OptiSigns ISE 2026 Recap: Best of Show and Beyond   

Inside our biggest ISE yet: award-winning demos, partner visits, and a packed booth in Barcelona

Four days. Ninety-two thousand visitors. Over 1,700 exhibitors spread across 101,000 square meters of Fira de Barcelona Gran Via. ISE 2026 wasn't just big — it was the biggest in the shows history, and you could feel that energy the moment you stepped inside the Fira.

This year's theme was "Push Beyond," and ISE CEO Mike Blackman framed it well:

Push beyond reflects the mindset of our exhibitors, partners, creators and the entire AV community — pushing beyond limitations, beyond expectations and beyond traditional boundaries of technology

For our team at OptiSigns, Barcelona was a defining moment.

A Breakout Week for OptiSigns in Europe

Attendees got their first glimpse of OptiSigns before even hitting the show floor -- We welcomed visitors on the main escalator at the entrance of Fira de Barcelona, setting the tone for a week that exceeded every expectation.

OptiDev Wins Best of Show

Optidev.ai, our no-code AI app builder, won the ISE 2026 Best of Show award in Digital Signage: Product — an incredible honor for our team.

OptiDev empowers anyone — not just developers — to build interactive kiosk applications and data-driven displays through two modes: an AI chat agent where you describe what you want in plain language, and a visual drag-and-drop editor for hands-on customization. It connects directly to enterprise tools like Stripe, Shopify, BigQuery, and SharePoint, which means the apps it generates aren't demos, they’re fully functional and ready for use in any business environment.

The reaction on the show floor said it all. Attendees gathered to watch OptiDev build apps in real time — customer check-ins, manufacturing dashboards, interactive wayfinding directories — and the response was electric. 

"This has been our biggest ISE yet," said Rudi Schied, our Business Development Director Europe. "We've seen huge interest in OptiSigns' capabilities and our unique integration of AI. The Best of Show award validates what our customers already know: AI is simplifying digital signage, and OptiDev is leading the shift."

A Full Product Ecosystem on Display

OptiDev was the conversation starter, but it wasn't the only thing drawing crowds to our booth. We ran live demos across our entire product lineup all week:

• OptiDev: The award-winning AI app builder for interactive kiosks and data-driven displays‍
• OptiKiosk: Our interactive kiosk solutions generated serious buzz, with visitors excited about how easy it is to deploy fully interactive experiences without a development team‍
• OptiSigns Digital Player Hardware: Purpose-built, plug-and-play‍
• OptiSigns CMS: Our cloud-based platform already trusted by over 35,000 businesses worldwide

Together, the suite delivered a clear message: OptiSigns isn’t just a CMS. It’s becoming the platform powering AI-driven signage and interactivity.

The combination of OptiDev and OptiKiosks was a standout. For attendees, the realization clicked quickly: you can now move from idea to deployed interactive kiosk app without writing a single line of code. That’s a fundamental shift for businesses that want interactivity without the traditional development timeline.

Beyond Our Booth: Partner Highlights at ISE

One of the best parts of ISE is getting out of your own booth and experiencing the innovation happening across the entire show floor.

We spent time with partners including AVIXA, Bluefin, Lenbrook, and SignageOS, seeing firsthand how OptiSigns is integrated into their displays and customer deployments. There's nothing quite like watching your product in action in someone else's hands — a powerful reminder of why we build what we build.

As an AVIXA member, ISE also gave us the chance to connect with the broader professional AV community and reinforce our commitment to the standards that keep this industry moving forward.

AI: From Buzzword to Business Tool

Beyond our booth, the bigger story at ISE 2026 hard to miss: AI in digital signage has gone from novelty to necessity. The question on the show floor wasn't "Can AI do this?" anymore. It was "How fast can we deploy it?"

With AVIXA forecasting the global digital signage market at $44.7 billion in 2026, the shift toward software-centric, AI-powered platforms is accelerating. Cloud-based content management, remote device management, and intelligent automation dominated our conversations. The value proposition of digital signage is moving upstream, from the screen to the platform that powers it.

That's the space OptiSigns has been building since day one. 

The Momentum Continues

We came to Barcelona to show what OptiSigns can do. We left with an award, a packed booth, and a clear signal that the industry is heading exactly where we've been building. We're actively expanding our European presence and growing our partner network across the region -- and ISE is only going to become a bigger part of our story.

If you want to see what we showed in Barcelona, check out OptiDev.ai or visit OptiSigns.com

Missed us at the show, but still want to see what OptiSigns and OptiDev can do? Schedule a demo with our team, we're happy to walk you through how these two platforms can elevate any business experience.

Thats all for now folks! See you at ISE 2027!