EPISODE 187 | Guest: Sean Matthews, president & CEO of Visix, Inc.
InfoComm 2026 returns to Las Vegas June 17–19, and this episode previews what Visix is bringing to Booth C7814. Rather than chasing the “AI everywhere” hype, the conversation focuses on the practical technologies making a real difference for the workplace.
The centerpiece is wireless ePaper. With most companies now operating in a hybrid model, ePaper has become a focal point for what Visix can offer both end users and integration partners, including a new 32-inch true-color ePaper display and smaller signs for huddle rooms, desks, and shared spaces.
- Discover how ePaper signs power hybrid workplace solutions for room and desk booking
- Explore the new 32-inch true-color wireless ePaper sign making its debut at the show
- Understand why hybrid work is driving triple-digit growth in workplace ePaper adoption
- Learn how built-in AI assistants speed up text and image creation in AxisTV Signage Suite
- Hear how the BrightSign partnership and Series 6 players fit into the Visix lineup
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Learn more about what we’re showing at InfoComm 2026 here.
Transcript
Derek DeWitt: Well, it is that time of year again, InfoComm time, which bounces back and forth every other year between Orlando, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada. This year it’s in Vegas, June 17th through 19th in the North and Central Halls. That’s when the exhibit halls are all open. For a week before that, starting on the 13th, the education seminars and all that begin as well. And as has been the case pretty much every year since InfoComm started, Visix will be there.
I’m gonna talk today to president and CEO of Visix, Sean Matthews, about what we can expect from their offering at Booth C7814 this year. Thanks for coming on, Sean, for our annual here’s-what’s-coming.
Sean Matthews: Hey, thanks Derek. I appreciate you having me. It’s a great time of year, summer. It’s warming up.
Derek DeWitt: Oh yeah. Especially in Las Vegas.
Sean Matthews: Yeah, I’m sure we’re looking at a mild 100 degrees Fahrenheit while we’re there.
Derek DeWitt: Hey, but it’s a dry heat.
Thank you everybody out there for listening. I remind you there is a transcript on the Visix website under resources, where you can find some helpful links as well.
All right, as we mention every year, we probably don’t need to go over it again, Visix has been at InfoComm pretty much since the beginning. You’ve seen it change over the years. This year, do you think it’s just gonna be like, oh yeah, every year the industry changes a little bit? Or do you think there’s gonna be like a big wow this year? Or what’s your anticipation for the show in general?
Sean Matthews: Wow. That’s a great question. ‘Cause I don’t think it’s a wow event. I don’t. I think that technologies that are used in our respective spaces, throughout the visual communication spaces, you know, they’re evolutionary at this stage. People, Derek, are gonna talk about AI this, AI that. I think most people are tired of it. I don’t think that AI has a profound effect on the technologies in the market spaces that we’re in at a level that generates a wow, to be honest.
Derek DeWitt: Now, having said that, AI is now integrated, to some extent, into your flagship product, AxisTV Signage Suite.
Sean Matthews: I mean, it is. You know, we have some AI content creation assistants. You know, we have two different versions. One’s for text and one is for full blown image content creation. And the thing is, man, I’m not gonna understate the value of this technology as it relates to content creation.
You know, content creation is one of the more challenging aspects of being a very effective enterprise communicator. And, you know, coming up with new visually compelling material every day, Derek, in the digital signage space, or even in the employee experience environment – i.e., on apps that are associated with Teams, etc. – coming up with that material and it being visually, you know, striking and compelling, it’s tough. It’s tough to do every day. And these particular technologies, you know, with AI support, help you create that type of content more quickly and easier.
