ProveIt! 2026 De-Brief

Oof... its been so busy since February that I have not made the time to download all the notes and new things from this year's ProveIt! Conference.

The videos are definitely starting to be released so check out the Industry 4.0 YouTube channel for more.

Our bronze presentation will be released soon here too. Geordie and team did a great job connecting some new devices into the conference digital infrastructure.

Bigger and Better

This year's ProveIt! conference was bigger and better than last year's. Two amazing silver stages that could be combined into one main stage. Great food. Excellent presentations. Workshops. An extra day. There was a lot to take in.

Our team ended up staying at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas so we were on-site for the entirety of the conference. We were able to connect with potential clients, partners, and industry colleagues.

People over AI

A common theme through the week was lots of AI. So much. But the thought leaders at the conference tempered the OEM/software presentations with a large focus on people over AI. This important theme was held throughout the week by speakers Walker Reynolds, Jeff Knepper, Emma Roloff, and others.

Jeff Winter kicked the week off Monday with an excellent keynote presentation. It was part AI primer, part how do we integrate AI, part AI risks and risk management, and how do manufacturers responsibly, effectively take advantage of AI without removing the human from the loop. I am not going to do it full justice so watch his video here: https://youtu.be/oTv-X5fAWok?si=Savd0v2RK2D4JnZ5

The AI focused fireside chat in the middle of the week was also really interesting with industry leaders like Magnus McCune (HiveMQ), Sam Elsner (Litmus), Mark Freedman(MyAI), and Zach Etier (Flow Software) contributing. Moderated by Jeff Knepper and Walker Reynolds. Look out for Mark's software when he brings it to market! https://youtu.be/bAdqqp-eQww?si=eU2A3M7faJBUW_y6

Amazing Announcements

There were many impactful presentations this year. I was fortunate to be able to attend several of these presentations.

I won't soon forget Thred's knowledge graph cloud software and their intuitive root cause analysis using their platform, Claude, and their MCP server. Thred showed off connecting their cloud solution to the ProveIt! infrastructure using Ignition. Then they quickly created graph relationships between tags in the cloud using a L5X import tool. Once they had the relationships they were able to quickly discover via root cause analysis why one of the Enterprise B lines was down all the time... low air pressure due to an air compressor issue. Potentially saving the client thousands of dollars. If you are interested, ask us about this one, we can hook you up!

Dylan's presentation for Abelera, his consultancy firm was excellent too. Dylan is a highly capable Industry 4.0 architect. They offered up some great insights and findings into the various factories represented by the ProveIt! UNS. Talking with Dylan in the evenings he said they went thru so many iterations and possible problems before settling on their final solution. Check out Dylan and Walker's whiteboard video here: https://youtu.be/frgMXo0V4Ks?si=fb6dmh6S7y1p2XUH

CESMII's I3X was another huge highlight. Their presentation included no less than five vendors all connected to the same infrastructure, sharing data and context using I3X. The technology itself I found to be subtle in its definition, but the implications are profound. If a company has the right infrastructure with I3X it is possible in the future to have a completely interoperable software stack. Historian plugs into SCADA plugs into UNS plugs into ERP and data with context being able to be shared easily between all of the nodes. Check out their video here: https://youtu.be/K8z3LtyP7JY?si=K4bMbskTB2WM4R3N

Connecting with Industry

Our primary goal as a Bronze sponsor this year was to support industry and make this event possible. We did that this year. Thanks and appreciation to everyone who attended our workshop on Monday, came by the booth to say hi, or grabbed us for lunch or breakfast to chat.

One particular highlight for me was our team's dedication to implementing a CESMII profile (SM Profile) in our implementation. This was a new requirement for sponsors this year. One of the days when I popped down to the exhibit hall I was surprised by Jonathon Wyse who cornered me right at the doors. He was there, laptop in hand, super excited to show me how vendors had managed to successfully implement SM profiles in the conference UNS. We had a good call with him a week or so before the conference to get SM profiles fully figured out. Jonathon was able to show me that our SM profiles were coming through the new I3X explorer. It was sweet to be a part of that success for CESMII and learning more about this way of sharing extra context between systems as a team together.

Outside of that I connected with integrators in the Industry 4.0 Integrator Growth Program, Dave and Vlad from the Manufacturing Hub podcast, and so many other amazing industry people. It was actually a little hard to connect with customers there were so many cool people to talk to! But all in all, great times! Including sitting beside Travis Cox at Medieval Times for dinner Wednesday night!