This Whisper Report investigates What Fintech problems are you solving in 2026? Drawing insight from on-the-ground conversations at Fintech Meetup 2026, it surfaces the pressures shaping next‑gen financial platforms and the bets leaders are quietly making. It previews how scale, trust, and automation collide before outcomes are obvious. Cited experts: Peter Daunton (Sokin), Kunal Datta (Unit21.ai), Jack Chawla (interface.ai), Liam Reaume (Sardine).
“This Whisper Report investigates when clinical artificial intelligence becomes unsafe, signaling where scrutiny, safeguards, and infrastructure begin slipping across clinical environments. Readers will discover the pivotal checkpoints leaders watch to protect patients, preserve trust, and steer responsible adoption without stalling innovation. Cited experts: Hal Wolf, HIMSS; Scott Francis, Ricoh Document Scanners; Joe Graw, ImageTrend; Braheem Santos, Schneider Electric.”
This Whisper Report investigates what jobsite tech boosts output most today? At CONEXPO‑CON/AGG, practitioners surface where productivity truly moves—beyond hype—highlighting overlooked levers shaping cycle time, safety, and uptime this year. Read on for the signals that matter now. Cited experts: Nate Jones (Weir–Esco Division), Christopher Sommer (MOBA Automation), Joel Honeyman (Doosan Bobcat), Nicolas Legrand (John Deere).
Fintech Meetup 2026 in Las Vegas filled the show floor with live discussions between banks, fintechs, and platform providers. Demonstrations clustered around fraud controls, identity and onboarding, data context, lending infrastructure, payments flow, and applied AI. Across booths, emphasis shifted from point tools toward systems designed for scale, speed, and operational continuity.
Fintech Meetup featured over 50,000 meetings, with over 1,000 CEO’s and Founders, and over 700 Financial institutions
Cautions
Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
To fully enjoy this event, be sure to meet the deadlines for filling out your profile, requesting and accepting meetings. One should also pre-register for the table talks.
Fintech is not a simple space to secure. Security isn’t a single tool but rather it’s a system. That system starts before money moves and ensures the sender and the receiver of the transaction are known. Deploying separate technologies to manage fraud, compliance, and risk in your organization? Sardine AI likes to pack all that functionality into one tidy platform to stop fraud BEFORE the payment is made.
While most Financial Crime investigation tools only see and investigate the tip of the iceberg, Unit21.ai would like to change that. Garnering the most attention are high risk alerts which the most sophisticated criminal organizations know how to avoid triggering. This leaves many Financial Crimes such as human trafficking undetected. But what if you had unlimited trained agents to investigate? By leveraging agentic AI, Unit21.ai enables an organization to conduct an in-depth review of every single alert. No hiring backlogs. Just results.
Growth in Fintech often means getting additional clients. Such growth comes with risks. Is this new client really who they say they are? Getting this wrong is very, very, expensive. Sumsub would like to simplify this risky onboarding task. Their unified solution combines identity verification and fraud prevention. Enabling quicker decisions without increasing the risk profile. This opens the door to growth, in real-time.
Enabling frictionless, seamless access, Alcatraz is a vendor in the identity and access space and the physical cyber space. Knowing your customer and knowing your business or KYC and KYB are risk areas that get a lot of attention. To conquer this space, Alcatraz leverages facial authentication to ensure security without compromising privacy.
Banking and Fintech, like many industries, still suffer from siloed data. While identity creates signals, data gives those signals context for action. Real-time precision is a constant requirement. tacnode shared their unified data platform to provide a single source of truth. This next-generation data infrastructure platform provides a common context for your heterogeneous regulated data environment.
Effectively applying metacognition with a GPT over all customers channels for the benefit of the organization in a unified brain has arrived. Meet BankGPT by interface.ai. BankGPT enables lessons learned on customer voice interactions to improve interactions on chats or mobile applications. Whether you are seeking an employee co-pilot or a smart collections AI agent, interface.ai supports 148 languages.
The credit lifecycle is critical to Financial Institutions. From lead generation to evaluation and credit decisioning or simply educating lenders, CRS Credit API offers a comprehensive solution. Their platform covers the entire lifecycle for business-to-business or direct-to-consumer. They were also excited to share their new authentication and evaluation products with attendees.
LendAPI introduced their holistic ecosystem enabling comprehensive functionality spanning loan origination, loan management, and loan core. This compliance-ready solution provides all-in-one features enabling all the tools including consumer communication.
Placing its differentiation on its order of operations, World Connection Outsourcers focuses on using AI to ensure first contact resolution. They prioritize AI, then journey mapping, the outsourcing. From their perspective, this enables the right answers at the right time.
If your desired platform would be to unite the entire payment stack in one place, Sokin heard your request. Sokin handles cross-border payments, FX, treasury management, and checkout solutions. Not stopping there, on and off-ramps for Stablecoin to USDT and USDC are now also available.
