After 61 videos including 4 first ever onsite livestreams, 150 minutes of recording including multiple exclusive shots – our coverage of Black Hat USA 2025 closes. Black Hat USA 2025 featured over 100 briefings and 120 sponsored sessions, with coverage spanning keynote presentations, technical sessions, and exhibit hall innovations. Topics ranged from AI-driven threat detection and agentic SOC platforms to identity verification and proactive risk management. Trends in cybersecurity regarding defence, use of AI agents, and focus on resiliency continue to grow.
The Conference
Black Hat USA 2025 featured over one hundred briefings and 120 sponsored sessions. Attendance numbers are forthcoming. 2024’s edition featured over 20,000 in person attendees.
Cautions
Black hat is not a conference to attend without preparation. All of one’s technology should be up to date. One should ensure they are leveraging a VPN and a RDID wallet when intentionally going around black hat. If not using one’s phone, a portable faraday pouch is always beneficial.
Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
After 61 videos and related fact checks, over 150 minutes of recording including for the first time ever – four onsite LIVESTREAMS – our coverage of Black Hat USA 2025 closes. Black Hat featured over one hundred briefings and 120 sponsored sessions. Clients may recall the expo hall restrictions during our coverage of HIMSS which treated the entire expo hall like a surgical operating room from a privacy perspective. Guess what? It was even tighter at Black Hat. Nonetheless, we were able to capture the energy as Expo Hall was opening. Not only that, for the first time ever, Informa (who owns Black Hat) gave permission to someone to do a walkabout in Expo Hall prior to its opening for the day. That’s right – enjoy your exclusive look at Black Hat USA 2025 Expo Hall. Not only that, we were able to capture the mouthwatering lunch served on Wednesday. Once again, unlike most events, the What’s To Eat? Video does not include any attendees enabling us to really get a great shot of the food! A first for TBW Advisors LLC – we did four livestreams while on site. One live stream on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning. One final livestream went out on Thursday as I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the August 9th broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
While at Black Hat USA 2025, we conducted research for three additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.
Kicking off in dramatic fashion, the conference kicked off with an amazing keynote from non-other than the most famous virus hunters – Mikko Hypponen and father of the Hypponen law of IoT security – one of our favorite coverage spaces. Specifically, Mikko said that if a device is smart, it is vulnerable. It was amazing to hear his story.
On the bleeding edge of things, we received two session summaries from Microsoft’s Thomas Roccia. The first session was his Black Hat session on NOVA – Prompt Pattern Matching regarding a new type of threat gaining traction. The second session is actually at DEFCON – the sister conference where no one would be ignorant enough to bring in modern technology outside of a faraday cage. Fortunately, we caught Thomas while at Black Hat. IN this talk Thomas shared that they are releasing an AI Agent to track crypto currency’s movements including visualization to combat crypto money laundering. The final Microsoft session itself that we captured is the Unmasking of Cyber Villains. I always love when engineers get a very loud boastful ovation from the audience. This stage featured the heroes of MISTIC and Dart who shared how they leverage each other’s strength. MISTIIC stands for Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center while Dart stands for Microsoft’s Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset. In this session, the Microsoft team emphasized that incidents require empathy, speed, and precision. The Darth team is on the ground delivering the empathy and getting the data to MISTIC. MISTIC in turn, provides the cheat codes to the Darth rescue team to quickly combat the incident.
On the topic of using AI Agents on a team of humans in wish SOC, James Spiteri from Elastic Security shared a summary of his session. “AI without Borders: Extending analysts capabilities in a modern Soc” dove into details how Agents and humans can successfully interoperate in a SOC. James also covered critical questions you need to think about in order to truly operationalize this type of situation.
As with many events, some exhibits span outside of the formal expo hall. We were invited to the Dune Security Command Center on site where we heard about their solution. Their adaptive training uses a personal credit risk scoring model. It targets each employee’s risky actions and knowledge gaps with customized, targeted, proactive program. The goal is to elevate them to meet corporate standards. This theme of preparation, training, and doing things up-front was definitely a theme. Cumulated shared how their solution focuses on resiliency. Given that the proper way to discuss it is always when and not if, it is wise to ensure a quick recovery when it occurs. This preparation and looking out for the threat aligned with Qualys’s Risk Operations Center. This center is focused on assisting organization proactively identify, prioritize, and finally remediate identified risks. Covering all five personas in a SOC (alerts, vulnerabilities, threat intel, case management and DFIR (digital forensics/incident response )) StrikeReady’s platform integrates with 800 tools and is focused on removing each role’s pain points. Continuous Threat Exposure Management or CTEM is the area addressed most recently by Safe Security. Booli also moves things earlier in the process, in their case identity stitching. Specifically at the very beginning of the process including score carding the identity and providing the information back to the identity service. Ensuring stolen credentials are changed once they have been phished and the criminals attempted to leverage them, Mokn was on site to tell attendees about their solution.
