01732 759725 22 dependent on manufacturing out of Asia and out of China in particular. Vendors have already spread their manufacturing plants into other areas of Asia, but it’s almost entirely coming from Asia right now, and that’s of course, the region that would be hardest hit by tariffs. So, really looking at what can I do locally in future, rather than relying entirely on Asia. MR: Declining print volumes and the accelerating shift toward digital transformation have forced print vendors to radically change their go‑to‑market approach, and many are now integrating AI into their operations. Keypoint Intelligence has been actively researching AI’s impact on the print sector, perhaps you could run through some of the key findings? DH: Part of our role as analysts is to bring some clarity around, is it truly AI? We see some ‘AI-washing’, very similar to ‘greenwashing’, and we do look very diligently at things that are called AI, and try to sort through the weeds and see, is it really AI, or is it just an algorithm, or is it just a large learning model, for example. Right now, in our industry, we see good examples of AI being used in software processes, particularly around capture and workflow. They really are enhancing the whole extraction process, which makes scanning and data capture much faster and also much more efficient, because it can be indexed at much higher speed. But true AI on an MFP has not been seen yet, and that is probably because it’s still quite expensive and it’s also very much in the infancy stage. We expect with new product series, so in three to four years, we might see the first AI processes actually on the MFP. Now there’s always a question, is that of any use? Do we really need that on an MFP? We said a similar thing 10 the vendor side or from the reseller side, is using daily. That’s part of my remit as well. We are also the industry’s largest testing house we test hardware and we test software. So, there’s quite a bit of variety, not just that analyst role. Buyer’s Lab (BLI) joined forces with Keypoint about seven or eight years ago. There are still some people that want to remain in the Buyer’s Lab house or in the InfoTrends house, but we are very squarely Keypoint Intelligence and a really strong team. MR: To what extent do you see tariffs impacting the print industry, particularly in terms of supply chain, rising costs, and pricing decisions? What can vendors do to mitigate the effects? DH: There’s a lot of uncertainty out there in the marketplace today. Nobody knows exactly where it’s going to go. But obviously, we’re seeing that investments are not being made, they’re being held back. That causes a lot of uncertainty for our industry. It’s a very difficult thing to navigate because we don’t know exactly where it’s going to go, so our short-term recommendation is to sit and wait and see what happens. Don’t rush into things. MR: And what can vendors do to mitigate the effects in the longer-term? DH: There are certainly things that they can do. After the pandemic and the whole supply chain issues, there was lots of discussion around shifting manufacturing to different regions of the world, bringing it into local regions. And that’s still a thing as we move more down the sustainability ladder, many vendors are considering localising production. That’s one of the big things that you could do long-term as a vendor to protect yourself from any tariffs. Obviously, our industry is very Michelle Ryder (MR): Deborah, you head up the workplace team at Keypoint Intelligence. What are your key areas of focus? Deborah Hawkins (DH): I’ve been an analyst for more than 20 years now, and before that, I was on the vendor side. But there are many other things that Keypoint does that I also get involved with, for example, bliQ, the hardware database is something that almost everybody in our industry, whether from One-to-one with Deborah Hawkins Keypoint Intelligence has been actively researching AI’s impact on the print sector, in this exclusive interview with PrintIT Reseller, Deborah Hawkins, Group Director Workplace Team explains how artificial intelligence is already impacting every link in the print value chain. Deborah also explores the impact of tariffs on the sector and what vendors can do to mitigate the effects, both in the short- and long-term ONE-TO-ONE Deborah Hawkins
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