After 48 videos and over a dozen and a half fact checks, our coverage of Fintech Meetup 2026 closes. Fintech Meetup featured over 50,000 meetings, with over 1,000 CEOs and founders, and over 700 Financial institutions.
Registration was quite efficient. Pastries and snacks were scattered throughout expo hall. Mandalay Bay Food Court was also open. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall*. One of the most unique aspects of Fintech Meetup is the networking! Beyond the talks and expo hall, Fintech Meetup is known for their one-on-one meeting schedules. Attendees must be on the look out to fill out their profile, request meetings, and accept meetings in order to participate. In addition, this event holds round tables break out rooms ensuring a true capability to build your network while you are there.
We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of other Fintech events such as the Money 20/20 USA 2025, or our coverage of Fintech Meet-up both in 2025 and in 2024. Likewise in the cybersecurity and anti-fraud space you will recognize vendors from our coverage of ISC West, Identiverse, and Black Hat USA 2025.
We conducted research for six additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Fintech Meetup 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition. Be sure to monitor the syndicated broadcast of Computer Talk Radio for additional coverage of Fintech Meetup. All related syndicated links will be shared in the Whispers membership area of our channel.
The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question “What’s the best part about attending the Fintech Meetup live in Las Vegas?”.
*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.
“HIMSS26 in Las Vegas spotlighted healthcare’s shift toward real‑time data, patient‑driven insights, and quietly automated workflows. Printers, paper bottlenecks, and cyber hygiene revealed how much unstructured data still shapes care. The through‑line: trusted data powering emerging AI. A community‑driven push toward interoperability and smarter infrastructure defined this year’s experience on the ground.”
The Conference
The 2026 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition brought together roughly 25,000 attendees from across the global health ecosystem, hosted by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas.
Cautions
Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
Have you ever found yourself trying to figure out what is wrong with you or a loved one? Every doctor running their own test but no one is communicating and you are left in the dark with no answers? Thanks to b.well consumers can now control and manage their own health data and get the answers they need. Coverage includes most medical practices in the US, Apple Watch, Samsung Watch, Aura Ring, Walgreens, Samsung phones, Google apps, and ChatGPT.
When you have an emergency, you want your EMS attendant to have the best possible information. Furthermore, you want the information created in the ambulance given to those in the hospital treating you. Good news, ImageTrend is focused on closing that exact gap enabling true continuum of care.
For anyone who has ever used an auto feed on a copier or scanner, you know they can be finicky. Successful execution has been considered an art form – for decades. Witness this Ricoh demonstration. Very quietly and with one push of the button, these scanners digitize hundreds of pages in seconds. They scan all types of hospital paperwork -forms of varying size, thickness, orientation, black and white or color. Today, auto size, auto orient, auto color detect, silent enterprise document scanners are realized.
Symphion provides turnkey services for establishing, maintaining and proving cyber hygiene of edge devices including printers. Protections include inventory management, detection and response, firmware security and password management. Focusing on healthcare native protocols including DICOM (an international standard for printing data storage, transmission and retrieval of medical information) and HL7, SecurITe (pronounced secure IT) protects networks by analyzing and securing its healthcare-related traffic.
At this point, you may be noticing a trend we also encountered in distribution during our coverage of Manifest and Retail, Supply Chain and Logistics Expo – a lot of discussion on printers. That means physical, unstructured, not digitized data. This causes problems on a few fronts. How are medical practices going to get reimbursed – paper is not part of the FHIR standard (pronounced FIRE standard) required to get paid. Interestingly the answer for this technology challenge comes from eFax from Consensus Cloud. They literally have transformed the old-fashioned traditional faxing into intelligent digital processing.
Behind every credible clinical AI, there’s one non-negotiable: data you can trust. Expo hall featured Drummond that explicitly focuses on the accuracy and completeness of the data once digitized, providing data validation for health care data. Many are also trying to create such intelligent products to serve the health care sector. The first requirement is that of data to train and create their models. For those seeking to depersonalize their healthcare data for training OR create fake data, Tonic.ai was ready to meet your needs. For organizations creating healthcare products requiring not just privacy and governance for their data but the ability to run really, really fast AI, OneSource Cloud was looking to meet you. As a dedicated cloud provider, they gain priority access to GPUs ensuring they can meet your needs. Their architecture is optimized for speed by optimizing the storage compute connection with an IB Switch or InfiniBand switch. For those not familiar, IB switches are designed for Ultra-low latency, very high throughput, RDMA (remote direct memory access for zero-copy communication) and offer high scalability. This is a feature one cannot directly request and manage in public clouds today.
Hospitals are some of the most high-tech buildings one can come across. Penetrating 40% of healthcare facilities, Schneider Electric is there to support the industry. Schneider Electric specializes in digitizing physical infrastructure for operational efficiencies. Hospital efficiencies start with smart, efficient infrastructure.