Derek DeWitt: Exactly. I mean, it sure beats…. I think if you’re a person who’s busy and, like, I think a lot of people who get sort of handed the digital signage after it’s been bought and implemented, they have other stuff to do, and now they’re told, oh, here’s an additional thing you’re gonna have to do that’s gonna take up somewhere between 10 and 15 hours a week of your time. And some of that time is spent, you know, going out there and trying to find copyright-free images that are appropriate to the message. And it’s fun, but it also takes time. Whereas you can just type it into the image creating AI, it gives you a couple of options, you can tweak it a bit. I think it’s a lot faster. Plus, let’s face it, there is no copyright issue, ’cause it’s yours.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. I mean, no doubt. I think that, you know, it has been a forever problem. You know, you’ve harkened back to the days of content is king. You know, it wasn’t so much about the technology, it’s, you know, what are you conveying and how effective is it? Yeah, I mean, this is just another tool to make it easier, and, you know, optimistically, makes more compelling material, particularly if you’re not like a graphic artist. I’m not, and it would be very difficult for me to create compelling visuals day in and day out. It just would.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I’m exactly the same way. I always think I would love to run a digital signage system, but for the, you know, manipulating images thing. I don’t know how to use Photoshop. I should probably learn it. But, you know, it’s a steep learning curve and I don’t have 20 hours free to learn Photoshop and become proficient in it. And now I don’t have to. Ha ha ha ha! Thanks AI!
Sean Matthews: Most definitely. Yeah. I think, you know, I think it’ll be a subset of a lot of booths that you go visit while you’re at InfoComm. I do! I think some companies will go all in, Derek. It’ll be plastered on the side of their booth, which I don’t think that’s very compelling. You know, you see a lot of AI tools associated with analytics. I am a user of analytic technology, but I’m just not convinced that, you know, I need a dashboard for every single thing that I do in my professional life.
Derek DeWitt: Suddenly you’ve got, you know, 87 dashboards. You’re like, now I need an AI to manage my AI-generated dashboards.
Sean Matthews: True. Very true. Yeah. Not something I’m interested in. So, I think in short, the event will feature a lot of AI technologies, but I think that there are more subtle technologies, some of which we’re showing, that have a much more profound effect on the business enterprise and the employee experience at large.
Derek DeWitt: I think one of those, if, if I may anticipate, is Visix is showing really a heck of an array of electronic paper, ePaper and e InK technologies, this year. I mean, you guys have been doing this for a long time, but I think this year it’s like a massive, massive deployment. You’re showing all these different kinds of, from tiny to bigger; every kind of EPS thing you could want.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. I mean, we’ve been doing this since 2014, and it’s a technology that was ahead of its time. It was. And we’ve reached this point in the adoption curve where lots of people are grasping ahold of this technology and deploying it effectively.
I mean, one of the things, Derek, and you can debate this all day long if you want, but the hybrid model versus, you know, return to office. There really three basic models out there: the hybrid model, the traditional fully in person, and then the fully remote. And the fully remote is a very small group of businesses, somewhere I read like 6, 7%, completely abandoned the office. This whole segment’s dominated by small startups, tech native companies, that kind of thing. So, it’s a small group fully remote. Fully in person, that, you know, I read 25 to 30% of companies. Which leaves, you know, about 65% of companies that are operating under some sort of formal, you know, hybrid framework, right? They’re mixing, you know, remote days, in office collaboration, and that’s where ePaper is just, I mean, taking off. And for us, you know, this event is a springboard to launch a completely repackaged version of electronic paper, an entire product offering that works in that hybrid model.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. I remember some years ago, I think on this annual interview that we do before InfoComm, I think you said something like, it was just after the pandemic, and you were like, you know, this hybrid thing’s gonna kind of take off, and that’s where we have an edge, ’cause we’re already very comfortable with ePaper and EPS signs. And lo and behold, here it is 2026 and, like you said, like everybody practically has some kind of electronic paper in some way, shape, or form.
And I honestly think it’s going to… It just makes so much sense. It’s so easy. It’s ecologically, sustainable or as sustainable as this sort of thing can get, I think. It’s cost effective. It’s frankly kind of cheap when you consider the power of the communications that you can send out through them. It’s just gonna take over. I think in 10 years, I don’t think you’ll see LED and LCD screens hardly ever. I think it’s all gonna be ePaper.
