Throughout the show floor and education theaters, AI-powered tools and workflows captured the attention of commercial, packaging, in-plant, and industrial printers. Months before PRINTING United Expo opened, PRINTING United Alliance’s recognized the growing influence of artificial intelligence on the printing industry and began building research and programming to match.

The video above offers a look back at that planning phase. Nathan Safran, director of research at Alliance Insights, shares how the research group shaped its approach to AI education.

Planning the Expo's AI Focus

Filmed ahead of the show’s opening, this segment of What’s Trending Now explores how Alliance Insights prioritized AI in its Expo research and programming strategy.

“There’s real momentum behind AI,” Safran said in the video. “Printers are asking: How does it impact operations, sales, marketing, prepress, estimating, and everything in between? Our goal with Alliance Insights was to build a research foundation that helps the industry think critically about those questions.”

Safran explained that the research team evaluated how AI tools were being integrated across the printing value chain. Rather than hype, the Alliance focused on practical use cases and the short- and long-term implications for printers of all sizes.

Many of those themes were explored in education sessions throughout the Expo, including topics such as generative content, intelligent estimating, and AI-powered automation.

For those who couldn’t attend this year’s event, be sure to mark the dates for future Expos. Next year, the Expo be in Las Vegas from Sept. 23 to 25. In 2027, Expo will be back in Las Vegas from Sept. 14 to 16 in 2027, in Atlanta from Oct. 18 to 20 in 2028, back in Orlando from Oct. 24 to 26 in 2029, and then back to Las Vegas from Oct. 16 to 18, 2030.