With the exhibits covered, we now shift towards the bigger picture shaping healthcare’s future. Admittedly as a member of the press, one of the highlights is when HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) President and CEO, Hal Wolf, hosts the press for a round of questions and answers. Hal truly emphasized the last S in HIMSS for society. It’s that society that is going to enable healthcare to evolve with the injection of AI. He emphasized the impact AI is having on operational efficiency from supply chain management to bed utilization. Moving towards a translational AI Ecosystems, his hopes lie in seamless connectivity and true interoperability being achieved. One final message was the direct correlation and causation relationship between health and the economy. Specifically good physical health and well-being is required to drive a strong economy.
After 48 videos including a livestream and over a twenty fact checks, our coverage of The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2026 Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSS26 for short, closes. HIMSS26 brought together approximately 25,000 healthcare technology and systems professionals from around the world. Exhibitions expanded and covered the entire upstairs expo hall at the Venetian Expo as well as the entire downstairs. Downstairs exhibitions were also known as, “The Park” also featured private meeting and demo spaces. One could buy food at the Venetian’s Café Press or at any of the Bistro locations. In addition, The Park featured snack time ranging from home made cookies you could smell a mile away on Tuesday. Wednesday attempted to top what Tuesday brought to the table with homemade scones.
We once again live streamed from on site. We let everyone know we were at HIMSS on the ground covering it as well as requesting assistance. Specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the March 14, 2026 broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
We conducted research for twelve additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.
The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the HIMSS 2026 live in Las Vegas?”.
Unfortunately, next year’s conference will be in Chicago so we are not scheduled to attend or cover the event unless our coverage is sponsored. HIMSS27 will be taking place April 5-8, 2027. We look forward to its return to Vegas in the future.
*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.
“CONEXPO‑CON/AGG 2026 delivered a packed week of press announcements, massive exhibits, and next‑generation jobsite innovation, 140,000 attendees and over 3 million square feet of exhibits. Press Day highlighted electrification, repairability, and asset intelligence, while the show floor showcased automation, telematics, lifecycle support, and equipment spanning every hall and lot of the LVCC. We live‑streamed daily coverage and completed research for six forthcoming Whisper Reports. Readers can explore the full experience through the Conference Whispers playlist and upcoming video edition.”
The Conference
A community of over 140,000 attendees from 128 countries including 2000 vendors gathered at CONEXPO-CON/AGG. The event spanned over 3 million square feet of exhibit space.
Cautions
Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
CONEXPO-CON/AGG featured an entire Press Day on Monday, the day before the formal opening. We were able to capture a few of the events. First, we captured Moog Construction’s event featuring their Adaptive Electrification Management System – AEMS. Moog is a motion control company, provides electrification solutions for heavy vehicles, aiming to improve motion control systems. Moog technology enables any manufacturer to use any type of electric solution they would like. Their design is focused on improving simplification through design and reducing costs. The result is a modular solution that achieves remote diagnostics and over the air updates. If someone can physically replace a module, over the air capabilities flash the module to act like it should in that specific system. The solution is targeted at 6-25-ton compact loaders and excavators.
The right to repair is alive and well in Europe but that is not the only thing that has come to life. Cojali USA solution focuses on the ability to maintain and repair a fleet of heavy equipment across manufacturers. Bringing you telematics that can act enabling not just predictive maintenance, but remote maintenance is also realized.
The equipment leveraged in construction and agriculture are rather expensive. Even smaller tools are highly expensive and can be quite costly if lost or stolen. Samsara Asset Tags leverages industrial strength Bluetooth to help increase your chances of recovery. Each asset added to the network adds to the network’s density in tracking other assets. Their network is connected to an inbuilding network for asset tracking thus covering all the highways and major commercial building across major geographies.
CONEXPO-CON/AGG saw an announcement of the arrival of Twins! Mack Trucks press event announced the updating of their very popular Granite Model of Mack Trucks. The second announcement that their every popular Pinnacle Model was being replaced with Keystone. The Keystone includes everything the Pinnacle model included plus additional chassis and sleeper options. The MP13, a13-litre engine in the Granite, now has 540 horsepower and a whopping 1950 torque.
Beyond the press events, Exhibits are always massive and physically impressive at CONEXPO-CON/AGG. John Deere didn’t just bring the equipment but wanted to make sure you know they support the entire lifecycle. Specifically, John Deere’s highlighted its connected support and the massive span of maintenance it represents to the customers. Bobcat introduced their RogueX3 concept machine which is electric, autonomous and module leveraging Moog’s electrification technology from the aforementioned press event. For those seeking brand agnostic, machine agnostic, roof mounted automation, CNF more commonly known as simply Case, shared their patented adaptable solution. Komatsu burst into expo hall with 7 brand new models across their lines. Epiroc not only shared their machines and automation, but also their customers appreciated span of services offering. Hyundai had a detailed display highlighting their leaps forward in advanced telematics improving reliability. Sometimes it is not about the machine as much as it is the components. Does your excavator or loader need a new bucket? Weir Group’s ESCO division exhibited their innovative buckets optimized for safety, durability, and performance. If your reason for hesitation in upgrading is moving your older assets off the books, have no fear! Ritchie bros. specializes in rotating equipment so you are free to upgrade your equipment today!
For OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in construction and agricultural equipment seeking to automate and optimize their equipment, MOBA Automation was hoping to speak with you. If you are an OEM and you really want to connect your physical equipment with the digital world, Trimble bridges the divide. Their massive booth highlighted their hardware, software, and services for positioning, modeling, analytics, and connectivity. Of course, predictive maintenance, remote maintenance, automation and all of these advanced capabilities that shined brightest are only possible IF the OEM installed the right sensors. To that end, sensor manufacturers were also on sight such as SIKO featuring location sensors. These location sensors can ensure you are never lost – even if GPS is denied in your location.
After 66 videos, three livestreams, and over two dozen fact checks, our coverage of CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2026 closes. CONEXPO-CON/AGG welcomes over 140,000 construction professionals from 128 countries. CONEXPO-CON/AGG occurs once every three years in Las Vegas Convention Center – the only Convention Center built strong enough to be able to house heavy equipment indoors. Featuring over 2,000 exhibitors, the event spanned over 3 million square feet of exhibit space. The massive event spanned every inch of the Las Vegas Convention Center including exhibits* in all of the lots including the massive new lot in front of the Fontainebleau the current Diamond Lot. The diamond lot featured next-generations jobsite solutions including attached robotic systems. The traditional Silver Lot featured demonstrations for brands. West Hall was the hub for smart construction technology and interactive workflow solutions with over 40 machines and 20 brand new models featured. North Hall focused on operational innovations. Central Hall was very concrete and asphalt centric including mixing equipment. Both South Hall Upper and Lower were leveraged for this event. South Upper was the prominent exhibition area for power equipment including electrified engines. South Hall features the ultimate in large scale equipment. As is customary, food was available throughout the convention center with all the normal LVCC eateries open and ready to serve including the major food courts including West Hall and North/Central Hall Lobby Food Court. Transportation options included shuttles, buses, and of course the famous Vegas Loop connection South, Central and West Halls.
We once again live streamed from on site. On Media Day Monday letting you know we are on the ground covering the event. Tuesday we shared the excitement of Exhibits officially opening. And Wednesday specifically, I requested assistance on your favorite videos for my segment on the March 6th broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio.
We conducted research for twelve additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The reports spanned research on improvements to jobsite output, automation, uptime, telematics, innovations in safety and those affecting the labor gap issue. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be distributed via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.
The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to the Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the CONEXPO-CON/AGG live in Las Vegas?”.
The event is held every three years with the next event scheduled for March 13-17, 2029 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples of products in the same category may have also been on display.
“This Whisper Report investigates how Gen AI will reshape enterprise finance operations. Researched on‑site at Money 20/20 USA 2025 in Las Vegas, it examines how financial operations are evolving under accelerating automation and intelligence. The report highlights perspectives from AutoRek’s Nicholas Botha, Veratad’s Thomas Canfarotta, Globant’s Erin StillWell, Oracle’s James Calise, Zoominfo’s Brandon Tucker, localpayment’s Ezequiel Israel, and IPQS’ Shea Craft.”
We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the fintech professionals gathering at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas for Money 20/20 USA 2025. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how GenAI will reshape enterprise finance ops as depicted in Figure 1.
AutoRek’s Nicholas Botha brings us the first change noticed in financial operations. “Training your teams and members to be able to utilize this (GenAI) to save your teams time and doing the mundane activity is really where it’s going to add value.” Many look forward to getting rid of the mundane and burdensome tasks. Veratad’s Thomas Canfarotta couldn’t agree more. “We’re seeing amazing strides with Gemini’s ability to do these laborious processes that have taken long amounts of time with lots of people and being able to automate them.” In fact, Thomas had some very specific tasks in mind. “And this includes onboarding and identity verification.”
Globant’s Erin Stillwell revealed an exciting result of GenAI in Fintech. “It could also be the standpoint of agents being embedded into different teams to accelerate outcomes.” Erin went on to further explain. “If you think through from a finance op standpoint, especially from an enterprise perspective, there’s multiple systems internally likely multiple databases. to even document files, data warehouses and all of that can really be consistent or brought together with AI and different tools to streamline, create dashboards, automate and really take the manual piece out of it and have smarter intelligence with decisions that the executives need to make.”
Oracle’s James Calise highlights that GenAI is. “Changing the interface that we’ve grown to know.”
