AVT Question: Please share insights into the company's roadmap and what 2026 holds for its AV/IT customers.
Thought Leader: Steve Durkee, Chief Executive Officer at BrightSign
2025 was a notable year for the digital signage industry. More vertical markets—from retail and education to banking and transportation—doubled down on digital signage as a business and revenue driver. Instead of adopting a standalone digital display, more organizations embraced connected digital signage systems to better engage and captivate audiences.
Article continues below2026 will be the year brands maximize ROI from these deployments. Organizations will prioritize easy-to-use digital signage solutions that measure and monetize audience engagement for interactive and personalized content. This demand will guide our 2026 roadmap at BrightSign, with AI playing a key role in this strategy.
The future of digital signage centers on combining AI insights with dynamic visuals for personalized audience interactions. AI-powered analytics give organizations a better understanding of audience interests and motivations. Using these insights to tailor content is what helps them drive stronger customer relationships.
In 2025, we capitalized on AI’s role in digital storytelling by launching new AI toolkits, which give our partners and end users the ability to easily optimize digital signage workflows with AI insights for better personalization. We also ensured the integrated Neural Processing Units (NPU) in BrightSign digital media players could run AI without compromising content playback.
We’re excited to expand AI capabilities, partnerships, and integrations in 2026. Innovations will center on specific applications in vertical markets to support efficient adoption.
As always, our commitment to security, reliability, and performance remains a priority when designing solutions. We look forward to further innovating our tech stack and expanding partnerships to help organizations embrace increasingly connected and personalized digital signage.