If your organization would prefer to fix vulnerabilities instead of the common security software composition analysis, Heeler Security was the booth to visit. Feeling overwhelmed, by cloud configurations in your organization? imPac Labs was on site talking about their expertise. Admittedly, given my Microsoft Patent application on Policy Profiles, cloud configurations is a problem space on our radar at TBW Advisors. Speaking of high availability environments, HAProxy Technolog exhibited their platform that brings enterprise security performance and configurability into packaged software.
An area we have discussed in Conference Whispers: Money 20/20, Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025, and Conference Whispers: Fintech Meetup 2025 – verifying the hardware device is a valuable defence vector for fighting fraud. At Black Hat USA 2025 we met SmallStep that enables device identity with cryptographic identity ensuring corporate devices are used to perform work. Leveraging device identification to eliminate deepfakes within a corporation, Netarx leverages multiple models to ensure your corporate communications are safe from deep fakes. Elastic Search – an open-source project known for search – found itself building native security and analytics due to popular demand.
Moving into the agentic side of things, Microsoft’s AI Agent Challenge was a big hit. Their booth had plenty of specialists on site to answer any of your questions. Focusing exclusively on AI Agents for the Red Team, Mindgard’s solution keeps probing to find vulnerabilities, filters through them based on your target and context. Finally, remediation advise is dispensed. Cyata built a built a control plane for Agentic Identity and includes policy enforcement. Addressing the full lifecycle above and beyond triage, Exaforce shared their Agentic SOC Platform. A demo of Exaforce was also captured. Finally, if you are unfamiliar with the current state of agents or have never seen an agent in action, enjoy the video with Ralph. Ralph comes from Cyber Innovate; a think tank focused on stopping threats from AI Agents themselves.
Black Hat USA 2026 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at Mandalay Bay Convention Center in August 2026. The exact dates have yet to be announced at time of publication.
*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.
“Organizations can implement zero-trust security without disrupting user experience by prioritizing frictionless authentication, especially biometrics, and enforcing least-privilege access through dynamic policies. Understanding user context and behavior enables informed decisions that preserve continuity. Self-service access tools reduce delays, while streamlined verification processes minimize frustration. With thoughtful planning and clear communication, zero trust can enhance both security and usability, ensuring users access only what they need—when they need it—without unnecessary barriers.”
To strengthen cybersecurity in FinTech, experts emphasize a layered approach that combines technology and human awareness. Rising threats like phishing, smishing, and fraud demand not just better tools but also vigilant, well-trained employees. Embedding security scans into software development, analyzing diverse data signals, and adopting a “defense in depth” strategy are all critical. Ultimately, staying curious, asking the right questions, and embracing evolving technologies—especially AI—can help organizations stay ahead of cyber risks.
Research available only to clients at this time.
*When vendors’ names or quotes are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference or what we heard doing our research, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document.
Cybersecurity in healthcare is responsible for protecting the data that represents the life’s story of patients and infrastructure to enable proper care. Managing and securing the plethora of edge devices and the interoperability of all the technologies is an increasing challenge. There are four steps to take to enhance your healthcare cybersecurity: select a framework, leverage depth in defense, automate where possible, and test your environment.
Analysis is only available to clients at this time.
*When vendors’ names or quotes are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference or what we heard doing our research, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document.
As cyber and physical security continue to merge, proactive, multi-layered strategies are essential to safeguard critical assets in interconnected environments. Secure data practices, including encryption for data in transit and at rest, during compute, and ensure compliance with high security standards. Architectural resilience is crucial, integrating cybersecurity from the outset rather than retrofitting outdated systems. Correlating physical and cyber events provides valuable context. Finaly, digitizing workflows streamlines response efficiency, minimizing the window of vulnerability during attacks.
Target Audience Titles:
Chief Technology Officer, Chief Security Officer
Chief Information and Security Officer, VP of Cybersecurity
Director Cyber Physical Security, Security Analyst
Cybersecurity Engineer, Incident Response Analyst
Key Takeaways
Data must be encrypted at rest, in transit, and during execution.
Cyber Physical security requires a securely designed architecture from the start.
Cyber and physical threats must be correlated.
Only a digitized workflow can respond with the required speed to cyber physical threats.
As with all security, cyber physical security must also be concerned with, “ data security and encryption … that’s data in the device, data in transit, data in rest at the servers, and so all of those things we have the highest level standards and we also meet more advanced requirements, “ Bioconnect’s Edsel Shreve. The solution should be flexible enough to enable any data protection requirements that come into play. Edsel Shreve went on to further explain, “for example you need to do certificate rotation for things like TLS encryption So we can do those things not every customer wants them but those are the things that we’ve actually got in our system for the folks that have those higher level requirements so it really is the combination of how do we make sure that they’re cyber secure sitting on the network and then how do we make sure that they’re physically and the data is secure on the on the readers and devices themselves.” In addition, TBW Advisors LLC recommends confidential computing architectures for protection and privacy during computations. For additional information see Industry Whispers: Public is Private – Confidential Computing in the Cloud.