James further demonstrated his point. “Where the interface has always been a web browser or a mobile phone, this is the next leap where the chat experience and really taking it to the next level with agents working on our behalf is going to completely revamp how we think about inter interacting with enterprise technology. It’s no longer going to be you asking to you know you going to a website to go and perform a function. That function is going to be happening automatically based on events in real time empowered through you know your conversation and chat.”
Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects was shared by Zoominfo’s Brandon Tucker. “More than ever, it’s critical to get your data foundation correct.” Brandon further contended, “Right now, people are under the belief that AI is just going to solve all those problems for them, but it really won’t be able to um without getting that foundational unified data model correct.” Many organizations have been doing band aid transformations and never took the time to truly establish an enterprise data fabric. If this is feeling a little too familiar be sure to book your inquiry with your TBW Advisors LLC analysts immediately. We can walk you through step-by-step enabling you to leverage our firsthand experience event if you have outsourced the work.
Sometimes perspective in the industry helps one recognize how an industry is reshaping as illustrated by localpayment’s Ezequiel Israel. “When I started payments 10 years, 15 years ago, the regular normal SLA (service level agreement) was about 2 or 3 days. Today, people are expecting payments to complete in two or three minutes.” If a customer expects something in minutes versus days, the enterprise and its infrastructure must evolve or the customers will simply go elsewhere to have their expectations met.
Our sixth and final impact on financial ops coming from GenAI comes to us from IPQS’ Shea Craft. Put simply, it’s “the velocity of abuse is increasing, the barrier of entry for abuse and fraud, and sort of legacy, sort of methods where somebody doesn’t know how to program, somebody doesn’t know where to go for, you know, committing fraud or abuse is getting a lot easier. you know, using fraud as a service, platforms, things like that, just make it a lot more accessible.”
Published to clients: February 24, 2026 ID: TBW2115
Published to Whisper Club: February 24, 2026
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Abstract:
“This Whisper Report investigates how will AI change warehouse architecture. Researched at the Retail, Supply Chain and Logistics Expo in Las Vegas, it highlights how AI boosts worker guidance, accelerates operations, improves predictive decisions, and reshapes automation across physical and digital systems. It also stresses fragmented tech stacks and future robot‑centric warehouse design. Quoted: Steve Harris (Warehouse Craft), Priya Katyal (PGS360), Petros Dertsakyan (oloround), Rodrigo Hernandez (Bazarup), Sean Elmurib (Backops AI), Naushad Ahmed (MetaOption), Ingo Pietruska (Lufthansa).”
Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Supply Chain Officer, VP of Warehouse Operations, Director of Logistics Strategy, Head of Automation & Robotics
Machine Learning Engineer, Applied Scientist, Robotics Engineer, Computer Vision Engineer, Data Engineer, Data Scientist, AI Solutions Developer, Automation Controls Engineer, Embedded Systems Engineer, Platform Engineer, AI Agent Developer
We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the professionals gathering at the Las Vegas Convention Center for the Retail, Supply Chain, and Logistics Expo. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how will AI change warehouse architecture? as depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1. How will AI change warehouse architecture?
The first change is suggested by Warehoues Craft’s Steve Harris. “It actually will change quite a few of the functions as far as directing employees. It will never replace employees. There’s always going to be a hands-on aspect as aspect to a warehouse. AI though will allow you to use some of those employees. It makes those employees smarter. For instance with our specific software allows them to if they don’t understand a process to ask a pro about a process and get clarification on that. So shortens the process requires them or doesn’t require them to go ask somebody else but takes a maybe a 5 or 10 minute delay and that AI is going to actually shorten that to just the time it takes to get the answer back from AI” Nothing like instant help from an expert while on the job to provide much needed clarity.
Beyond human collaboration, expect AI to show systemic gains. The second change is suggested by PGS360’s Priya Katyal. “The speed of delivery of different solutions, different problems that we have to solve for our customers to help make everything more efficient and fast track the solutions that we provide.” oloround’s Petros Dertsakyan couldn’t agree more. “Help with optimization and better operational flow. Make it lower cost, more efficient, but also there’s a lot of predictive information that Auwill come out of this that can’t be done individually now with the basic models that exist. So you’ll have better ability to like predict do predictive skew modeling uh reorder rates and inventory distribution also decide better on what will sell won’t sell and maybe even beforehand detect where you should have things go and where you should up marketing information for because you know it will sell better there and also seasonality. It’ll give you good seasonality, predictions, and potential future forcasts.”
Beyond collaboration and systemic changes, AI will also cause physical changes to the warehouse that affect the technical architecture as discussed by Bazarup’s Rodrigo Hernandez. “Automatization of processes, right? So AI will not only apply to to warehousing but really every process in terms of substituting with artificial intelligence manual processes that they exist. When we talk about warehousing, it goes even all the way to robots operating what people do today. And that’s not even futuristic. That’s happening today in bigger warehouses. So, at some point, it’s going to make processes more efficient. It’s going to make them cost saving as well. And you’re going to need less and less manual work to do better processes. So, I think that’s the best the best way to describe it.”