Sean Matthews: Yeah, I agree with that statement. I think there will be other technologies, Derek. You know, if you kind of think about the sort of Minority Report, you know, forward-looking concept,
Derek DeWitt: By the way, that was a real company. When that movie was made, that was not dummied up by the special effects department. That was an actual company and they were using their actual software. But it wasn’t that smooth and that company eventually went out of business.
Sean Matthews: Interesting, interesting.
But I do think that using projection technology and, you know, visual mapping and that kind of stuff on physical surfaces will be more relevant in the future than flat panel LCD-type technologies. And then of course, electronic paper fits in, because it can mount on virtually anything, anywhere, no wires, you know, no wifi burden, none of those things. I mean, this technology has moved way beyond simple black and white technologies. You know, vibrant multicolor large format runs for years. No wires in sight, no power requirements. I mean, it’s crazy what you can do with this technology now.
And, you know, it’s really springboarded since it’s been coming out with things like Kindle and other, you know, ePaper-type readers. But man, in the, you know, enterprise space right now, it’s taken off like crazy. We’re seeing triple digit growth. There are opportunities here for our integration partners that they haven’t had, you know, since the pandemic. You know, these technologies that are six figure deployments with connections to other technologies, you know, expanding the potential for, you know, what the integration looks like in a real-world environment. I mean, it’s just fundamentally different.
You know, it’s not just for room signs, it’s desk signs, it’s workplace wayfinding, I mean, it’s deployable, it’s scalable. You don’t hire electricians; you don’t run a cable. I mean, man, it’s just fantastic.
Derek DeWitt: It just makes so much sense.
Sean Matthews: All of the momentum for us right now is in ePaper, right? It’s the number one story that we tell. It actually trumps some of the digital signage conversations that we have. And, you know, we’ve been doing that for 20 plus years, right? But these office-building-intensive businesses, legal firms, professional services, financial firms, that type of stuff, they’re all going to these new environments. As their leases expire from the pandemic era, they have the opportunity to build out completely new facilities, incorporate the technologies that they want for this new, you know, office experience. And, I mean, it’s just fantastic.
Derek DeWitt: I know one of the sort of key visuals of the booth this year is there’s a wall, a massive wall, just filled with ePaper signs of all sorts of different sizes.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. So, what you’re gonna see on this massive wall, and this is cool, Derek, you can walk up and you can take the signs off the walls because there’s zero wires, zero limits, right? That’s the thread that’s just gonna run throughout the booth while we’re there, right?
Our big reveal is gonna be a 32-inch wireless ePaper sign, true color, not just four-color, but true color. 1440 x 2560 resolution, you know, very wide viewing angle. It’s the first time that we’re showing this type of technology. But coupled with that, you know, we’re showing several different versions. A complete lineup of much smaller signs designed for collaboration spaces, huddle rooms, desks, hallway intersections, workstations, shared spaces. I mean, it just goes on and on and on because you can mount them to virtually anything. You can mount them to drywall, you mount them to glass, Melamine, cloth, it doesn’t matter, right?
And even if we don’t have full color technology, like in the new 32-inch, but the other technologies that are four-color and three-color, we are using some AI tools to help us with the dithering factor and the algorithm that produces images that look almost full color and, you know, fit onto the display. And not only fit onto the display, but those images can extend to custom frame facades that go around the signs. So, you can incorporate braille, corporate branding, all kinds of stuff, man.
I mean, it’s just gonna be a, you know, a fantastic visual experience while you’re there. It’s low key. You don’t have to spend a ton of time there. I told somebody recently, if you just stop by for nine minutes, nine minutes, you’ll get all of it. You’ll get AI, you’ll get ePaper, you’ll get a coffee, a pastry.
Derek DeWitt: A cookie.
Sean Matthews: Yeah, man! You’ll get a cookie.
Derek DeWitt: Hot cookies. Come on, man. Who doesn’t love a hot cookie?
Sean Matthews: Yeah! I mean, so we’ll have it all. Just stop by for just a few minutes and man, it’ll be worth the trip.
