TBW ADVISORS LLC

Tag: IoT

Conference Whispers: Black Hat USA 2026
Las Vegas, NV August 1-6, 2026

Published: August 9, 2026 ID: TBW2226

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

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

ABSTRACT

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

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

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

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

Exhibits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conference Vibe

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

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

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

Next Year’s Conference

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

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

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

Published: August 9, 2026 ID: TBW2216

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

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

Enjoy the related Computer Talk Radio and Computer Talk Radio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conference Vibe

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

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

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

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

Next Year’s Conference

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

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

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

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

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, Vegas Convention Library; Leading Professionals, Real Questions, Real Time, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
August 9, 2026
Conference Whispers: ISC West 2026
Las Vegas, NV March 23 – March 27

Published: March 29, 2026 ID: TBW2164

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

As Discussed on Computer Talk Radio.

ABSTRACT

ISC West 2026 brought the physical cyber security community to Las Vegas and the Venetian Expo for a week of live demonstrations, field conversations, and on‑floor video. Coverage spans frictionless screening, threat detection, control infrastructure, and emerging AI and identity capabilities, reflecting how vendors are approaching scale, connectivity, and modernization across real‑world security environments globally.

Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
- Just because a technology can do something in general doesn’t mean it will work in your environment. It is critical to validate a technology including its false positive and error rates.
Frictionless Security

One of our first stops was technology everyone at the show wished TSA Adopted yesterday! Xtract One Technologies enables screening without stopping and unpacking one’s bags! The technology provides an image of the person with the threat in their bag, identifies the threat and its location within the bag without slowing down pedestrian traffic through the screening gate.

Physical security systems have a variety of access systems from badge readers to keys. The problem with keys is key management. Introducing InVue’s OneKEY, an adaptable smart key and related system. If you think the best part is only having one key, versus the notorious janitor key ring you are in for a treat! This smart key can communicate via IR to unlock devices and provide wireless energy transfer to lock mechanisms. Furthermore, every action is tracked, logged and fully auditable.

Common to all physical security systems, is equipment that is plugged in and subject to power surge damage. DITEK was in expo hall with their exciting modular surge protection solution. The time saving feature of being able to simply replace a module after end of life versus the entire surge protector is sure to be popular. Hot Swapping modules are easier to change than a printer cartridge. Friendly reminder that licensed electrical contractors are generally required to service 120 volts and up.

Threat Detection & Response

Identification of objects with surveillance videos is another tough challenge that was taken on by Everon. Their combination hardware, software, and processes solution is focused on deterring unwanted activity in its protected space.

Physical Cyber Security solutions often involve communications from the field where it can be noisy. Whether the noise comes from the chaos of the emergency or is inherit in the location such as security at an F1 race, it doesn’t matter. The human voice communication must still be possible! Roanwell Corporation also shared their adjustable noise suppression solution leveraged by security personnel, first responders, fire fighters, and war fighters like.

These threat detection and response systems also cannot function in isolation. They must stay connected Teal.io’s eSIM solution provides the ultimate in reliable mission-critical connectivity. Their global technology ensures devices always connect to the best available network. The best part? Their solution frictionlessly provides connectivity so surveillance and robotics solutions can effectively stay in communication.

At the other end of the spectrum, some organizations require surveillance systems that are deliberately disconnected. RGB Spectrum provides air‑gapped security for surveillance environments designed to operate on isolated networks—or no network at all. By leveraging unidirectional HDMI sharing, RGB Spectrum demonstrated an approach intended to prevent external access paths, positioning the system, by their design, as resistant to remote compromise.

Control Centers & Infrastructure

Scaling is their middle name at Matrix ComSec. Matrix ComSec manufactures surveillance cameras and access control hardware with a system capacity of 4 to 96 channels. To provide further context, a single gadget can support up to 255 doors.