But the automation will not be restricted only to the physical warehouse. Backops AI’s Sean Elmurib Suggested. “a lot of parts of the supply chain, a lot of parts of the tech stack are very fragmented. Right? An operator can have four or five different software that they need to go pull data in from. And so what we realized is why not aggregate all that data into a centralized platform and then on top of that run agents against. So that’s kind of where I think uh you know supply chain type is headed and where warehouse automation is headed as well.” MetaOption’s Naushad Ahmed provide a more concrete example. “AI is going to do instead of user making a decision or predetermination user is making especially with the big warehouses where you have a 10,000 mains you have the multiple floors… AI is going to make those recommendations based on all the history and how exactly you are picking guys you are picking the product how the products are moving within the Warehouses.” Yet keep in mind. As Lufthansa’s Ingo Pietruska elaborated at some point in time, “warehouses will be built for robots, not for humans anymore.” For today, that is still a bit into the future.
Published to clients: February 17, 2026 ID: TBW2086
Published to Whisper Club: February 17, 2026
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Abstract:
“This Whisper Report investigates how AI and behavioral analytics enhances identity security. It highlights how organizations manage identity scale and emerging threats using behavioral baselines, anomaly detection, and contextual risk scoring. Researched at Identiverse held in Las Vegas, it incorporates quoted insights from Lumos’ Janani Nagarajan, GitGuardian’s Dwayne McDaniel, CyberSolve’s Ankush Kappor, Oasis’ Guy Feinberg, Simeio’s Octabio Lopez, Clarity Security’s James Davidson, Cubeless’ Treb Ryan, Apono’s Ofir Stein, Keeper Security’s Craig Lurey, Imprivata’s Diron Chain, and Panini’s Jim Harris.”
We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the Technologists gathering at Identiverse 2025 held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding of how can AI and behavioral analytics enhance identity security?
In short there are two big motivations driving the adoption of AI and behavioral analytics. First, as Lumos’ Janani Nagarajan reported, “It is really critical to know the difference that in identity where it becomes harder with tons and tons of applications tons and tons of identities including machine identities. Those people are accessing, in addition to the machines, they’re accessing the same apps and it becomes a tangled web of permissions entitlements. It really becomes complex to operate at human scale. You cannot throw in more people to solve this problem. And this is where AI and analytics plays a huge role in solving for identity.” In other words, the mere scale of the identity space in most organizations demands AI to effectively manage.
The second reason to adoption AI and behavioral analytics in identity is because as Dwayne McDaniel of GitGuardian affirmed, “ ways to attack someone is to assume their identity and act on their behalf in a weird way this is especially true for machines.” Furthermore, AI is being used against the identity space to steal someone’s identity – specifically as deep fakes. As CyberSolve’s Ankush Kappor argued, “AI is changing the scenario in a dramatic sense in two ways one the adversary now has a lot more options to play with deep fakes are a big problem where previously you could use facial parameters for authentication and so on so forth with deep fakes that is that is no longer the case so there’s a cause for concern right there that are existing control is now breaking down because of AI.” But facial IDs are not the only identity form let alone the only biometric identity under attack from AI. Kappor went on further to explain, “voice-based authentication is also under risk you’ve seen companies like ElevenLabs and the kind of ease with which you can actually clone somebody’s voice a concern the last thing that I would like to really point out.”
Example Use Cases in Identity
Now that we understand why leveraging AI and behavioral analytics is important in the identity space, let’s dive into the use cases as depicted in Figure 1.
A common starting point in behavioral analytics is to create an analyze a behavior graph. Oasis’ Guy Feinberg suggested, “We use AI to identify the baseline for the behavior of different identities so we can create this graph to show you the different anomalies. When there’s a threat actors utilizing this identity or a deviation from the business justification of the original identity the use that why we provision it for. AI is a way for us to identify faster with better accuracy uh and also it helps us kind of fingerprint different threat actors that target different type of non-human identities as their favorite factor.” This graph is then used as Simeio’s Octavio Lopez summarized, “What AI is going to be able to assist us practitioners with IM (Identity Management) is being able to make you get signal out of the noise that we see every day. Whether it’s like identities being able to figure out what roles they need to have or even just combing through all the statistical data that comes from all the systems ,AI is going to be really useful and being able to make our lives a lot easier.”
One popular signal noise AI is great at identifying is that of unused access. Per Clarity Security’s James Davidson, “Governance is all about understanding who has access to what and is it appropriate the behavioral analytics is how that access that exists is being used so one of the mistakes people make is you know you have a company you’re operating all the time you’re creating new access to solve problems but you’re not keeping track of that access that you created and then you’re not keeping track of how that access is being used so we’ve started incorporating behavioral analytics things like have you even logged intothe software if you’re not logging in then maybe you don’t need it.” A useful example was provided by Lumos’ Janani Nagarajan. “’Hey I see sales have access to these CRM apps which is great but I see these three people not using them. Can you make sure that you put them back to the pool and maybe you know give them at least a warning that they’re not using it?’ That that means your least privilege access stays intact. The security risks are driven down but your productivity is not compromised.” Imagine that. In one step you not only improve your security by reducing unused access but potentially reduce your software licensing fees.
