This week we talked to Carl Ford, CEO of Crossfire Media, to find out more about the inaugural AIoT World Expo, scheduled for February 10-12, 2026, at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
- Why is it the right time to evolve and launch AIoT World Expo?
….We originally thought about launching with ‘IoT Revolution’ because the advent of AI in our lives is such a disruptor, and it’s happening so fast. Depending on who you listen to, the cost-to-capability ratio is experiencing a cost reduction by a factor of ten every year.
In some ways, this expands on Walters’ law – named after Monnit CEO Brad Walters – which says that your first IoT deployment gives you a 10X rate of return, your second 100x rate of return and your third 1,000x rate of return. While I think Brad is right when deployments are synergistic, I am not sure this is true when they are siloed across a company. But now AI impacts almost all aspects of the business, I am sure Walters’ law is not only validated, but accelerating at a steeper curve.
In my opinion, the impact of AIoT can’t be overestimated. And it’s worldwide. So that’s why we chose the name AIoT World Expo.
- Who do you expect in the audience? What can attendees expect from AIoT World Expo? Who should attend? And why?
The vertical industries we are talking with include healthcare, smart cities, industrial enterprises, including smart manufacturing, HVAC suppliers, cable companies and Quantum experts that want to talk about IoT. Looking at the horizontals, we’re focused on private networks, as well as the companies delivering micro services as a service to manage all the data lakes. Security is another opportunity, however, as AI increases at the edge, zero trust is within reach, as there’s room at the edge. You must also consider that bad actors are using AI. You need to fight fire with fire, become more agentic and conscious of what could be going on.
We’ve reached out to enterprises that have employees with AI in their title, plus their executives and others in the business who are impacted by AI, for example, CIOs and CISOs. Given the pace of AI adoption, we expect that these are the roles trying to get their arms around how to manage and adopt AI….
- What are your goals – immediate and long-term – for the new AIoT World Expo?
Our immediate goal is to bring our traditional IoT audience together with their AI counterparts. By and large, that’s more the agentic side of AI in the production industries such as industrial and utilities, etc. But generative AI, where human interaction is needed, plays a significant role, for example in healthcare and retail. Right now, these verticals can all benefit from cross pollination and being under our one big tent. In fact, our tent is bigger than people realize because we are partnered with the TMC events, February 10-12, 2026, in the same convention center in Fort Lauderdale. TMC has both generative and agentic summits going on, making a super pass more than worthwhile. Use “AIoT25” for a discount code. Long-term, our goal is to keep the cross-pollination happening while supporting the migration to more vertical events.
- How is the program different from IoT Evolution? How will the Conference Program differ from other events (past and present)?
Candidly, the format and on some other fronts, it won’t be. We still have innovations in the cellular industry to highlight, mostly the developments around Single Pane of Glass (SPOG) platforms that take advantage of e SIM SGP 32. We are also covering the low-power strategies from the lower earth orbit (LEOs) satellites. But, after that, in my humble opinion, the hyperscalers that are the biggest factors in AI deployment have made it so connectivity last mile headaches are pushed under the rug. So, the rest of the conference will focus on the application level, not only as the consumer and end-user views these apps but also how developers and enterprise employees are being assisted by AI to perform their jobs as trusted aids and not as replacements in training.
- In today’s mature market how is AI breathing new life into IoT innovation and value and service creation?
I want to say “What are you talking about? We are hardly a mature market yet in IoT. Yes, we’re experiencing in my estimation the start of Geoffry Moore’s bowling alley1, and maybe bowling to a target market. But, as the bowling lane analogy goes, our first stroke is just passing the arrows at the 1/3rd of the lane. Between the innovations from the LEOs and the SPOGs we are seeing new opportunities that weren’t possible just a few years ago.
Now, to the impact of AI, I think our visions are exceeding delivery. Let me put it this way, I understand why the first movers structured the large language sets the way they did, because human language is a particularly tough nut to crack. I don’t think we have to worry about AI taking over ideation, but maybe by the time we humans learn to be precise with our terms, AI will be on par.
Now where was I? Ah yes, service creation. The beauty of IoT sensors feeding data to AI is that now we’ve improved the likelihood of achieving resolution as early as possible. This can happen at the edge.
Now let’s go to the core. Here we have the benefit of parsing with microservices and functions-as-a-service that massage data into useful, easily understood language for “knowledge transfer,” whether that’s answering an end-user’s questions, or an alert that summarizes a situation requiring human interaction along with the action required.
- What do you see as some of the most compelling applications of AI in the IoT market today across any industry?
Well to be clear, I feel we are still learning about the inner core that applies to almost all industries. A great example is NVIDIA’s impact on visual inspection. I would liken the experience to the opening scenes of the “Wizard of OZ” at the monochromatic farm to landing in the color-drenched “Merry Old Land of OZ”, where anything is possible.
- What kinds of partnerships or conversations are you hoping to spark this year?
As we’re looking at speakers and sponsors, we’re thinking about cross-pollination. We’re at a point now where there’s enough secret sauce in a company that it’s better to partner than replicate. AI is taking advantage of open source, and now we have stuff that’s layered over ChatGPT and OpenAI. But we now want applications that offer product differentiation – that fill the gaps in enterprise offerings.
So, we’re looking at synergies between companies. If I know what’s unique about them, I can try to help them find their missing piece, be it brains, courage, and or heart. At least that is the hope for every sponsor of the show. Before this, the show I would want everyone to watch is Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything, a documentary which investigates knowledge transfer through surprising scientific connections. I think TMC’s CEO, Rich Tehrani, would agree that we look to be at the focal point of industry discussion.
This also applies to companies that would traditionally compete. Because AI is so innovative, you can’t afford to focus on everything, so you’re going to have opportunities to work with companies that you would normally consider as competitors, where there are synergies. That way, you aren’t wasting time working out things that have already been fixed. I’m introducing companies with this in mind.
- What is your definition of AIoT?
Put simply, the Artificial Intelligence of Things is making things smarter. If it doesn’t warrant human interaction, we do actuation on its own. If we still need human interaction it’s AioT, which is the addition of rational intelligence to what was previously information gathering without any processing.
- What does it mean to be a part of #TechSuperShow and how will that amplify the experience for attendees?
TMC’s Erik Linask and I were chatting about the fact that we had a triangle of content from Agentic to Generative, and somewhere in between is AioT. Erik reminded me that all the shows this year have some AI changing their markets. Personally, I would send a team to our big tent of AI sessions and speakers.
- In one sentence, what does AI mean for enterprises in the connected technology space?
…. When AI and IoT converge, processing combined with sensing leads to action.
1((Geoffrey Moore’s ‘Bowling Alley Strategy’: Start with one pin (representing one niche or vertical), penetrate that segment and then move to the next.))