Walking through the halls of Hannover Messe 2026, it was impossible to miss the message: AI is everywhere. Almost every application, every live demo, every pitch somehow revolved around artificial intelligence. And yes, despite a healthy amount of skepticism, I am convinced that this is more than just another buzzword. Artificial intelligence is a technology that can enable real, decisive progress for industrial applications – far beyond writing texts faster, generating nicer images or making search queries more convenient. Even though, I openly admit: I use those features myself.
At the same time, the fair once again made something very clear to me: why we at PI, with our technologies, are right in the middle of this topic – and why we need to be. Algorithms live on data. And that data comes from the field. This is exactly where our core competencies lie: communication, data preparation and standardization. IO-Link delivers far more than a simple PLC signal. PROFINET over Ethernet-APL unlocks significantly more information from PA devices. Security ensures that this necessary data access is also implemented securely. Semantic activities such as OPC UA mapping or profiles ultimately make this data truly usable – all within a real industrial environment.
And this is by no means new territory for us. Asset identification via hardware and firmware versions has been part of our daily work for many, many years. Admittedly, this is not particularly “hype driven”. But everyone needs it – and without this foundation, neither digitalization nor AI will work in a sustainable way.
In this respect, I feel confident that we have the right future technologies in our portfolio. We continue to drive innovation and standardization so that digitalization and AI can be implemented efficiently in industrial environments. We may not always be at the very tip of the marketing spear – but we provide the essential enablers on which modern, data-driven applications are built.
Beyond the technology itself, Hannover Messe also showed how much we have evolved. The new booth location in the new hall worked extremely well. The modern stand design with the new walls proved to be a fitting and valuable representation of our topics. Particularly important to me was the community area: a place for deep technical discussions, but equally for networking and personal exchange. That combination is what makes this trade fair so special.
I am taking a great deal of energy with me from Hannover – even if the Messe itself cost me just as much beforehand – and, above all, a clear confirmation that we are on the right path.
