Back home in the refreshed Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, with additional exhibits spread across the North Hall and West Hall, the 2026 NAB Show closed its show floor on April 23. According to show officials, there were more than 58,000 registered attendees, an increase from last year. Almost half were first-time attendees, and more than 20% of registered attendees were international, with 146 countries represented. Plus, there were 132 first-time exhibitors. Beyond the numbers, here were a few trends I observed.
[We Saw Phish at The Sphere, and the Video Content Had Us Bouncing around the Room]
Acknowledge the influencers.
Whether you call them creators or influencers, the important thing is that you call them. NAB 2026 put an emphasis on the creator community and with good reason: It's healthy and it's growing. I attended "How Fortune 500 Brands Are Betting on Creators," while SCN's Wayne Cavadi covered “State of the Creator Economy” at the Creator Lab, an area devoted to the creator community that celebrated its third year at NAB.
During “State of the Creator Economy," Alessandro Bogliari, co-founder and CEO of The Influencer Marketing Factory, explained the appeal of online influences. “The creator economy is a people business,” he said. “It’s a friend I’ve never met, and I follow them because you can see part of myself in them. AI simply cannot replace that.”
Of course, AI was also part of the discussion. Natalie Jarvey, editor of Ankler Media’s "Like & Subscribe" newsletter, said creators who once saw GenAI as a threat have now embraced it as a tool for making creative content. That said, she acknowledged it still has a different look and lacks the human touch. “Brands are all-in on everything AI these days: the good, the bad and the ugly,” agreed fellow panelist Pierre-Loïc Assayag, co-founder and CEO of Traackr.
Meanwhile, in "How Fortune 500 Brands Are Betting on Creators," Jennifer Cho, chief customer officer at CreatorIQ, said creator marketing now delivers more ROI than the traditional marketing funnel. That's why major businesses are using creators to drive social media campaigns. Brendan Ittelson, chief ecosystem officer at Zoom, said measurement and metrics are critical, and it's important to be able to define customer success and identify audiences.
How creators will impact the Pro AV industry remains to be seen. But between them and younger viewers embracing 9:16 content for shorter content on their mobile devices, there is the potential for serious disruption in the production status quo. That means new tools, new techniques, and new workflows—and customers looking to integrators for answers.
There's a new buzzword.
AI is still making the most noise in the industry, but another buzzword has quietly become part of an awful lot of conversations: security. Whether you call it network security, IP security, or cybersecurity, minimizing the risk of intrusion or cyberattacks via Pro AV hardware and software is now a point of emphasis. And just to bring this to a full buzzword circle, AI is a great tool for bad actors.
"Every device on-prem is a potential liability," agreed Frank Zovko, VP of engineering at AI-Media. The company used NAB 2026 to introduce its new LEXI Voice Encoder and LEXI Text Encoder for use in the creation of written and spoken captions, transcripts, and translations. Zovko said the company did its due diligence for security, with updated systems, an overhauled web interface, SOC 2 compliance, and more. AI-Media has also committed to quarterly updates for added security protections.
Security was top of mind for BeckTV at NAB, where the company launched BeckFlow, its web-based, broadcast-centric schematic documentation platform that doesn't rely on traditional CAD workflows. Matt Weiss, VP business development for BeckTV, has noticed there is more security awareness in the industry; in fact, he mentioned that BeckFlow is SOC 2 compliant and has authentication features.
NETGEAR is so serious about security that it acquired Exium, a cybersecurity company, last year. There was less concern about security when connectivity was defined by an HDMI cable, but today's IP-based workflows has "raised the bar for the need for security," according to NETGEAR AV's John Henkel. He advised keeping AV separated from other IT assets on its own network.
AI is getting some serious training.
"We've gotta use AI."
I wonder how many companies have declared mandates like this—and then promptly left their teams to their own devices to figure out how to do just that. Thankfully, I'm happy to report that there are Pro AV manufacturers that are avoiding vague "and it's got AI" declarations and really focusing their AI efforts into meaningful products and workflows.
For example, I learned about Shure's Action Isolator software during a Sunday afternoon session in the Broadcast Engineering and IT Conference. Shure's Chad Wiggins, associate VP of innovation, and Brent Shumard, senior staff acoustic engineer, had a fireside chat with John Clark, NAB's chief innovation officer and SVP of emerging technology about why audio has lagged behind with AI.
Beyond a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, Shumard said audio is often messy and chaotic. However, AI adoption for processing is starting. Action Isolator uses AI to remove unwanted sounds. So, if you're shooting a basketball game, you can have the sounds of the basketball hitting the rim, dribbling the ball down the court, and even the squeaking of the sneakers all on one fader, minimizing the sounds of the crowd, band, or PA announcer.
How does Action Isolator do it? The first part is the right hardware. Shure's DCA901 broadcast microphone array offers eight channels of audio with very steerable pickup zones that can identify and prioritize key sounds in real time. But the secret sauce is training. The company is currently training the software for basketball, baseball, and hockey. Shumard said the trick is getting clean audio data for training the AI.
On the video side, Vizrt introduced AI Keyer at the show. Vizrt's chief marketing officer, Chris Black, said the company wants its AI applications to be transformative and capable of simplifying human workflows through agentic AI. AI Keyer is certainly designed to simplify VR and XR workflows, because it enables a production to change backgrounds and insert graphics without a greenscreen or special lighting. Indoor, outdoor, on a set, on location—it doesn't matter.
Again, AI training is the key. Vizrt is training its AI to recognize human shapes, maintaining the key while allowing your talent to walk and chew gum (and handle objects) at the same time. Vizrt is also working on training the AI to recognize hats and hairstyles, too.
Is it perfect? No. But like previous technological leaps in our industry, this first generation is the worst it's ever going to look. And it's already more than good enough for prime time. All I'm saying is that if you've been keeping extra stock of green paint for the cyc, you might as well use it now, because you probably won't need it in the near future.