Taking a 1968 mustang and updating it to 2025 safety standards would be quite the challenge and likely land up with an ugly beast that is neither safe nor resembling of a mustang. Cyber physical security is no different than safety. It must be thought of and integrated from the very beginning. As LVT’s Steve Lindsey explained, “it starts with architecture if we can rethink our architectures and we can start building for cyber security in mind.” The challenge of physical cyber security is that, “for the longest time in the physical security space we’ve been using on premise systems and as we’ve lifted and shifted those into the cloud .. what complicates that is as we’re deploying these systems it’ not just cloud to end User, it’s Cloud to IoT (Internet of Things) device which is going through usually public cellular or satellite infrastructure itself and there’s other things that need to be done to address that” Steve Lindsey.
The real power of cyber physical security is the two areas working together to correlate events. Through correlation, context and a greater understanding is realized. An example shared by Advancis’ Paul Shanks demonstrates this best. “Someone loses their badge and falls out of their pocket and they’re logged into the network from home and their badge is used at the building. Those two events by themselves are benign but we take that together and create a an alert for the operator to look into whether is it a Cyber attack or is it a physical attack.”
As early as 2019 TBW Advisors LLC has been advising clients to automate security responses when possible for the simple fact you must. Ransomware attacks were already taking place within a 35-minute window. In 2025 the cyber physical attack vector also calls for automation or a digitized workflow at the very least. As Advancis’ Paul Shanks communicated, “we can take that and make that workflow digitized so that all they have to do is read click and go. Simple as that.”
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.
Internet 2.0 Conference is one of five conferences that makes up 2.0 Conferences. In total the conferences had seven hundred attendees over 3 days packed with solid keynotes. Attendees seemed to agree that small but mighty was a good description of the event. Common themes including where is society going with technology as well as how these changes will impact society.
Highlights
Five conferences all in one meant this tiny conference packed a powerful punch.
This event was all keynotes with speakers rotating between the 5 shows.
Cautions
This conference packs the sessions back-to-back. One must plan on your own for bio and physical movement breaks to avoid excessive sedentary day.
The biggest theme at the conference focused on where innovation in technology is going to take us. One keynote on the evolution of intelligence had a panel discuss the paradigms that go beyond AI and ML This session also included an interested example of how Yazzmoney was leveraging blockchain. Specifically, they are helping Zambia government to tokenize cattle, minerals, wildlife and renewable energy. This enables the cattle ranchers, for example to access the value of the cattle. Another keynote with an all-male panel discussed how AR, VR and MR can revolutionize customer experience. Michael Koch keynote was a great discussion on the evolution of work, life, and play. Michael Koch discussed how technology has changed and is going to continue to change even faster with wireless power closer on the horizon than we imagine. Parts of this keynote reminded us of the 100 years of innovation exhibit at CES. One of the fascination aspects of Michael Koch’s keynote was the discussion around moving from creative and getting the ideas to adoption and conversion. There was to be another keynote on AI that looked like great potential at the start. Unfortunately the speakers time was cut in half and the deck didn’t work, thus Gary Y. Wu went Beyond AI in his talk. Futurist writer Jeffrey James Seyferth shared his vision of tech nirvana with attendees.
One thing all agreed on is there will be an adaptation that must occur. Cyber burnout was a real concern in the keynote on wearables, robot and IoT. That session hilariously drew the parallel of the conference attendees not having breaks in between all the sessions to describe how cyber burnout occurs. With all this change, technologist need to be great communicators. To that end, Archer Now CEO, Trung Q. Pham brought his keynote, “The art of Communication Jiujitsu” to meet the demand. Trung emphasized that we retain 90% of what we teach.
Several panellists mentioned the concern of impact around generative AI hallucinations. To that end, one panellist shared that hallucinations are to be expected as the technology is in its toddler phase of reasoning. An interesting second concern on generative AI was raised concerning the massive computational requirements for a simple answer is surely not good for the planet.
We were able to catch one interesting keynote on security. David Ronn from Zecurity shared their on-premises and edge solution to ending ransomware that blocks and examines all commands outside of a simple read command.
2.0 Conferences 2025 conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada at Caesars in April of 2025.
*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.
North America’s largest construction trade show, CONEXPO-CON/AGG and IFPE are held together every three years in Las Vegas. The conference featured over 3 million net square feet of exhibits, over 2400 exhibitors, 200 educational courses, and 139,000 attendees from 133 countries. There were endless examples of Industrial Intelligence of Things (IIoT) and early examples of digitally transformed construction sites. The digital transformation of the construction site is well underway enabling multivendor views to optimize asset use and the total carbon footprint of a given job.
