The digital landscape is shifting faster than ever. To ensure our clients stay ahead of the curve, Ant Agar and John Harman headed to the ExCeL London this month for Tech Show London 2026.
Joining 30,000 industry leaders and 450 exhibitors, the event mixes high-level strategy sessions with pioneers like Professor Hannah Fry and Baroness Martha Lane-Fox to technical deep dives with Formula 1 and the NCSC.
The trade stands were a fascinating mix with everything from established multinational data centre power and cooling technology providers (including our client Crane Fluid Systems) through to new start-ups offering services that took some mental gymnastics to even understand, and everything in between. Every visitor was left certain that the current buzzword was AI however.
One of our key purposes of the visit was to help us understand our place, opportunities and threats within the new and rapidly evolving AI-powered landscape that we find ourselves in and we came away somewhat reassured.
Ant said:
There can be no doubt that businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes are daunted by the pace and scale of the AI induced change taking place globally. It is possible to enter a mindset of nervousness and uncertainty about what to do, as we all go about our daily lives.
Interestingly, even before the turbulence created by war in the Middle East, we have been seeing share prices surge back and forth in the stock markets, depending on the latest interpretation of what might lie ahead. A recent substack publication by Citrini Research is one such example of the jitters jittering around the globe.
But spending a little time at events like Tech Show London reminded me of the positivity and excitement at this next stage of our evolution. The scale of investment, in infrastructure, capacity, capability and creativity, was laid bare for all to see in stand after amazing stand of state of the art technology.
Attending talks on DevOps automation, national cyber resilience, and the evolving AI workforce, I was struck by how quickly the conversation has moved beyond “Chatbots.” The defining theme of 2026 is the rise of “Agentic AI”.
Unlike the generative tools of the past few years, which wait for a human prompt, Agentic AI is proactive. We are moving from a world where we use AI as a tool to one where we collaborate with AI as a teammate.
However, with this “autopilot” capability comes a new challenge – governance. A recurring theme at the show was the “Human-in-the-Loop” (HITL) model. As we delegate more tasks to autonomous agents, the role of leadership shifts from execution to oversight.
We must ensure these systems are ethical, transparent, and built to be secure and reliable. Innovation is gaining pace, but the most successful organisations will be those that pair this incredible technology with human intuition and strategic intent.
The “jitters” may remain in the global headlines, but on the ground in London, the energy was one of pure momentum. The technology to transform our professional and personal lives is no longer a distant “maybe”—it is here, and the potential for creativity and resilience is staggering.
At Infotex we are embracing this innovation, with a mix of projects ranging from data analysis through making websites work better to re-working how we develop and manage all of our technical inventory.
John commented:
One of my key focuses was on understanding the security angle of this AI revolution. It can help us more accurately identify legitimate vs. malicious traffic so that we can defend our clients while also posing threats, such as hyper-personalised AI-generated phishing emails that can be very challenging to defend against.
I feel some of the conversations during the day have helped to demonstrate that what we’re seeing is not unique to us, and it’s powerful to realise that similar topics are being played out on national and even international stages.
It also helped crystallise some existing thoughts as to our technical approach and added new areas for further investigation, indeed we will be following up with some of the potential, and existing suppliers, spoken to during the day.
Unlike some previous buzzwords that have been a central part of past shows, my takeaway is that AI is here for the long haul and set to become a part of how we all do business, buzzword or not.
Our team will be getting out and about at further events across the coming year and we look forward to sharing some of what we learn from these, so watch this space.
