The Future is AI: Trends from 2024 Trade Shows Shaping 2025

For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), staying competitive means not just understanding their customers’ challenges but actively producing solutions to meet them. While attending key trade shows in 2024, we witnessed OEMs using AI to tackle workforce shortages, streamline operations, and enhance user experiences.

Here are some of the AI trends that we expect to be prominent in 2025:

Radiology: AI-Enabled Imaging Workflow Optimisation and Decision Support

Event: Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), December 2024

Radiology departments worldwide face mounting pressures due to staff shortages and increasing imaging demands. At RSNA 2024, OEMs showcased AI solutions to address these challenges.

• The Trend: AI-powered tools streamlining radiology workflows and providing decision support, allowing clinicians to manage larger patient volumes efficiently.
• The Solution: AI algorithms prioritise imaging studies based on urgency, detect abnormalities, and flag critical findings, significantly reducing image analysis times.
• Example in Action: AI-driven CT and MRI systems that identify potential pathologies such as tumours or fractures in real-time, providing annotated images for radiologists.
• Key Benefits: These innovations reduce radiologist workloads, expedite diagnoses, and improve diagnostic accuracy, mitigating workforce challenges and economic pressures.

Industrial Print and Graphics: AI-Driven Large-Scale Personalisation

Event: Drupa 2024

In the industrial printing sector, we learnt how AI enables large-scale personalisation to enhance customer engagement and drive results.

• The Trend: Successful print marketing relies on well-thought-out personalisation. AI has made this process faster, more accurate, and scalable, enabling businesses to create bespoke marketing materials for individual customers.
• The Solution: AI algorithms analyse vast customer data, including preferences and behaviours, to design highly personalised print materials.
• Example in Action: Companies use AI-powered tools to create personalised catalogues that showcase products relevant to each customer’s past purchases or interests. Direct mail campaigns leverage AI to craft unique designs and messages that resonate with specific target audiences.
• Key Benefits: Businesses see increased engagement and higher conversion rates by aligning content and design with customer preferences. This approach strengthens customer relationships and maximises the return on investment in print marketing campaigns.

Optometry: AI-Assisted Diagnostics

Event: 100% Optical, January 2024

The integration of AI in optometry is transforming diagnostic capabilities. At 100% Optical 2024, OEMs highlighted AI’s role in optical coherence tomography (OCT) analysis, particularly for detecting glaucoma and macular pathology.

• The Trend: Enhanced diagnostic precision using AI.
• The Solution: AI-enabled OCT devices offering immediate, accurate insights into retinal scans.
• Example in Action: Early detection of anomalies such as macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy using AI-enhanced devices.
• Key Benefits: These innovations help manage growing patient volumes and ensure timely diagnoses by supporting clinicians in resource-limited settings.

Pharmacy Automation: AI-Driven Dispensing Technologies

Event: The Pharmacy Show, Birmingham, October 2024

With pharmacists facing increasing prescription volumes and workforce shortages, automation was a focal point at The Pharmacy Show 2024.

• The Challenge: Managing high prescription volumes while maintaining service quality.
• The Solution: AI-powered robots to automate stock replenishment, prescription dispensing, and inventory management.
• Example in Action: Fully automated pharmacies capable of dispensing medications quickly and efficiently.
• Key Benefits: These systems alleviate workforce pressures, enhance service standards, and reduce patient wait times.

Digital Cinema Projection: AI-Enhanced Content Delivery and Adaptive Projection

Event: CinemaCon 2024, Las Vegas

In the entertainment industry, audience expectations for immersive experiences continue to rise. At CinemaCon 2024, OEMs unveiled AI-driven projection technologies that adapt to real-time conditions.

• The Trend: Customised viewing experiences through adaptive projection.
• The Solution: AI-enabled systems to optimise brightness, contrast, and sound based on audience feedback and environmental conditions.
• Example in Action: Projectors delivering tailored cinematic experiences for diverse screen sizes and audience preferences.
• Key Benefits: These technologies ensure energy efficiency while enhancing viewer satisfaction and operational cost-effectiveness.

Looking Ahead

AI’s ability to tackle workforce shortages, improve operational efficiencies, and enhance user experiences positions it as a cornerstone of innovation in 2025. As these trends continue to develop, businesses that integrate AI effectively into their processes will be well-placed to thrive in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Our role as a provider of remote technical support, onsite field engineering, and repair centre services aligns seamlessly with these advancements.

For this reason, in 2025, we look forward to continuing our collaboration with our OEM partners to implement, support, and maintain these cutting-edge AI technologies and solutions across the sectors in which we operate.

This blog is relevant to the following Veritek industry sector verticals:

• Medical
• Robotics and cobotics
• Print & Graphics
• Optometry
• Digital Cinema
• Photo imaging