Everyone is talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI)–good and bad, but what impact will it have on printing, sign and packaging? Adam Page, Vice President of Smithers Reports, examines the drivers and trends for the use of AI in our industry.

In 2023, the first wave of predictive AI entered the public eye with the advent of ChatGPT. Suddenly, the power of machine learning was in everyone’s hands. In 2024, the second wave introduced generative AI, allowing users to create a wider variety of content (including videos, graphics, music, etc.) and making better conversation engines to interact with humans. As a result, social media has seen a surge in AI-produced content.

Now, in 2025, we have the third wave: Agent AI (i.e. the psychological state in which a person cedes autonomy to an authority) - solving complex multi-step problems proactively and autonomously. With its more powerful reasoning abilities, the agent AI is less likely to suffer from the “hallucinations” that plagued early versions of ChatGPT, although it is still at a relatively early stage of development.

These incredible leaps may seem like something out of science fiction, but in reality, AI is already an integral part of the modern inkjet printing and packaging business. It is used for activities such as creating, estimating, deciding on the most appropriate prepress color management and imposition schemes, and planning print jobs to optimize continuous printing. The increasing digitalization of the digital printing industry is a factor in the adoption of AI.

However, this is just the beginning. Based on new research, including interviews across the value chain, Smithers has identified the main emerging applications for AI in the digital printing and packaging market. The full summary of this research is published in the Smithers white paper: 5 Ways Generative AI Will Change Packaging by 2030.

The speed to market is accelerating with increased personalization and promotions, shorter production cycles, regional/small brands, more marketing channels, consumer convenience, and the ability to quickly follow trends in the world of social media. This puts tremendous pressure on brands, retailers, and suppliers across the packaging value chain, including graphic and packaging designers.

Today, generative AI may struggle to understand basic packaging terms. But that’s changing as massive performance improvements make AI a powerful tool for bringing customized products to market faster. While human creativity is still needed to reduce the risk of plagiarism, brands and their packaging/graphic designers can leverage additional inputs, including deeper and richer consumer research, real-time data on product performance, and insights into regional or micro preferences.

AI combined with digital print has great potential to scale quickly. Brands are looking for two designs: a retail shelf version and an e-commerce version. The retail shelf version needs to provide quick and clear information, and the e-commerce version provides a satisfying unboxing experience that makes consumers feel they have made the right decision.

Software and automation are the main drivers of AI adoption. In many ways, drupa 2024 will be remembered as the software drupa. In our new report, Smithers identifies 10 of the most significant drupa developments, six of which are directly enabled by software.

Across the print supply chain, software is essential for taking orders, producing artwork and prints, finishing and shipping. The reliance on software will increase over the next five to ten years.

In past drupas, the role of software was primarily to help improve productivity in design, prepress, printing and finishing equipment, and printing management in the supply chain. Today, software is connecting the supply chain for printing and packaging. Since the drupa in 2016, many printing and packaging manufacturers have seen significant changes in their business models as companies and supply chains have digitized. Online sales, connections with materials and outsourced service providers, communication with equipment suppliers to optimize performance, warehousing and scheduling are all common.