I just got back from one of my favorite places in the world – Sin City; good old Las Vegas. A business trip to ePS Connect, held February 10-12 at The Wynn hotel and casino.

 I’ve always liked Las Vegas. While it’s now a lifetime ago, I even lived there in my early twenties. But of course, I couldn’t stay – I liked it a little too much. There’s something about it – the noise, the lights, the energy – that manufactured urgency that makes everything
feel amplified. 

Now I am not a math person, but I know how important numbers are to Vegas. You walk through a casino, and the place is engineered around probability. Every machine, every table, every blinking screen is built on math. 

The house understands the numbers better than me and most gamblers – that’s the entire business model.

I don’t always respect the numbers, hoping to simply get lucky. (Let’s just say I’ve spent enough time in casinos to appreciate the importance of understanding probability.)Which is why it struck me as slightly poetic that ePS Connect 2026, held just a few steps from the slot machines, was focused on data, probability, and decision-making.

For those unfamiliar, ePS Connect is the annual users conference hosted by eProductivity Software (ePS), bringing together print and packaging converters, software users, and technology partners to discuss workflow, MIS/ERP development, and broader operational strategy. It’s not a very big show. With a bit over 500 attendees, it’s touted as a “users conference and industry event.” 

It’s intimate and focused, and this year, in addition to discussions on the latest updates to ePS MIS/ERP software, the focus was on print industry convergence and AI.

Convergence, which has become a substitute buzzword for diversification – we’ve been talking about for years: labels moving into flexible packaging, folding carton technology at Labelexpo, presses that can handle multiple substrates and formats. The lines between segments continue to blur. Hardware continues to hybridize. Converters continue to diversify.

But AI? That conversation feels different. 

At ePS Connect in Vegas, the AI conversation wasn’t theoretical. It wasn’t a vendor buzzword sprinkled into a slide deck – it was operational.

Steve Metcalf, founder, CEO, and chief AI officer of Imagine AI LIVE, reframed his session around one pointed question: What is your AI agent strategy? Not whether someone in marketing is experimenting with generative copy tools. Not whether your CSR uses ChatGPT to draft emails. But whether your organization has a deliberate approach to embedding AI into core workflows.

At one point, he described AI and the printing industry as “a match made in heaven.” And he’s right.

Printing is structured. It’s repeatable. It’s data-heavy. Every job has specifications. Every estimate follows logic. Every schedule is a puzzle. We may think of ourselves as a craft industry, but we are also an industry built on patterns.

And patterns are exactly what AI systems are designed to recognize and optimize.

Nathan Safran, vice president of NAPCO Research, shared data that reinforced the urgency. He revealed the results of a recent survey and noted that most print providers agree that AI will be critical to staying competitive. More than four in five believe it unlocks new business opportunities. However, a surprising percentage of printers surveyed still aren’t formally evaluating AI tools at all.

That gap matters. Because while some companies are cautiously watching from the sidelines, others are applying AI directly to estimating, scheduling, prepress preparation, color management, and forecasting. These aren’t flashy use cases. They’re foundational ones.

Back to numbers. Safran said that with the help of AI, print job estimating time gets reduced by 40–60%; job onboarding cut from hours to minutes; and customer service reps reclaiming 20–30% of their day.

These numbers are operational margin stories. 

Here’s where MIS and ERP enter the conversation. AI doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It feeds on structured data. The companies best positioned to benefit are those sitting on years – sometimes decades – of job history inside systems like Radius and other ERP platforms. Historical estimates become training data. Production patterns become predictive inputs. Scheduling logic becomes dynamic instead of reactive.

For years, converters have invested heavily in MIS to create visibility. AI represents the next phase – turning visibility into intelligence.

Safran made it clear that AI adoption is a journey – it’s not plug-and-play. It requires leadership, internal champions, and a willingness to rethink process design. Metcalf echoed that sentiment, emphasizing that AI should be positioned as a tool to enhance human capability, not replace it.

In an industry facing labor shortages and margin compression, it makes it that much more important.

Back to the Vegas metaphor. In a casino, the house doesn’t gamble, it calculates. It uses data to manage risk and protect margin. It doesn’t eliminate uncertainty; it tilts the odds.

AI feels similar.

It won’t eliminate variability in print production. It won’t remove complexity from SKU proliferation. But it can tilt the odds. It can shorten cycles and reveal inefficiencies, and it can protect margins in a business where pennies matter.

We’ve talked for years about convergence on the hardware side – hybrid presses, inline finishing, labels printed next to cartons. In this very issue, you’ll see how that convergence is playing out in folding cartons (see page 41). What ePS Connect suggested is that we’re entering a different kind of convergence as well: the blending of data across sales, estimating, production, and management into a more unified, intelligent operating system.

Hardware convergence is visible. Data convergence is quieter, but it may prove even more transformative.

The real takeaway from Vegas wasn’t that AI is coming. It’s that it’s already here, and the competitive divide will be defined not by who talks about it, but by who integrates it.

And if there’s one thing Vegas teaches you, it’s this: Understanding the math matters.

Steve Katz is the former editor of Label & Narrow Web and is now a regular contributor. He is focused on helping companies in the label industry share their news and tell their stories. Follow him on X @LabelSteve.