Focusing on the control center and providing a unified pane of glass for clients, Hartman Controls welcomed all with their booth right outside Expo Hall’s Main Entrance. Established in 1998, Hartman’s engineering-first approach provides hardware flexibility offering traditional and edge-style enclosures. The solution can be deployed on premise, the cloud and is easy to migrate in either direction should your architecture and requirements change.

Maintain the theme of cloud or on-premise availability, Keri Systems shared their Open Platform for access solutions. In addition, Keri’s flexibility enables it to support up to 12-13 different hardware platforms. Furthermore, the product is built to explicitly support multiple vertical markets.

One difficulty in purchasing security equipment is many of the manufacturers started in one sector such as fire. Then after success they expanded by creating another isolated division for go to market. Napco took a different approach. Napco is an integrated security manufacturer providing a single ecosystems spanning fire alarms, access control, security systems, and locks.

Many organizations regardless of their size may not be large buyers when it comes to physical security equipment. In these circumstances it is common for organizations to leverage buyers’ groups. PSA is a buyers group for this space with terms up to 120-day terms for its clients.

AI, Identity, and Security Modernization

IQSIGHT, formerly Bosch Video, operates across hardware, video management, and analytics with capabilities that now include generative AI. Their specialty? Providing the WHY behind what you are seeing through, what they like to call, careful, thoughtful, deployment of generative AI. Today, context is everything.

Moving beyond video capture and on to surveillance intelligence, March Networks was excited to share their new brand resulting from their merger with Vivotek under the Delta Group. By layering advanced business intelligence directly onto their video surveillance systems, they are enabling organizations to transform raw visual data into actionable insights that drive operational improvements and increase profitability.

Many organizations already have the security equipment, the cameras, and video installed. Today the challenge is getting AI for all this physical security equipment without replacing it all! Stepping up to the plate is omniQ, ready to bring AI to physical security equipment at your organization.

Safetrust is known for being major supporters of open IoT-based ecosystems. Manufacturing advanced sensors and equipment Safetrust also produces the software to access the sensors. Their key disrupters are cloud-based firmware updates, federated identities, and an interesting neural adapter panel. This panel eliminates the need for expensive hardware panels and related copper wiring. Specifically, the neural adapter panel functions by leveraging a combination of PoE (power over ethernet), panel emulation, and direct software connection. One final exciting feature, Safetrust is incorporating Dilithium and Kyber into their technology, providing post Quantum readiness.

Physical Cyber Security is often a fragmented, world of antiquated hardware being asked to provide sophisticated access control. The difficulty often can be simply connecting to the device to get its data into a system to enable any type of analytics or intelligence. Braxos understands this and brought their solution to ISC West with over 200 connectors. Their connectors span elevator systems, parking management, vending machines and intercoms.

Conference Vibe

After over 50 videos and two dozen fact checks, our coverage of ISC West 2026 closes. Registration was quite efficient IFF you printed your badge at home and went to the correct line; otherwise it may have been a flashback to your TSA experience to get to Vegas. Overall, it was a very engaged atmosphere where attendees could literally feel the momentum of the crowd. Everyone’s meetings seems to go as planned with the expected mixture of vendors. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall. Venetians standard eateries were open throughout the convention including the various Bistros and the Café Presse locations.

We always try to bring you fresh perspective to our coverage of an event over prior coverage as well as new vendors but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout. For additional coverage in physical cyber security, cybersecurity and identity and access management enjoy our prior coverage of ISC West, Identiverse, and Black Hat USA 2025.

Unfortunately, the connectivity at the event was too challenging to be able to live stream. This also caused an interruption to upload videos in the hall versus from expo hall.

We conducted research for five additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: ISC West 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition. Be sure to monitor future broadcasts editions’ of Computer Talk Radio for the forthcoming coverage of ISC West 2026.

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

Next Year’s Conference

The ISC West 2027 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Venetian Expo on March 31 through April 2, 2027.

