has extensive leadership experience as CTO and R&D Director at companies in homeland security, mapping, and sports technology, where he oversaw the development of innovative AI applications. Omer’s project portfolio includes creating land vehicle and aerial mapping and navigation systems, AR applications for archaeological reconstructions, and athletes’ video analysis applications.
Omer holds a BSc and an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University, specializing in the application of advanced technologies such as deep learning, computer vision and signal processing.
With 20 years of experience as a Character Technical Director, JC Leon bring expertise in motion capture and avatar creation for diverse productions. Originally focusing on rigging for films, commercials, and games, I transitioned to real-time motion capture and game engine rigging over the past five years. Integrating AI into motion capture and avatar systems has been a recent passion, alongside a commitment to exploring new technologies and their synergies. From rigging for TV shows like “The Flash” to contributing to 3D Bitmoji development and virtual concert setups, my journey reflects a dedication to innovation and collaboration in the ever-evolving landscape of AI and entertainment technology.
Ziyuan(Zac) is the Chief Scientist at Birch.AI, where he spearheads the research and development of LLM and ASR models to automate healthcare call-center workflows. He is responsible for selecting and designing ML models, data processing, production system architecture, and deployment. With over 10 years of experience in speech recognition and natural language processing systems, Ziyuan has a proven track record of delivering production-ready systems for tasks such as classification, named entity recognition, and real-time transcription. Ziyuan holds a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University Beijing and a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University where he worked at the Center for Language and Speech Processing on projects that led to the creation of many open-source NLP and ASR toolkits
Analyst(s) and Photojournalist: Doreen Galli, PhD MBA
ABSTRACT
After 400 minutes of filming, 30 videos, countless shorts and over 30 factchecks, our coverage of this years’ Smart Retail Tech Expo 2024 closes. Smart Retail Tech Expo is part of 5 conferences held at once at the same time and place: White Label, Retail, Supply Chain and Logistics Expo, Smart Retail Tech, Ecommerce Packaging and Labelling and Com Business Live. It was held in Las Vegas from May 8 to May 9 at the South Lower Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The event featured 5 theaters with each featuring 4-5 talks each day for a total of 47 keynote sessions. With discussion on distribution and logistics and vendors for every step of the journey, one could launch a new business with the contacts from this event alone.
After 2 days of filming some 400 minutes of content, 30 videos with endless shorts coming and over 30 factchecks, our coverage of this years’ Smart Retail Tech Expo closes. The event is five events held at once all together. White Label, Retail, Supply chain and Logistics Expo, Smart Retail Tech, E-Commerce Packaging and Labelling and Com Business Live. With row after row of exhibits*, the event was made whole by the balanced combination of talks and exhibits. Even better, there was 15 minutes in between the talks so one could catch the exhibits. Furthermore, all theaters schedules were once again aligned in the event you wanted to switch theaters as well.
The short two-day event packs a punch with 5 keynote theatres each featuring 4 or 5 talks a day for a whopping 47 sessions. The first day was supposed to be capped off by a presentation Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy but it was cancelled purportedly due to security concerns. We captured 30 videos that will result in a lot of great shorts so be sure to save the entire playlist of videos for Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo. We were able to capture the walkabout of the entire conference right at the conference’s grand opening. If you are wondering what was to eat at the show, we have you covered with video of the food lines and menus.
The keynotes at this smaller event were quite impressive and featured talks from Google, AWS, Home Depot, Lenova, and ASCM (Association of Supply Chain Management) to name a few. Douglas Kent of ASCM (Association of Supply Chain Management) shared top supply chain trends during his keynote. Jesus Sanchez from Google show the many ways in which you can put Google AI to work for you for your retail solution. It is all about optimizing marketing expenses. He also shared the interesting statistic that 15% of all searches are unique. Amazon’s Justin Honaman shared the many ways AWS Gen AI is being leveraged for innovation in retail and CPG. Phil Pench of DHL ecommerce shared an interesting talk with the list of options for the end of the supply chain particularly for those importing goods.
Home Depot’s Paul Ganz shared the ripple effect of failing a customer. He reminded all that you only get one chance to take care of your customer. That once the customer bought the product, you are handling their item – not yours and it should be treated as such. Chewy’s Debarati Das gave a detailed talk highlighting the complexities of inventory management in the context of the corporate goals and customer satisfaction requirements. There were many people waiting to speak with this speaker following the talk. Kevin Lawton of @thenewwarehouse examined the question of doing fulfillment from the retail location versus a warehouse. Admittedly, this talk reminded me of a patent I was awarded as an IBM Engineer on this exact topic in the heart of the dot com era.
