What Two Days at the AI+ Expo Taught Me About Where Visual Communications Is Headed
I spend a lot of my time thinking about how people discover, navigate, and connect with products in the real world. The signs they follow. The displays that grab their attention. The physical environments that make a brand feel like something real when someone walks through a door.
That same way of thinking shaped how I approached the AI+ Expo in Washington, D.C. from May 7th to 9th. Not just as someone deeply interested in AI, but as someone who works in an industry that designs, builds, and integrates the visual layer of the built environment. I wanted to know where things are going, and whether the people shaping that future understood what it takes to actually connect with people in physical spaces.
Here’s what I found entering the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, a place where Gable is proud to showcase several of our high-end digital displays.
20,000 People and One Big Question
The AI+ Expo is put on by SCSP, the Special Competitive Studies Project, and it draws a genuinely eclectic crowd. Government officials, defense contractors, university researchers, startup founders, and enterprise tech companies all show up under one roof. This year, attendance hit around 20,000 people over the course of the event. That’s a lot of lanyards!
But what struck me while walking the floor was how little it felt like a typical trade show. The conversations I overheard, and the ones I was part of, weren’t the usual product-pitch variety. People were working through real problems. Sponsors like Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, AWS, Lockheed Martin, and IBM weren’t just there for logo placement. Their people were in conference rooms, on panels, and in the hallways, having genuine back-and-forth conversations with policymakers and practitioners.
I’ve been to a lot of industry events over the years. This one had a different kind of energy. Less of “look at what we built” and more of “here’s what we actually need to figure out.”
The Session I Wasn't Expecting
I’ll be honest; I didn’t walk into Damion Shelton’s keynote thinking it would be the one I’d still be turning over in my head a week later. Shelton is co-founder and chairman of Agility Robotics, a company that builds humanoid robots, the bipedal kind designed to work in warehouses, hospitals, and other spaces built for people. On paper, that’s about as far from signage and displays as you can get. But the moment he started talking, I realized he was describing a problem I know really well.
Shelton has been taking the same message to Congress and anyone else who’ll listen: AI should be judged on whether they improve safety and productivity right now, not on how impressive the demos look. He called it simply, “less hype and more help.”
That framing landed differently for me than it might for someone in a pure tech role. In our world, the best sign you ever design is the one people follow without thinking about it. A great wayfinding system in a hospital isn’t impressive; it’s invisible. It just works, and someone finds their way to where they need to be. Shelton was making the same argument about AI. Stop optimizing for spectacles. Start optimizing for outcomes.
What This Has to Do with Visual Communications
Gable has been weaving AI into our workflows over the last year, not as a headline feature, but as a practical tool. It’s changed how we approach custom development, how we prototype concepts for clients, and how we connect the digital and physical sides of a brand environment. It’s part of how we keep getting better at our craft.
The expo reinforced something I already believed: the companies that will come out ahead in the next decade aren’t the ones that made the biggest splash at an AI conference. They’re the ones quietly using these tools to do their core work better, faster, and with more precision for the people who depend on them.
For us, that means sharper design processes, smarter production workflows, and better integration between the traditional signage and digital display systems we install for clients across industries including healthcare, retail, hospitality, transportation, and higher education. The technology changes, but the goal of helping people navigate their world and helping brands show up with intention doesn’t.
Still Processing
I came back from D.C. with a few pages of notes and a renewed sense that the right people are taking this seriously. The conversations happening at the AI+ Expo were clearly rooted in the physical world where our work lives: hospitals, convention centers, universities, retail environments, and transit hubs where good visual communication genuinely matters.
Coming out of this experience, one thing felt clear: if you haven’t paid attention to where AI is heading and how it might affect your work, now is the time to start. The tools are real, the people building them are serious, and the applications are closer to your day-to-day than you might think.
About Gable
Gable has been a leader in visual communications for over 45 years. We are passionate about elevating how people perceive, interact with, and remember brands, buildings, and places. With a rich legacy in blending the timeless artistry of traditional signs with the dynamic possibilities of video displays & integrated AV systems, Gable continues to shape the future of visual communications. For more information, visit www.gablecompany.com or call 800-854-0568.
