Bonjour #3· Deborah Hutcheson/AGFA and Ford Bowers/PRINTING United · PRINTING United 2026
On the third and final day of PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas, Morten B. Reitoft and Pat McGrew sit down with Ford Bowers, President & CEO of PRINTING United Alliance, and Deborah Hutcheson from Agfa to look back at three busy days — and forward to where the industry is heading.
The newly completed Las Vegas Convention Center has given PRINTING United more room to bring the industry's different parts together. Commercial print, wide-format, apparel, promotional products, packaging, software, finishing, and automation increasingly exist side by side rather than as separate industries.
And that convergence may be one of the most important takeaways from this year's show.
PRINTING United 2026 brought together more than 800 exhibitors across approximately one million square feet, with equipment, software and applications representing almost every part of the print ecosystem.
Deborah has experienced that convergence directly at Agfa's booth. Customers aren't simply asking about faster printing equipment anymore. They want flexible automation, fewer touchpoints and technology that can grow as their production requirements change.
AI is becoming part of that conversation as well.
The PRINTING AI Pavilion returned this year with presentations and discussions about how artificial intelligence can move beyond the hype and become part of real production, workflow, and business processes. Ford admits there was initial concern that printers might be hesitant about AI, but the response at the show suggests the opposite: companies increasingly want to understand how to use it rather than whether they should.
But technology is only half of the challenge.
PRINTING United Alliance is also investing heavily in education and career development. Student Day brought young people from very different disciplines into the exhibition — not only graphic communications students, but programmers, engineers, chemists and others discovering that print offers far more career opportunities than they may have imagined.
Deborah describes conversations with students who were surprised by the variety of technologies and applications they encountered. And Pat overheard perhaps the best reaction possible from young visitors walking into another part of the show: “I didn't know you could do that.”
That curiosity matters.
As automation, software, robotics and AI become increasingly important, the printing industry needs an entirely new mix of skills — and attracting those people requires showing them just how broad and technologically advanced the industry has become.
Now the work begins again.
Ford explains that planning for PRINTING United 2027 is already underway, but the Alliance will first evaluate everything from education and Student Day to hall layouts, signage, AI programming and visitor flow to understand what worked and what can be improved.
Because just like the companies exhibiting here, the show itself has to keep evolving.
Print takes all of us.
Watch Morten B. Reitoft and Pat McGrew's conversation with Ford Bowers from PRINTING United Alliance and Deborah Hutcheson from Agfa as they wrap up PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas.
Bonjour #2· Andrew Gunn/Fujifilm and Johan Laurent/Standard Finishing · PRINTING United 2026
Day two at PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas starts with Wayne Beckett and Pat McGrew meeting Andrew Gunn from Fujifilm and Johan Laurent from Standard Finishing for a conversation about automation, workflow — and why partnerships between technology suppliers are becoming increasingly important.
Digital presses are faster, quality continues to improve, and many processes that once required highly skilled operators are increasingly automated. But producing a great printed sheet is only part of the job. The customer needs a finished product, and that means workflow, printing and finishing have to communicate.
Andrew explains that customers are increasingly asking Fujifilm how its presses can integrate with technology that Fujifilm doesn't manufacture. Lights-out production requires exactly that: different suppliers working together rather than expecting one company to provide everything.
Johan sees the same development from the finishing side. The bindery can easily become the bottleneck when increasingly productive digital presses feed work into finishing processes that still require manual setup and intervention.
And automation without workflow doesn't solve the problem.
Barcodes, job information, imposition and production instructions need to travel with the job so binders, stitchers and cutters can automatically configure themselves for what comes next. That requires cooperation between press manufacturers, finishing suppliers and workflow companies long before the equipment arrives on the customer's production floor.
The conversation also looks at convergence. Commercial printers are moving into books, packaging and other applications, while photo businesses are beginning to adopt digital production technologies that enable them to move beyond traditional photographic output. Customers increasingly expect their print providers to offer more — and being a one-product printer is becoming increasingly difficult.
Both Andrew and Johan see automation as fundamental to making that diversification profitable, particularly as skilled labor remains difficult to find.
The machines matter.
But increasingly, the real competitive advantage comes from how well everything works together.
Watch Wayne Beckett and Pat McGrew with Andrew Gunn from Fujifilm and Johan Laurent from Standard Finishing at PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas.
Bonjour #1· Andrew Fetherman/Müller Martini/Hunkeler & Rolando Martinez/Canon · PRINTING United 2026
At PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas, Morten B. Reitoft and Pat McGrew meet Rolando Martinez from Canon and Andrew Fetherman from Müller Martini North America for a wide-ranging conversation about presses, finishing, workflow, automation — and why connecting all of these technologies is becoming increasingly important for print service providers.
The starting point is simple. Customers aren't really buying individual pieces of equipment. They are investing in production capacity, and that means a press, workflow, and finishing system ultimately have to operate as one production environment.
Canon and MĂĽller Martini/Hunkeler therefore begin working together long before equipment reaches the customer's floor. Mechanical interfaces matter, but increasingly the more interesting connection is digital. MĂĽller Martini's Connex workflow exchanges production information with printing systems, manages imposition and carries the job information and barcodes required to automate downstream finishing.
That becomes particularly important in highly variable book production. Even when printing and finishing aren't physically in line, the workflow can create what Andrew describes as an almost electronically in-line environment. Information about a roll, job, splice or production event can follow the work downstream, allowing finishing equipment to understand what has happened before the printed product ever reaches it.
Canon has plenty to show in Las Vegas as well. Rolando talks about the varioPRINT iX1700 sheetfed inkjet press, the Colorado XL platform, the newest generation of imagePRESS toner technology and Canon's growing PRISMA workflow ecosystem. The much larger varioPRESS iV7 isn't physically on the show floor, but Canon has created an interactive experience to demonstrate what its B2+ inkjet platform can deliver.
For Rolando, one important development is how far inkjet has advanced. The discussion is no longer simply about accepting inkjet quality in return for digital flexibility. New generations of inkjet are increasingly competing with offset on both quality and productivity, fundamentally changing where printers can consider moving work from conventional to digital production.
At MĂĽller Martini and Hunkeler, automation continues after the press.
PRINTING United is the world premiere of the new Separo PRO, an automated destacking solution feeding book blocks into the Vareo PRO perfect binder. Combined with barcode-driven production, Connex workflow, InfiniTrim and downstream robotic handling, the objective is increasingly touchless book manufacturing — producing more products per square foot and per labor hour.
The Hunkeler GEN8 direct-mail line also demonstrates another important part of today's production environment: partnerships. The line is integrated with Heidelberg folding technology, illustrating how manufacturers increasingly have to work across traditional company boundaries if customers are going to achieve genuinely automated end-to-end production.
And that leads naturally to one of the industry's biggest challenges: labor.
Automation isn't being developed simply because robots and AI are fashionable. Printers continue to struggle to find skilled operators, and highly experienced employees are increasingly difficult to replace. Press automation, automated finishing, workflow integration, robotics and AI therefore become different pieces of the same puzzle.
The conversation ends by looking beyond the Canon and MĂĽller Martini booths. Rolando wants to explore apparel, promotional production, workflow and AI as commercial printers continue diversifying into new markets. Andrew is looking for robotics, cobots, backend automation and further developments toward the smart factory.
Different technologies. Different manufacturers. One increasingly connected production environment.
Or, as MĂĽller Martini's theme at PRINTING United puts it: Stronger Together.
Watch Morten B. Reitoft and Pat McGrew with Rolando Martinez from Canon and Andrew Fetherman from MĂĽller Martini North America at PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas.