While many of the exhibits focused on the White Label portion of the show were captured in the walkabout, there was no technology for us to cover. Nonetheless, we discovered quite a bit of tech to capture. If you need to make a professional video to sell your wares or any other services in getting your product to market, newegg was on display with media, sellingpilot, and marketplace. If you are not sure about the size of the object you are selling, vMeasure was on site. vMeasure leverages cameras, sensors and scales with some great AI /ML models to provide the size of the object.
If one is selling something in a store, are instead display, Retail Media Management was there to share their digital signs and smart retail tags. One only needs to change the price online, and all price tags will automatically update. They are reported to have a 5-year battery life. Admittedly, we know days of batteries in such electronics is limited as glass can now capture energy from thin air as seen in our coverage at CES. Another digital sign company, Hongzhou had a smart menu kiosk on exhibit. This kiosk not only takes the order and payment but coordinates the order to the kitchen staff. Limited staff but want to open a pizza joint? Pzza has an automated solution to make commercial pizzas that only requires one employee to run the shop. This exhibit gave us flashbacks to the automatic stir fry tech we saw at CES, Techmagic. If you would like to bring home the bacon instead of serving it, Bacon Tech was on site with their staffing and employee management mobile application. If your retail business involves CBD, Argyle Payments was on hand to help you with your banking needs.
To secure a retail space, many require video surveillance. LVT remote surveillance with their solar panel powered solution complete with simple intelligence was on the floor. This intelligence is leverages to identify objects in the video and notify as appropriate. Is your business is looking for warehouse space AND will create 10 jobs or more? Global Site Location Industries collaborates with municipalities around the country. This collaboration allows Global Site Location Industries to offer their assistance for free.
If you warehouse scanners or other mobile technology is missing or you need an extra, ASR Tech was on site and can fix anything. If simply cannot find your products in your warehouse or want to monitor them through the supply chain, Lyngsoe Systems passive RFID has a solution for you. RFID has come a long way with stickers at just .05 each. We also heard about Cirro Fulfillment’s Smart robots as they were to enhance the supply chain. SRSI shared their automated storage and retrieval technology available in all 50 states. In fact, SRSI handles all technology available within the 4 walls of the warehouse. Goods was on display to remind you to focus on your business with their integrated solution handling inventory management, order management, and warehouse management.
As a conference about logistics, there were many logistics companies! Fellowship logistics shared that they can reach 99% of the US in 2 days and 75% in 1 day. Meanwhile, ExFreight was sharing that they provide 100% online capabilities for their entire service logistics offering to 175 countries. C&C logistics serves all continental US and Mexico and can move anything from a single pallet to an entire warehouse.
There were vendors on display with technology for every aspect of your retail business. Shopline intelligent offered a unified commerce platform. There was also a solution called iVision to automate customer loyalty. Admittedly, both solutions intelligence is not yet fully realized compared to many of the technologies analyzed at the Adobe Summit or even Fintech Meetup.
Smart Retail Tech Expo comes to Las Vegas every year. The next Smart Retail Tech Expo will occur April 16 and 17th, 2025, in Las Vegas, NV 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 products in the same category may have also been on display.
After 85 flights of stairs, ~40,000 steps, 12 Vegas loops trips, and over 40 factchecks, our coverage of 2024 NAB Show, National Association of Broadcasters Show, ends. NAB Show was held in Las Vegas from April 13-17. It is the premier event for content professionals in the broadcast, media, and entertainment ecosystem seeking to create superior and innovative audio and video experiences. The conference featured over700,000 net square feet of exhibits, nearly 1300 exhibitors, 750 educational courses and sessions, and over 61,000+ attendees from an amazing 163 countries. Attendees witnessed endless examples of cloud enabled remote production, early implementations of generative AI, and discussions on sustainability in production and technical security for remote live production.
The Conference
The first NAB Show was held October 11, 1923, in New York City at the Commodore Hotel. There were 16 radio stations represented among the 23 attendees. NAB Show moved to Las Vegas in 1991.
NAB Show was held April 13-17, 2024, in Las Vegas. The event featured over 61,000 attendees. Within those attendees 27% were international attendees from an amazing 163 countries represented.
The exhibitions featured nearly 1300 exhibitors in over 700,000 net square feet of exhibits a 30% gain over 2023.
Attendees at NABShow held titles such as Production Director, Production Editor, Production Engineer, Broadcast and Network Engineer, Logistics Manager, Electrical Engineer, Sound and Video Engineer, Director of Product Management, Technical Architect, and data scientist.
After 85 flights of stairs and 40,000 steps, and 12 Vegas loops trip, our coverage of the 2024 NAB Show produced by National Association of Broadcasters, ends. NAB Show 2024 exhibitions surpassed last year’s by nearly 30% with 700,000 square feet in all. Attendance came in at 61,000 attendees with 27% coming from international destinations. NABPAC contributors were recognized in the West Hall. The conference leveraged the entire indoor conference exhibit spaces in the West Hall, Central Hall, South Upper and South Lower and a few rooms in North Halls. A majority of North Hall was under construction. Fortunately, the Vegas Loop was running with free rides so one needed not walk the entire distance. We took advantage of the loop no less than a dozen times. When asked attendees reported meeting their business objectives and described it as really good. Once again – the quality of attendees itself was mentioned by the exhibitors. Our entire playlist of video research for NAB Show is available online at our YouTube Channel.