While it is important to identify unused access, unusual access is also critical to monitor. CyberSolve’s Ankush Kappor proposed, “looking in data looking at usage patterns of uh users to come up with risk scores and then determine which usage patterns are more risky for example if you normally access a certain application from certain locations in the US and one fine day connections start coming in you know uh from Asia that’ll trip up a few flags and then that analytics can prompt you for a higher level of authentication.”
One use case end users can really get behind was brought up by Treb Ryan of Cubeless. “What I think what we really use AI for is to come up with answers in integrations that they’re transparent to the user so when they get in it just works.” As Apono’s Ofir Stein expanded on, “few that we already did for example user experience we provide list privilege with AI agent that help you to get access to what you need only what you need in the platform this is actually take the least privilege approach into the day-to-day.” Finally for those not enjoying those pesky challenge questions, CyberSolve’s Ankush Kappor shares the AI modernized version. “previously systems were limited to a hard hard-coded set of questions that the user could answer for example to validate you know which school I went to and so on but if AI can be enriched with more aspects of my personality and privacy concerns are taken care of – then there is a vast variety of questions that can be asked of me that probably only I can answer and answer in a certain way.”
Fortunately, the benefits of monitoring identity and access information go beyond the identity space. In fact, as Keeper Security’s Craig Lurey contends what he appreciates most about AI in Identity is, “the ability to monitor and detect threats in regards to privilege sessions. So if you’re connecting to like a database or a Linux server or Windows server or something like that it’ll actually monitor the interactions. It will look for any high-risk type of actions and look for any malicious activity and so it does this all zero knowledge. The customer posts what we call the keeper gateway and it allows them to monitor this activity. It’ll automatically lock and kill the session if it detects any suspicious activity and then the administrator can then go back and review what took place and there’s an AI analysis um that actually summarizes the whole transaction and lets them know what happened and it’s a really perfect application of AI for threat detection.” Identity is critical to enabling threat detection and an identity solution enhanced with behavioral data and analytics is just simply better.
A common area of concern within enterprise security is always all those edge devices and endpoints. Fortunately, Imprivata’s Diron Chain has you covered. “We are able to take machine learning and AI functionality embedded within our system single sign on multifactor authentication and shared endpoint access to make sure that we understand who did what when on what machine. And the visibility in and around that allows the organization to get a lot smarter in terms of operational efficiency utilization. Taking analytics powered by AI to look for pattern anomalies. Ways in which they can analyze big data in a way that is actionable.”
Targeting the heart of the problem in identity theft, adding hehavioral AI can make all the difference. For human identity theft, Git Guardian’s Dwayne McDaniel offered up this viewpoint. “how do I know I can trust this person well if I haven’t described a specific set of things I’m allowed to do and I only ever do those things thumbs up i get a good score. If I all of a sudden start doing weird things it’s like wait a minute you don’t seem trustworthy anymore but that takes actual contextual analysis the fact I detect identity theft.” But detecting identity theft isn’t only for human identities, McDaniel went on to further explain the benefits to machine identity. “can this machine get into the system and retrieve this data under certain circumstances that’s completely normal operation how it’s going to do its work otherwise but now it’s starting to look up other database tables now it’s starting to do other things in that data source that it’s not supposed to do there’s no way a human can keep up with that level of analysis. AI on the other hand can at machine speed and alert someone to raise a flag say wait a minute something right something’s gone wrong in system so I actually see a pretty bright future for this particular use case with AI.” Please denote that he said at machine speed. As we covered in Conference Whispers: Black Hat 2019, threats can execute a complete ransomware attack for years in under 30 minutes. Expecting someone on call to get the alert, get online and stop something that fast is simply not reasonable.
AI is a new fun tool that many like to find an excuse to use to play with it. Panini’s Jim Harris offered some very wise advice, “Don’t reinvent the wheel but how can we incorporate those solutions such as things that come from Fiserv and other companies that are in that space to leverage our capabilities with theirs to deliver a whole solution for a customer.” In other words – clients should schedule an inquiry, let’s check what is available on the market that fits your specific needs. You might just save yourself a lot of time and money.
“Manifest 2026 brought together 7,350 attendees in Las Vegas, showcasing supply‑chain innovations across cold chain, warehouse automation, robotics, and logistics solutions. TBW Advisors LLC captured extensive on‑site coverage, including 62 videos, two livestreams, and over a dozen fact checks. Twelve Whisper Reports were also researched for deeper analysis across emerging operational challenges. Exhibits highlighted end‑to‑end supply‑chain platforms, automation breakthroughs, sensing technologies, and AI‑enabled workflow solutions across the expo hall.”
