Print4All Conference Shows the Human Side of an Increasingly Technical Industry

When a press operator with decades of experience leaves a company, their expertise often goes with them. These highly-skilled employees know their machines inside and out — maintaining registration, managing color, and navigating substrate nuances — keeping customers happy and reducing costly reprints. But if the institutional knowledge that is so critical to every print run has not been documented, what happens when a new operator takes the reins?

At the Print4All Conference, presented by Italian printing associations ARGI and ACIMGA, attendees from around the world gathered to discuss the ever-evolving relationship between humans and machines in the printing industry. The conference, which was held from July 1-2 in Varese, Italy, serves as a global industry gathering, leading to the Print4All tradeshow, which will be held May 25-28, 2027, in Milan. The conference’s theme of Humans Print the World centered much of the conversation on the rise of artificial intelligence and the role it is poised to play in aiding the humans that comprise the industry.

Amy Servi-Bonner, vice president of PRINTING AI, a printing industry AI solutions provider and consultancy backed by PRINTING United Alliance, shared just how crucial AI is becoming in supporting printing and packaging professionals. In a keynote presentation, Servi-Bonner outlined a hypothetical yet realistic scenario. In it, a flexible packaging printer and converter is running a food grade packaging job. The press has been printing for two hours, until a junior operator is notified of a registration shift.

Amy Servi-Bonner, VP of PRINTING AI, delivers a keynote presentation at the Print4All Conference in Varese, Italy.

The press is equipped with an AI diagnostic system that informs the operator that by making a specific adjustment, it has a 94% confidence rate the issue will be fixed. But without any oversight or documented approval process of the adjustment, the company is exposed to the potential for the job continuing with uncorrected errors. While AI can be helpful on the production floor, Servi-Bonner emphasized the need for clearly defined policies with humans maintaining final approval.

“Who approves those recommendations? Who catches the error? Who recognizes the drift?” Servi-Bonner said. “Until that’s there, the policy isn’t protecting you. It’s just making you feel more comfortable.”

Servi-Bonner also demonstrated how AI can help preserve companies’ institutional knowledge. In the example, an operator with nearly 20 years of experience at the company had left. But, during her tenure with the organization, she documented her experiences running that press. That documented information can then be used to inform an AI chat interface for the junior operator to consult with, preserving the veteran operator’s real-life experiences and insights and relaying tangible examples of similar situations and how to troubleshoot them.

“It’s not searching the internet,” Servi-Bonner said. “It’s what happened on this press two years ago. That is institutionalized information.”

AI Adoption in Print: Comparing and Contrasting the United States and Italy

Digging deeper into AI adoption in the printing and packaging industries, Nathan Safran, VP of Alliance Insights, the research division of PRINTING United Alliance, and Stefano Portolani, senior analyst for the Stratego Group’s Printing Study Center, shared key takeaways from a joint research effort exploring AI adoption’s impact on printers and converters in the U.S. and Italian markets.

Nathan Safran, VP of research for Alliance Insights, presents key findings from a study on AI use in the U.S. and Italian printing industries at the Print4All Conference in Varese, Italy.

The study revealed that while 76% of American companies surveyed have adopted AI, compared to 57% of participating Italian companies, there is a strong push in Italy to bring the technology on board. In fact, among Italian companies that are not currently using AI, 40% report they plan to start within one year.

“The hardest part in integrating any new technology is the will or the desire to get going,” Safran said. “In Italy, there is that will.”

Beyond AI adoption, the study explored how behaviors differed among AI leaders and laggards and how these behaviors translated into results. For example, while American and Italian AI leaders differed in how their companies discover and evaluate AI tools (72% of American leaders encourage company-wide experimenting and 76% of Italian leaders use a single team to evaluate), none of the leading companies from either country are forgoing an evaluation system. Similarly, just 9% of American AI leaders and 6% of Italian AI leaders report not having anyone at their companies managing their AI initiatives.

Unsurprisingly, AI leaders are reaping the benefits of the technology. In the United States, the top benefits include improved production efficiency (46% of leaders) and print quality and consistency (42% of leaders). In Italy, 59% of AI leaders report increased efficiency, but the biggest disparity between leaders and laggards is in decision making. Fifty-three percent of Italian AI leaders report better decision making with the technology, compared to just 12% of laggards.

“Leaders see more benefits across every aspect of implementation of AI, whether it’s efficiency, quality, or freeing up staff,” Safran said.

Furthering the Human Connection to Print

Print4All Conference attendees meet with the many international delegations present for the event, which was held July 1-2 in Varese, Italy.

With AI working its way into nearly every facet of the printing industry, it is important to recognize that the human eye is essential in maximizing the technology. For example, Mafe de Baggis, a digital media strategist, copywriter, and independent researcher, shared a presentation encouraging attendees to view AI as a “raw material.”

AI is not an expert, de Baggis said via a translator, and while it can be very helpful in writing and researching a topic, users should always verify the information an AI tool provides in response to a prompt and challenge it if something seems inaccurate.

“They are not expert assistants. They are not an encyclopedia. They forget answers they gave you. There are concerns with copyrights,” de Baggis said. “Don’t consider what is given to you as a finished product. My recommendation is that we should be learning to use them better and quicker.”

Diversity in the printing industry was another topic covered at the Print4All conference with Martina Corradi, president of Girls Who Print Italy, and Michela Pibiri, a Girls Who Print Italy board member and editor-in-chief of Italian industry publication PRINTlovers, sharing some initial findings from research they are conducting into inclusion, work, and culture in printing.

The study is ongoing, Pibiri said, but the goal is to help the industry understand how to operate better in today’s climate.

“Work quality is a competitive advantage, and diversity contributes to developing innovation and the way you are perceived on the outside,” she said via a translator.

An Announcement for the Future of the Italian Print and Packaging Industry

The Print4All Conference also served as the launch of the Printing & Converting Technology Alliance (PACTA), a joint initiative from ACIMGA, the Italian Manufacturers Association of Machinery for the Graphic, Converting, and Paper Industry, and ARGI, the Italian Association of Suppliers to the Graphic Arts Industry. Though ACIMGA and ARGI have successfully collaborated on several initiatives in the past, the launch of PACTA aims to strengthen that collaboration and connect stakeholders in Italy and throughout Europe.

“With PACTA, we are taking an important step forward in the evolution of our industry’s representation,” Marco Calcagni, president of ACIMGA, said in an official announcement. “Printing and converting technologies are an essential component of modern manufacturing and play a decisive role in driving innovation, sustainability, and competitiveness across industrial value chains. Through this alliance, we aim to strengthen our ability to work as a unified system, share expertise and strategic projects, and provide the sector with an even stronger and more authoritative voice in its dialogue with institutions, international stakeholders, and the whole market.”

The Print4All project reconvenes next for the Print4All tradeshow, which will be held from May 25 to 28, 2027, at Fiera Milano in Milan, Italy.