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

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Vegas Convention Library, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
March 30, 2026
Whisper Report: What IoT innovation will redefine smart living in 2026?

Published to clients: February 2, 2026 ID: TBW2135

Published to Whisper Club: February 2, 2026

Whisper Email Release:

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

“This Whisper Report investigates what IoT innovation will redefine smart living in 2026. Researched on‑site at CES 2026, it explores how emerging technologies are reshaping home experiences in ways that blend intelligence, responsiveness, and new forms of interaction. Designed to spark curiosity, the report brings forward perspectives from Perfect Corp.’s Dr. Wayne Liu, X‑Origin’s Szeyu Wong, RiseLink’s Dr. Pengfei Zhang, and LG Electronics’ Chris DeMaria.”

Analysis available only to clients at this time. Join the YouTube Whisper Club at the Whisper Club Level to get access to the video edition today.

Related playlists and Publication

Spatial Computing (XR)

1. Whisper Report: What XR tech will change enterprise workflows first?

2. Whisper Report: Which spatial computing use case will scale fastest?

3. Whisper Rerpot: What’s the killer XR use case no one sees coming?

Smart Home / IoT

4. Whisper Report: What’s the biggest IoT security blind spot today?

5. Whisper Report: What IoT innovation will redefine smart living in 2026?

6. Whisper Report: Which connected device will drive the next big shift?

Health Tech / Med AI

7. Whisper Report: What AI breakthrough will transform patient care next?

8. Whisper Report: Which health tech will cut costs without cutting quality?

9. Whisper Report: When will AI in health beat human diagnosis?

Robotics / Automation

10. Whisper Report: What robotics advance will reshape manufacturing first?

11. Whisper Report: Which automation trend will hit enterprise hardest?

12. Whisper Report: What’s the hardest problem in robotics no one solved?

13. Conference Whispers: CES 2026 – TBW ADVISORS LLC

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

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

February 3, 2026
Whisper Report: What’s the biggest 5G myth tech leaders still believe?
Published to Readers: December 10, 2025 ID: TBW2110

Whisper Club Release: December 10, 2025

Public and Video Release: February 24, 2026

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract

“This Whisper Report investigates the biggest 5G myth tech leaders still believe. Insights from MWC Las Vegas reveal why common assumptions—like 5G being only about bandwidth, too costly, or reserved for telecom giants—are wrong. These misconceptions can stall innovation and strategy. Explore how 5G is enterprise-ready, cost-effective, and far more transformative than most expect. If your roadmap relies on outdated beliefs, this report will challenge and reshape your perspective.”

Enjoy the related Computer Talk Radio broadcast .

Target Audience Titles:
- Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Digital Officer (CDO), VP of Network Engineering, VP of IT Infrastructure, Head of Enterprise Architecture, Director of Mobility & Wireless Strategy
- Enterprise Network Architect, Wireless Systems Engineer, IT Infrastructure Engineer, Mobility Solutions Specialist, Telecom Integration Engineer, Cloud & Edge Computing Engineer
Key Takeaways
- 5G delivers far more than bandwidth—it enables future-proofing and advanced capabilities critical for enterprise innovation.
- Private 5G is cost-effective, often cheaper than traditional wireless, and offers unique advantages over Wi-Fi.
- 5G is enterprise-ready today, with deployment and management as simple as traditional IT networks
What’s the biggest 5G myth tech leaders still believe?

We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the mobility and wireless experts gathering at the MWC Las Vegas held at the Fontainebleau. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding the biggest 5G myth tech leaders still believe as depicted in Figure 1.

5g is just about bandwidth!

Our first myth comes from GetWireless’ Kalpit Kadia, “5G is more like a throughput requirement than future proofing.” If you believe the only thing 5g brings to the table is bandwidth you are missing it. Kalpit continued. “So it’s not all about through requirement. It’s you know also to do with future proofing your product because as network infrastructure is changing by different carriers, it’s a good idea to move to a 5g stack technology which is going to be here around here for a long time.” Remember when you enable 5g in our organization you empowered it with more than just bandwidth, you enabled all the capabilities that come with 5g beyond the bandwidth.

