Digital signage vendors are continually developing and testing new capabilities, including AI, dynamic content, and responsive touchscreens. Keeping up with current trends is critical to ensuring your digital signage is effective.

As digital signage grows more responsive and dynamic, it will become increasingly necessary to stay current on these developments in order to avoid falling behind the competition. AI, omnichannel, and customization are among the top 2019 trends.

Digital Signage Today chatted with Chris Devlin, president of digital signage software manufacturer Omnivex, to get his take on current trends and what’s coming up in the future.

Q. What do you believe are the top three major trends in digital signage?

A. As a software vendor, we will avoid some hardware upgrades, such as System-on-Chip and flexible or specially shaped screen formats. The major themes we’re noticing include:

Autonomy / Artificial Intelligence – We hear a lot about AI, but in digital signage, it is critical that a screen adapts and responds correctly to changing conditions. This AI revolution includes automating changes to content, data, or instructions that are shown in response to other systems such as analytics, content management, or IoT devices. Digital signage is one of the most prominent examples of this.

Omnichannel – This buzzword has been around for a long time. Now, the seamless integration of content across platforms and mediums is more than just a theory; it is a reality. Organizations are increasingly focusing on properly integrating their processes and marketing across all digital mediums rather than developing bespoke applications. Phones, email, digital signage, and, of course, traditional physical assets and settings all contribute to the customer experience, which is at the forefront of digital transformation.

Personalization – We frequently discuss personalization and the consumer experience. It is the panacea. We can accomplish this using information-based technologies such as digital signage. Whether information is utilized to speak directly to a consumer via a web-based phone app or in a digital signage application to display relevant content to an individual or group, the relationship to data/information remains the same. That connectivity to make things more personal is spreading rapidly across all industries.

Q. How does digital signage relate to the larger trend of enhanced digital communications?

A. This is crucial. Consider what we have control over in terms of what a user sees: the digital screen. Most information can be delivered on a screen. The idea is to incorporate useful information and material into the screens/applications you create for them. Good digital signage software interfaces to current systems, allowing you to use the data for many purposes and applications. These tools allow you to create dashboards, assess productivity, link to the outside world via IoT devices or third-party services, and use any of this as subject matter or sources of information to update content.

Q. How near are we to having fully dynamic content that responds directly to customers?

A. We already have mobile phones and computers. With SoC, we’re already there with digital signs. Getting personal does not imply displaying personal data per se, but rather displaying appropriate material. There are currently digital signage solutions in place that make efficient use of dynamic content. GMC employed facial detection to recognize gender, facial expressions, age, and other factors to customize the material on a digital sign, resulting in an engaging and amusing experience. Shikatani Lacroix Design (SLD) recently built a cutting-edge experience center for Nu Skin that uses data and personalized content to provide an exceptional digital experience. So, while digital signage may not display the most recent product that consumers looked for on Google, they do use dynamic material to create highly engaging experiences.

Q. What strategies may digital signage end users employ to communicate with distracted customers?

A. Create a visually appealing, interesting, and engaging solution that piques curiosity and surprises, and that people will want to share on social media. Ultimately, content reigns supreme. Again, the GMC facial detection solution is an excellent example of this; what will happen next? Solutions that connect with clients and elicit a positive emotional response, as well as solutions that surprise and delight, have the potential to capture and maintain their attention.

Q. What do you see as the most important future trend for digital signage?

A. We expect digital signage will become as widespread as lighting (in non-residential applications). Think about any building you enter; you require information. There is no doubt that the information you require should be given online. It is more adaptable, can serve various functions, and is intelligent in that the software can be integrated with every other system in that public place. So, at hospitals, airports, offices, stadiums, malls, plants, and anywhere else people travel in large numbers, digital signs will become as common as lighting. People demand increased digital participation in all aspects of their lives. We’ve long recognized that in order to make smart decisions, people want accurate information. Digital signage is the ideal way for all of those facilities to enlighten their audiences because it is the only display over which they have complete control.

CX, AI, information-based applications, and public safety (which we didn’t discuss much but is top of mind for any facility in the present world) are all best handled via digital signage and enhanced or extended to other mediums, rather than the other way around.