Attendance at Manifest 2026 saw an increase from 2025 with a whopping 7,350 attendees!
Cautions
Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
After 62 videos including 2 livestream and over a dozen and a half fact checks, our coverage of Manifest 2026 closes. No lines for the 7350 attendees at registration as the process was quite efficient and took place right outside of expo hall. Venetian came through for attendings with delicious food. If you were not already hungry, the smell from their Tuesday lunch and the Pasta station that accompanied Wednesday lunch was sure to get you there. Enjoy the walkabout to and through expo hall. We always try to bring you fresh vendors in our coverage but you will recognize many brands in the walkabout from our coverage of other distribution sector events such as Pack Expo and Retail, Supply Chain, and Logistics Expo. One observation we would like to share is the unique way Manifest physically sets up their track sections within the Venetian. It creates this great gathering space for people in between sessions not seen at other events. We were able to get a great video of the space while all were at the keynote. Vendors at the booths frequently strongly complimented the event. One attendee denoted that there was a highly desirable mix decision makers or their direct reports.
We once again live streamed from on-site. We streamed from outside of expo on Tuesday right before its grand openings requesting those attending to find me to answer Questions 1-6. On Wednesday we were back but from inside expo hall and reminding all to show us which videos you enjoy as assistance for my segment on the February 21st broadcast edition of Computer Talk Radio. Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Manifest 2026 Playlist in its entirety. The playlist will be sited in the end screen, description, and as a pinned comment of the video edition.
We conducted research for twelve additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available with the video version to be exclusively distributed first via YouTube Whisper Club upper tier membership area on our YouTube Channel.
The video edition will conclude with gratitude towards those that contributed and a montage of responses to Bonus Question, “What’s the best part about attending the Manifest live in Vegas?”.
For our coverage we will start with the easy and complete, end-to-end supply chain solution for brand owners by Aptean Supply Chain who’s logo was seen all over the registration area. Enlightening operations teams by answering the questions, “Where their stuff in the supply chain?”, Surgere enables better decisions. If ‘when’ it arrives is critical, C.R. England would like you to know their trucking services are on time 99% of the time! Moving things cross borders? Ascendia operates in 17 countries with an extensive footprint in Canada. Executives looking to automate their operations but truly desire support may appreciate finding Engineering Innovation in the expo hall.
This year we also explicitly covered some cold pack technologies and vendors leveraged for perishable goods and transportation of items that must remain refrigerated. ColdTrack is a cold chain 3pl, shipping, pick pack and storage services provider for the perishable market direct to consumer. If you need to transport up to 10,000 lbs of cold chain, Reefer Van Network was on site showcasing their solution. Wondering if your solution maintained acceptable temperature? Willog, a South Korean standout, brought their six‑metric supply‑chain intelligence to the USA. Concerned about how to get packages from an automated supply chain all the way to the door? Specifically, are the last 10 feet causing you concerns? Rivr.ai was once again onsite this year albeit capable of even heavier loads! This robot can get packages from a truck to humans at a door or a package from the human to bring to the truck.
Moving into the warehouse, for those creating machines meant to be around people but don’t want to force your customers to wear cautions vests? Matrix Design Group created robot technology enabling your system to avoid people without putting requirements on people or their clothing! Do you desire automated inventory for your cold chain inventory even though your freezer gets down to -10 degrees? Dane Technologies robots not only answer the call but come with increased safety and efficiency technology for your workflows. Perhaps loading the trailers is your pain point and you are having difficulty finding dock workers. You simply need to load and unload them and don’t want any complex technological integrations or have to bug the IT department? Expand that dream and what if I told you automation exists to load that trailer AND that it can be done in under 5 minutes? That’s right Slip Robotics has expanded their line up! Now the Slip Lift is separated from the Slip Carrier – watch how this innovation can load and unload a truck in 5 minutes. Do you want to add automation but are concerned about complex training in your brownfield facility? Yondu.ai’s drop in robot might just be the adaptable, quick-learning automation you are seeking! Order consolidation your pain point and hoping to find an automation solution? Unbox Robotics can even handle orders with multiple pieces of the same inventory and move vertically.
Moving deeper into the warehouse, Rufus Labs is redefining how one can get labor statistics with their multi-purpose hand scanner. It is valuable to note that this scanner is on the back of one’s hand, not handheld in the palm enabling. This placement enables the user to maintain full dexterity and capacity of their hands. Simply require package dimensions. This year’s show we captured FreightSnap’s dimension solution in the expo hall. For those seeking back office agentic solutions, freehand declares you no longer need to outsource. You can insource with your own AI agents!
The Manifest 2027 will once again return to Las Vegas and will be held at the Sands Convention Center on February 8-10th, 2027.
*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples of products in the same category may have also been on display.