5g is too Expensive!

The next myth is a critical one particular for those building out wireless infrastructure in public spaces. Baicells’ Minchul Ho argued that the biggest myth is, “the cost or differentiation from Wi-Fi.” Minchul elaborated further. “There’s a huge upside to 5G that you cannot get with any other wireless technologies at about the same price if not half the cost of what traditional wireless system would take.” If you are working on your business justification for 5g expansion in your organization, be sure to schedule an inquiry with your analyst at TBW Advisors LLC. We can review not only your strategy and roadmap, but help ensure the major use cases in your organization have been captured to ensure maximum business impact.

5g is for Someone Else

Perhaps the biggest myth of all is brought to us by Canoga Perkins’ Siddharth Khattar. “That private 5G is still seen by many as a telecom only technology. Something that is hard to roll out, something that is hard to administer across your enterprise networks and comes with enterprise environments and therefore comes with a lot of expense and it’s always a technology for somebody else.” The reality is 5g is enterprise ready and is not just for telecoms for tech giants. Even more important is the easy of deployment and management as Siddharth explains further. “What we are doing the truth is that today’s private 5G networks can be administered and managed much more like IT and enterprise that people that CIOS and organizations are used to doing. Be able to administer and manage that as easily as you would a as easily as you would your traditional IT networks today with so much more functionality than what they deliver today.”

In conclusion, 5g is about so much more than the bandwidth, is cost effective, and is ready today for you to deploy in your organization.

Related playlists and Publication
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©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
December 9, 2025
Conference Whispers: MWC Las Vegas
Las Vegas, NV October 14- October 15

Published to clients: October 17, 2025 ID: TBW2109

Published to readers: October 18, 2025 am

Published to Email Whispers: October 18, 2025

Public with video edition: October 19, 2025

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

MWC Las Vegas brought 85 sponsors and exhibitors to the Fontainebleau, Las Vegas. An amazing 61% of the attendees were C-Suite or senior level from the wireless and mobility specialty space within telecommunications industry. TBW Advisors LLC Captured over 40 minutes of video across 36 segments including 4 keynote highlights, a livestream and expo hall walkabout. Expo hall featured 4g and 5g equipment, IoT platforms, mobile networks and data centers in a box were all found along with mission critical, latency bound, deterministic networking equipment. This edition includes four unlisted Whisper Report playlists and concludes with a video montage answering: “What’s the best part about attending MWC live in Las Vegas?”

Coverage on Computer Talk Radio

The Conference
- A community 85 sponsors, exhibitors, and sponsors across three stages and five summits gathered at Mobile World Congress Las Vegas 2025. Held at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas, 45% of attendees came from enterprise with 61% being C-Suite or senior level.
Cautions
- Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
Conference Vibe

After 6,000 steps, 36 videos and over 40 minutes of video including a livestream from onsite and over 10 fact checks, our coverage of MWC Las Vegas also known as MWC25 closes. Coming from the mobility world with specialized expertise in Privacy, at TBW Advisors LLC we understand mobile applications are data goldmines. As such, we do not use event mobile applications. However, at MWC the mobile app was required to enter the 6^th floor of the Fontainebleau. After getting through that checkpoint, registration was quite efficient with no significant registration lines. The 85 sponsors lit up expo hall where they also served some scrumptious food. As MWC was hosted in one of the most elite hotels in Las Vegas, we were admittedly excited to hear what the guests thought of the food. Breakfast got rave reviews even though it was an English muffing egg sandwich. Lunch offered both a cold sandwich option, extensive dessert options, and a hot lunch offering that admittedly smelled like you were at Grandma’s house! It just had the home cooked smell, look, and feel but you can see for yourself!