The Conference
The first CONEXPO was held in 1909 in Columbus, Ohio. The first CON/AGG was held in Detroit Michigan in 1928. CONEXPO and CON/AGG merged for the 19961 show held in Las Vegas. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) is responsible for putting on the show. Today, CONEPXO is one conferences with three domains: specifically, CONEXPO, CON/AGG and IFPE. Due the size and complexity of bringing all the equipment together, it is held every 3 years at the LVCC – the only location that can physically accommodate the weight of the equipment.
CONEXPO-CONN/AGG and IFPE was held in Las Vegas and leveraging the entire expanded LVCC including West, Central, South and North Halls and the festival lot. The Conference featured with 139,000 registered attendees including international attendees from 133 countries. The exhibitions featured over 2400 exhibitors in over 3 million net square feet of exhibits. There was a significant presence of women at the conference not simply joining attendees.
Attendees at CONEXPO-CONN/AGG and IFPE 2020 held titles such as Job Site Director, Director Heavy Equipment Rentals, Machine Operator, Logistics Manager, Electrical Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Director of Product Management, Director City Planning, and new this time – data scientist.
Highlights
Sensors is standard on heavy equipment this time around. Today’s sensor solutions are more intelligent than ever. Predictive maintenance is a reality when information from telematics systems is integrated into maintenance systems.
Digital transformation is arriving at construction job sites and heavy equipment rentals.
While there are new Government regulations such as US bidding requirements to disclose carbon footprint and plan to reduce emissions, OEM (original equipment manufacturers) equipment itself does not provide this information. Additional work is required to understand one’s footprint.
Cautions
The industry would benefit from leveraging six sigma or other practices common in manufacturing to formally document the business benefit of their digital transformation.
There are many lessons learned in IT data management and manufacturing transformations that can benefit the construction digital transformation. Hopefully, these lessons will be shared so maximum success can be achieved.
The largest North American construction conference surpassed the attendance of their last conference which was held while Covid 19 was declared a pandemic2. The conference requires an entire month to set up – complex enough that it is only held every 3 years. The exhibits leveraged the entire Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). It spanned the parking lots, South Hall, North Hall, Central Hall, the new West Hall, and the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. When asked attendees reported meeting their business objectives, the answer was a resounding Yes. Some indicated the expected deals came through along with a few pleasant surprises. Once again – the quality of attendees itself was mentioned by the exhibitors. Fortunately, the press room and many exhibits had coffee available – both regular and decaffeinated AND hot water for tea this time around.
According to IFM3, 85% of vehicle telematics is used for vehicle tracking with only 27% used to track fatigue management. While the 2020 conference had education modules on digital transformation, in 2023 there were competing modules. CONEXPO 2023 live forced one to choose between ‘Top 10 Uses Cases using advanced Machine Data4’ and ‘Predictive Maintenance: Plan the Work and Work the Plan’. In 2020 participants were told the value of sharing one important piece of data5. In 2023, the conference offered a plethora of machine data transformational use cases.
Attendees saw a Plante Moran’s customer discuss how they learned to leverage data to better manage their fleets6. ICC provided a great session on crane operation safety using data analysis of standards and incidents. When all was finished, the audience understood that less than 23.8% of crane safety responsibility falls on the operator’s shoulders7.
POLARIS Laboratories® demonstrated the advantages of simply connecting one’s fluid analysis to the maintenance management system8. In another session, participants learned how to use their machine data for 10 separate use cases. The use cases varied from maximizing the ROI of their machines, saving money by maximizing use of remote investigation to minimizing the costs of batteries9. Another topic growing in popularity due to federal contracting requirements was understanding the carbon footprint of a job site. A complete solution set with various accuracy levels to measure fleet emissions was presented by Clue10. DOKA presented a platform that can estimate your carbon footprint. In addition, DOKA platform can optimize most metrics for job sites across the company and across machine vendors11. Furthermore, DOKA offers an augmented reality solution to help customers and teams picture the job site before it is realized12.
Finally, one cannot discuss all this technology and data without a great session on cybersecurity. To that end CONEXPO did not disappoint with a great panel revealing ransomware and DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are top of mind13.
In conclusion, it was exciting to see how far and how fast the construction and agricultural industries are progressing toward digital transformed job sites and enterprises. Unfortunately, transformations stories frequently could not communicate their business impact. If I had one piece of advice to share with the industry it would be leverage six sigma or some business process impact/improvement (BPI) assessment during the transformations. These types of processes capture the financial advantage of the actual transformation. Despite the lack of BPI assessment, construction benefits from the constant turnover of construction equipment within companies. Thus, I would not be surprised to see the construction industry successfully transform faster than manufacturing.