With over 200 exhibitions and over 150 sessions on AI, generative AI was once again the star of the show. Amid the buzz about AI and generative AI transforming broadcasting, one question was on the mind of video engineers – “Will it affect our jobs?”. Luisa Winters had an answer in her keynote. If you are adapting and using the new technologies, you will be fine. No different from the move from tapes. More importantly, you will not only be able to deliver something acceptable but have time to make it great! Another keynote emphasized the importance of great metadata for your assets if you want to fully leverage generative AI solutions in sports coverage. As one might expect, there were countless examples* of tools for production and distribution and each of the tasks involved. Pixellot was on hand with their exciting deep learning automated sports tracking leveraged for streaming sports. Their solution leveraging their state-of-the-art cameras and patented technology that stitches it all together. As would be expected, each sport has its own model. In fact, they had over 10,000 live events streaming as I conducted the interview. Pixellot also includes capabilities for monetizing said sports streams.
One keynote provided a demo of Adobe Premier Pro, something we didn’t recall seeing at Adobe Summit.Backlight showcased their extensive collection of products for media content creation and distribution. Backlight’s solution leverages AI and generative AI to simplify media workflows. Backlight allows horizontal and vertical video distribution. Backlight leverages their own AI and LLM models to transcribe the video/audio. That transcription is then used to quickly generate all the metadata to put on social media. They leverage automation to automate the creation of sports highlight clips out to social media by registering all key moments as the game plays. Finally, their solution also enables monetization.
Amazon and AWS were at NAB Show in full force. A huge display was on hand where they shared their entire Generative AI stack with those looking to develop solutions. Experts were on hand if you had any questions including seeking insights on Amazon Bedrock. In the Microsoft pavilion, SymphonyAI was there as part of the beet the buzzer architecture that enables viewers to play along with game shows. Microsoft offered a Pilot demonstration of AI enabled marketing.
Transcription and translation are a big area for generative AI in broadcasting and media, sometimes referred to as localization. This topic was featured in a keynote as well as in exhibits. Microsoft featured their solution based on Open AI. TRINT featured their text to speech solution adopted across the industry. One exciting development is the ability to do full motion capture without putting on a special suit due to generative AI! In fact, Zerospace Captury was on exhibit sharing their solution. Interestingly, the room only requires about 15 minutes to set up the space to capture motion.
With all of the generative content capabilities shown, stopping misinformation and deepfakes was a very popular topic featured in a keynote. The solution involves knowledge of the content frequently communicated through metadata. To that end, Hand (Human & Digital) shared their solution for identity intelligence for notable talent.
Leveraging capabilities of 5g, XGN featured their solution that enables users to connect direct to mobile to send content from the field – no SIM card required! Cobalt Digital shared their extensive collection of open gear based on 2110, 12G and ultra-low latency. Their gear also supports Rest APIs. Cobalt Digital featured routers, control panels, and multi-viewers for video and audio processing. As might be expected with the continual increased resolution, a new video compression standard is being rolled out and is already rolled out in Brazil, LCEVC. In the LCEVC showcase, all the providers with their next generation of tech leveraging LCEVC were on display. Ateme also focuses on compression – for the purpose of technologies such as the Apple Vision Pro which they showed off in the exhibition. Once you created all your content, if you wanted to manage the programming data so it is accurate in every tv program listing, Titan TV shared their solution. If you wanted to optimize the way in which you manage ad campaigns, Showseeker shared their solution to simplify advertising scheduling.
For those requiring the ability to manage the labor and payroll for that remote labor, Procrewz shared their solution. If keeping track of and on top of all the compliance requirements for broadcast and streaming is your challenge, Vela exhibited their product.
NAB Show also featured technology and solutions to support the creator economy. In Vimeo’s session they stated that one can expect 2% of free YouTube subscribers to convert to a paid subscriber on Vimeo. For those wishing to participate in a reality show about making creators or leverage it for advertising, the team from the TV show Follow Me had a lively panel. The central Main Stage featured an interview with Jennifer Hudson. During the interview Jennifer told the audience that she is always cheering for everyone. A great session on diversity in broadcasting featured the Las Vegas Aces Alysha Clark who majored in broadcasting during her college career. Alysha Clark made the great point to all that inclusion means opening prime spots to diversity be it tv slots or board and executive spots in corporate America.
NAB Show is held every year in Las Vegas since 1991. The next NAB Show will occur April 5-9, 2025, in Las Vegas, NV.
*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.