Derek DeWitt: There you go. I think nine minutes, everybody, you can spare nine minutes. Come on, let them scan your badge, get something to drink, get a coffee, and check this stuff out.
One of the reasons I like going to shows like this is it stimulates me. It puts my brain going in certain directions, like, oh wow, you know, look at this, or look at this trend or what have you. ‘Cause I’m always trying to predict what the future will be.
Speaking of which, I’m sure it won’t be at this show, but like you said, someday this stuff will get supplanted by something new. People might be interested to know that scientists, or I should say engineers, at the Public University of Navarre in northern Spain in the Basque region, just premiered, they just did a press release, like seriously, not a couple weeks ago, where they have holograms that you can touch physically. Like, a little hologram car, and you touch the hologram, it feels like you’re touching a physical surface using, I don’t actually know the technology, it’s called something called diffusers or something. That might be in the future. But in the meantime, this EPS stuff is the way to go.
Sean Matthews: It is. I mean, the fantastic thing about this is, you know, we’ve just added, you know, a technology that’s an extension of the things that you’re already doing in your enterprise.
Like we support 12 different calendaring and facility management platforms. So, you’re already using this technology in your space, and we’re simply scraping the data and, you know, applying it to the sign itself. So, the work that you’ve just been doing in the background, you don’t have to add anything to that, right?
So, as you normally schedule your space and book the space that you want to use for the media that you’re gonna host, man, you just do that like you’ve always done it, and when you get there, magically, you know, that information’s on a piece of electronic paper, you know, outside of the space that you’re gonna be using. So, there’s no additional work, there’s no additional apps, there’s no additional cables. It’s just sticking electronic paper to the place where you’re gonna host your media. That’s it. It’s crazy.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. It’s literally like taping up a piece of paper paper without the tape, without the throwing it away, without the bad handwriting, without, oh printer toner ink has gone up in price. It’s already there. It’s reusable. Which is, you know, I think that’s what it was intended to be.
Sean Matthews: It is. I mean, it is a paper replacement for sure. Again, it’s a great opportunity, not only for our partners, but you know, end users in particular because they’re looking for a more cost-effective way to extend the use of the technologies that they’ve already invested in. And this is it.
Derek DeWitt: And of course, digital signage is not just software stuff, as we’re saying this particular kind of hardware. And then on the player side as well, obviously Visix has a whole range of players. And you’re partnering with BrightSign now, and I assume that you’re also ready to, you know, show what the new BrightSign Series Six can do as well.
Sean Matthews: Yeah. So, you know, last year we, we first introduced our BrightSign support. That’s continued to evolve. You know, we’re a full premier partner with those guys. You know, the BrightSign players are our first foray into some sort of, you know, other third-party player. Those technologies that are built into the displays themselves, lots of reasons for that, typically used in retail, which we don’t do.
But you know, the BrightSign player is definitely, it’s the ubiquitous player in the market at large. Those guys have shipped more hardware players than anybody else in the industry. So, we thought it made sense to extend our technology to what it is that they’re doing. And we’re seeing a lot of higher education institutions buying, you know, the BrightSign option, either from us or from someone else, AV partners, BrightSign direct, it doesn’t matter.
That is another piece of what we’ll be showing, you know, in addition to AI, electronic paper, and BrightSign. You know, that’s the real crux. And again, you can do it nine minutes,
Derek DeWitt: Nine minutes. So, make sure to head to Booth C7814, that’s C7814. Coffee, sodas, water, cookies, EPS, BrightSign, and more.
Sean Matthews: That’s it. Look forward to seeing you there. I’ll be happy to hand you a cookie myself.
Derek DeWitt: There you go. Straight from the CEO and president of Visix himself, Sean Matthews, who’s been talking to me today about what we can expect at this year’s InfoComm, which is in Las Vegas in the year 2026. Thanks for talking to me, Sean. I’m sure it’s gonna be a great show.
Sean Matthews: All Right. Thank you, Derek. It’s a good chat.
Derek DeWitt: Thank you. And again, I remind everybody that there is a transcript of the conversation we just had on the Visix website.