We once again live streamed from onsite Tuesday. During this quicker live stream, I requested those attending to find me to answer Questions 1-3, to let you know about upcoming events we have scheduled and requesting assistance. Specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the October 17th broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.

While at MWC 2025, we conducted research for three additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.
Readers and viewers wishing to relive or experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: MWC 2025 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.

The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of their responses to Question 4, “What’s the best part about attending MWC live in Vegas?”.

Opening Keynotes

At MWC Las Vegas we were informed that they had a special platform I could use to record, but only at keynotes. After recording we were informed that we could post and include a highlight of the various keynotes. Thus, this event’s opening keynote session videos are all processed highlight videos of what we captured. CTIA stands for Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and is the sponsoring organization along with GSMA the GSM Association. GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communications. Therefore, within telecommunications, this is a specialty event for mobile and wireless telecommunications. CTIA’s President and CEO, Ajit Pai’s keynote emphasized the importance of governments unlocking spectrum so their industry can unlock success for our country. His speech was followed by a fireside chat he had with Verizon Business CEO Kyle Malady. Building on the same theme, their chat emphasized that capacity drives growth for businesses. After their chat, Google Cloud’s Anil Jain joined the stage for a roadmap to an autonomous organization. Anil remained on stage and was joined by a star-studded stage for their panel on first-hand knowledge from the frontier. It is no surprise that the tried-and-true advice for transformation has remained the same for the next wave. Get buy in from the top. If your organization is approaching or in the midst or even thinking about a transformation – be sure to schedule your inquiry with your TBW Advisors’ Analyst to review your strategy and plans.

Exhibits

During our Earth Day Panel, TBW Advisors LLC emphasized that data centers and many IoT solution always involve seeking power solutions. At MWC we ran into none other than Schneider Electric ready to solve your power management problems. For organizations prioritizing hardware agnostic IoT solutions, Live4IoT would like to share hardware and carrier agnostic IoT platform with you. Comfone is redefining what it means and more importantly costs to Roam with their eSIM. Simply need 4g and 5g equipment; Baicells may align with your interests. However, if locating a master distributor for anything cellular is part of your current focus, GetWireless is among the few.

Whether your government use case demands it or you just need a small remote server for compliance as discussed in our coverage of G2E, they were found at MWC complete with telecommunications access. Kontron was on the floor with their 5g modules integrated into servers. Seeking a rugged portable network in a box for any type of network connection? Eucast showcased their network in a box offering enabling many critical use cases. If your uses case is so mission critical that it requires bounded latency with a deterministic network? Good news! Canoga Perkins showcased their bounded latency deterministic network equipment here in Vegas.

Next Year’s Conference

MWC Las Vegas 2026 dates are yet to be announced.

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

Corporate Headquarters

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©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
October 18, 2025
Whisper Report: What are the best practices for enhancing cybersecurity in FinTech?
Published to clients: June 26, 2025 ID: TBW2067

Published to Readers: June 27, 2025

Email Whispers: December 9, 2025

Public with Video Edition: December 10, 2025

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

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.

Target Audience Titles:
- Chief Technology Officer, Chief Security Officer, Chief Information and Security Officer, Chief Trust Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Risk Officer
- Head of Product, VP of Product, Chief Marking Officer, Data Protection Officer, Director of Data Protection
- Security Architect, Security Engineers, Penetration Testers, Incident Response & Threat Intelligence Teams
Key Takeaways
- Adopt a Layered Defense: Use a “defense in depth” strategy—combine multiple security measures and analyze broad data signals to stay resilient against evolving threats.
- Train Your Team: Human error is a top vulnerability. Regular employee training helps prevent phishing, smishing, and social engineering attacks.
- Build Security into Development: Embed security checks directly into software pipelines to catch issues early and reduce risk at every stage of development.
What are the best practices for enhancing cybersecurity in FinTech?

