PRINTING United Expo: Providing Education and AI Strategy

Next month, PRINTING United Expo (Sept. 23-25, Las Vegas) will bring more than 70 paid sessions that cover the business of running a printing operation with topics ranging from growing sales, pricing for margin, hiring, and M&A to AI adoption, diversification into promo and apparel, sustainability compliance, workplace safety, and advocacy.

Session titles such as "Margins Over Machines: The Business Decisions That Actually Make You Money," "The Price Perception Problem: How to Sell Value, Not Discounts," and "What Print Owners Aren't Doing to Build Their Business (and Why It's Costing Them Growth)" give a fair snapshot of what is on owners' minds this year.

The presenters are practitioners, drawing from real-world operations and experience. Some of the best networking happens in the hallway after a session, when attendees realize they're up against the same problems.

If your team already uses iLEARNING+, these sessions are not replacements for it. The platform provides year-round training on production skills such as color management, bindery, and customer service, while most Expo sessions focus on the business side of the operation, with select hands-on production topics included.

The key difference is the opportunity to ask presenters how their advice relates to your specific operation and learn about the challenges other printers face.

PRINTING AI Pavilion: Year Two Is About Implementation

The PRINTING AI Pavilion debuted in 2025 and ran out of room.

“Year 1 proved the appetite,” says Amy Servi-Bonner, VP, PRINTING AI, PRINTING United Alliance. “Print and packaging operators were not just curious about AI; they were starved for a place to have honest, grounded conversations about it without getting sold to. We filled that need and ran out of room. Year 2 is about earning the credibility that comes with permanence.”

The 2026 Pavilion (Booth N6531) is larger, but Servi-Bonner is quick to clarify what that means. “Bigger does not mean louder. It means more intentional.”

The sponsor roster has expanded to include OEMs, infrastructure players, and cybersecurity — categories absent in year one but now essential to any serious AI conversation. A dedicated activation space for live, hands-on work joins the sponsor POD kiosks and mainstage theater.

The agenda follows a deliberate three-day arc. Day 1 examines what AI is already costing an operation. Day 2 shows what a real implementation looks like and what it returns. Day 3 is your move.

“Most event programming tells you what is possible,” Servi-Bonner says. “This one is designed to tell you what to do Monday morning.”

A centerpiece of the experience is the AI Readiness Benchmark, which launched earlier this year. A self-serve version runs throughout all three days. Attendees scan a QR code from anywhere in the Pavilion, work through a structured assessment across six operational areas, and receive a scored Lab Report personalized to their operation.

The report identifies areas of exposure and opportunity and serves as the entry point into the live experience in The Loop. There, attendees can bring their score to the counter, examine a specific gap, and talk through possible next steps with an expert in real time.

Sessions are built for operations ranging from the two-person sign shop to the major packaging converter — and for every role in the building.

“The owner needs to understand the business case well enough to defend the investment to their CFO and make a decision without waiting for their team to tell them it is ready,” Servi-Bonner explains. “The IT lead or operations manager needs to understand what real integration requires — not the vendor pitch version, the version where something almost failed and what they did about it. The press operator or CSR needs to understand that AI is not coming for their job — it is coming for the parts of their job they hate most, and their expertise is what makes the automation actually work.”

One session maps AI's impact role by role through a real print company org chart — owner, vice president of sales, estimating, CSR, prepress, production, and finance. It covers what changes for each role, what each person needs to know, and what happens when they become the blocker.

“Nobody else on this floor will touch the ‘people’ question that directly,” Servi-Bonner says. “But it is the question that determines whether any of this actually gets implemented.”

It’s also a case for bringing more than one person from a company. Owners and operations leads will hear different answers to different questions, and both perspectives matter before anyone signs a purchase order.

The practitioner panels operate under a hard rule: no vendors, no consultants, and no one who cannot put a real number on the table. “Hours recovered; dollars returned; headcount redeployed. If you cannot give me a number, you are not on the panel,” Servi-Bonner says. “That standard is what makes the content transferable. You do not leave inspired. You leave equipped.”

Don’t miss out. Register here.