We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the finance technology experts gathering at Fintech Meetup 2025. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding what the best practices are for enhancing cybersecurity in FinTech. As SecurityMetrics’s Matt Cowart shared, there is a, “big rise that we’ve seen is fishing and smishing.” Your employees are getting targeted via email and SMS messages. But that is not the only threat. The user or customer angle also brings in cybersecurity issues. Incentiva’s Heather Alvarez shares, “fraud is something that is very big right now and (is something) that we’re trying to combat.”

A Layered Approach

Cybersecurity frequently feels like a game of whack-a-mole. Vulnerabilities seem to pop up in every dimension you explore but there is still hope. As Socure’s Matt Thompson shared, “creating layers and looking at lots and lots of data signal is important for protecting your Enterprise.” This is also known as defense in depth.

What might these layers include? Gitlab’s Field CTO, Joshua Carroll recommends, “making sure your code is secure and doesn’t have vulnerabilities by building the security scanners into your pipelines and do those as you build the software you can save yourself an awful lot of time.” Likewise, SecurityMetric’s Matt Cowart points out that it all, “comes down to training. The weakest link is where hackers get in. Being able to strengthen your entire area – all of your employees making sure they know what to do what not to do is going to be on of the biggest things that keeps your network safe.” Effective training can minimize phishing and smishing as well as positively impact fraud detection during customer interactions.

Thus to enhance your cybersecurity, ensure a depth in defense security strategy and that the strategy includes both technical aspects of your enterprise as well as your humans in the loop. But most important stay curious and keep building. As Incentiva’s Heather Alvarez shared, “ask the right questions .. continuing to push and look for new features look for to AI to help us because there are a lot of Technologies out there.”

If you are evaluating your cybersecurity environment, be sure to book an inquiry for timely advice.

Related playlists
^*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.

Corporate Headquarters

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Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
June 26, 2025
Conference Whispers: ISC West 2025
Las Vegas, NV March 31-April 4

Published to clients: April 7, 2025        ID: TBW2069

Published to readers: April 8, 2025

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

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

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

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

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

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

While at ISC West, we conducted research for three forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.
Sessions and Press Event

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exhibits

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

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

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

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

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

Next Year’s Conference

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

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

©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
April 8, 2025
Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025
Las Vegas, NV March 3-6

Published to clients: March 10, 2025

Published to readers: March 11, 2025

Published to Email Whispers: June 18, 2025

Publicly Published with video edition: June 19, 2025

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): D. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

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

The Conference
- The 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSSS 2025 saw over 28,000 attendees gathered with a net gain of over 2,000 attendees from the previous year.
- The event spanned the Sands convention center at Venetian as well as leveraged the connector bridge and all of Caesars Forum.
- Attendees titles spanned clinician, IT director, Chief Medical Officer, founder, investor, security analyst, to Chief Privacy officer.
Cautions
- At HIMSS the entire expo hall is treated as a patient operating room from a privacy perspective. Thus, if you want press coverage of any type, one must have executed all planning before the start of HIMSS. Press was not allowed to walk up and film attendees without prior authorization. Many first timers at HIMSS were caught off guard by this aspect.
TAGS:

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

Conference Vibe

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

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

We were able to conduct research for three forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.
Sessions and Deep Dives

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

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

Front Office AI Applications

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

Healthcare Support Applications

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

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

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

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

Next Year’s Conference

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

©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
March 11, 2025
Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
Published to clients: February 27, 2025 ID: 2057

Published to Readers: February 28, 2025

Published to Email Whispers: March 1, 2025

Video Edition: March 2, 2025

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

To manage tariff costs in the supply chain, a two-pronged approach is recommended: cleaning up data for better decision-making and optimizing cost parameters. Digital transformation is crucial for navigating tariff challenges. Additionally, avoiding hidden costs, moving on-shore, reducing cycle costs, and leveraging free trade zones can help. Utilizing tools to understand total landed costs and diversifying suppliers and logistics providers are also key strategies.

What is the dominant advice?

We took the most frequently asked and most urgent questions straight to the logistics and supply chain experts in the industry. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how to manage tariff costs in one’s supply chain. For any professional^* even tangentially involved in anything to do with fulfillment, supply chain, and logistics, it is easy to become panicked at the talk of tariffs. Beyond supply chain and logistics professionals, operations and financial executives are impacted by what is going on as are the technologists and data experts that are required to thrive in such environments. As 4flow’s Adam Poch shared, “You have to have a nimble and agile supply chain to navigate that”. Or as FreightFacts’ Lance Healy put it, “our job is to react, anticipate if we can, but apply technology. “ This suggests a two-pronged approach. Clean up your data so you can optimize costs.

Cleaning up your Data

Vizion’s Ben Tracy suggests and offers, “transparent and easy to access data to empower intelligent supply chain decisions. “ Yes, digital transformation is required to successfully navigate this challenge. If you have not done so there is no more time to wait. Many solutions expect the data has been collected for a technology team to clean and provide intelligence over. But logistics data is not transactional data nor does it have a history of being clean and collected like financial data. In fact, logistics and supply chain has some of the messiest data with many suggesting over 30% dirty and useless. Research regarding a large variety of vendors involved in cleaning and digitizing logistics and supply chain can be found in Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025 and Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo 2024. This is a significant area of expertise offered to our clients through inquiry privileges.

Optimize and Managing Costs Parameters

For those somewhere on the digital transformation maturity scale, the problem regarding managing tariffs costs now boils down to continuing to find ways to transform and manage supply costs. As summary of the 6 actions to manage tariff costs can be found in Figure 1.

Avoid Hidden Costs

Sensos’s CEO shared a story about how they onboarded a customer who was blindsided with hidden costs when products went through Africa without their knowledge. Per TrafficTech’s Hilary Ambro, “work with a customs broker with is vested in and understands your trade lanes as you are moving products so you can minimize those costs.”

Move on-shore

An obvious way to reduce costs associated with tariffs is to move on-shore. Hoptek’s Sean Maharai suggests, “working towards on shore, raw materials and ability to manufacture (and assemble) on shore”. Or as Mark Richards at AWI Logistics put it, “People are redesigning their supply chains. Instead of distribution in Canada or Mexico servicing the US, they are bringing the distribution back to the US.”

Reduce part of cycle costs

Any and every place one can reduce costs is valuable in such uncertain times. An exciting solution that can impact your cost per pallet offering next day delivery at ground shipping costs is Aeros. Aeros is a EVTOL (electric, vertical take of and landing) vehicle that appear like a blimp and hovers over urban areas with the goods to deliver, drones and related charging stations with line of sight to deliver and drone operators to operate. Rye Akervik shared that their company, Shipsi is an aggregator of last mile and middle mile networks. Shipsi’s solution is to, “rate shop those networks, find the best partner, the best SLA and manage that customer experience. “ Verity’s Taylor Wilson recommends, “utilizing free trade zones to delay the Tariffs and related payments to improve your cashflow.” Finally, if you are traveling between Canada and USA, there is a new solution coming online Fall of 2025. As Manny Paiva of the Gordie Howe International Bridge shared, “You have a Highway to Highway route connection that will allow transport trucks to get their goods across the border within ~11 seconds!”

Reduce total landed costs

If an organization has reached digitization maturity, they can leverage top tools to understand their total landed costs. As Yikun Shao of Alibaba.com shared, they offer solutions with “tools to provide transparency to all of costs related to cross border movement of goods so they can make more informed decisions.” But Alibaba.com doesn’t stop there. They also provide tools to directly enable “you diversity of suppliers as well as logistic providers so you have options available. “At the end of the day, managing costs associated with Tariffs is a subset of managing the total landed costs of any goods.

^*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.

Related playlists
1. Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
2. Conference Whispers: Manifest 2024
©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
February 28, 2025