Adrià Sánchez Asensio, Business Manager Signage & Audio, TD SYNNEX Maverick Europe
Digital Signage Summit Europe returned to Munich last week and, once again, confirmed why it remains one of the defining events in the AV and digital signage calendar. This year’s theme, Next Generation Signage, ran through almost every keynote, panel discussion and technology showcase across the event, but what stood out most was how much the industry conversation has evolved.
The real challenge looking ahead is how businesses deploy and manage signage environments in a way that aligns with broader IT, workplace and communications strategies.
So, what were the biggest takeaways from DSS Europe 2026?
1. Digital signage is entering its platform era
One of the strongest themes across DSS this year was the growing shift away from fragmented signage ecosystems towards more unified enterprise platforms.
In many ways, digital signage is beginning to follow the same path as collaboration technology several years ago. Customers are becoming less interested in managing disconnected hardware and software environments and far more focused on interoperability, centralised management and integration with existing enterprise systems.
As signage networks continue to scale, organisations are looking for solutions that fit naturally within wider IT environments rather than creating additional operational complexity. Security policies, lifecycle management, remote monitoring and standardised deployment are now influencing purchasing decisions.. The industry is steadily moving away from standalone products and towards connected ecosystems designed to operate at enterprise scale.
2. Security is becoming one of the biggest buying factors
In many discussions, security felt like the central topic shaping future technology decisions.
Organisations increasingly expect displays and media players to be managed alongside laptops, collaboration devices and other connected IT assets rather than treated as isolated AV endpoints. Conversations around Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) highlighted just how quickly the market is moving towards centralised security, compliance and standardised device management.
There was lots of discussion around customers evaluating technology differently than they did even a few years ago, with a focus on shifting away from choosing the “best individual product” and towards the right ecosystem that reduces operational risk and simplifies management across entire estates.
This also reflects a wider challenge around the operating systems on which digital signage runs. The market remains highly fragmented, with open platforms, proprietary systems, dedicated media player environments and display-integrated solutions all coexisting. Open operating systems offer flexibility, but security-driven updates can make device control, compatibility and long-term scalability harder to manage. At the same time, more controlled ecosystems are gaining relevance because the hardware, operating system and management layer are designed to work together from the start, giving customers a clearer path around security, updates and operational consistency.
3. Enterprise workflow integration is becoming essential
Demand for signage platforms that integrate directly into workplace and enterprise communication tools such as Microsoft 365 and SharePoint is growing. Many organisations are now trying to streamline how content is created, distributed and managed across multiple communication channels simultaneously. Rather than building separate workflows for websites, collaboration platforms and digital signage, businesses increasingly want a single content strategy that can feed every endpoint from one environment.
This reflects a much broader change in how signage is positioned internally. Digital signage is becoming less of a standalone communications tool and more of an integrated part of the overall employee engagement and workplace communications strategy.
For vendors, integrators and channel partners, the ability to integrate seamlessly into existing enterprise workflows is quickly becoming a key differentiator. Customers are placing far greater value on simplicity, automation and operational efficiency than they were in the past.
4. New display technologies are expanding the market
While software, services and platform discussions dominated many conversations, hardware innovation continues to play an important role in shaping the future of the industry.
LED remains one of the biggest growth areas and is forecast to overtake LCD in market value from 2029 onwards. More than 750,000 LED displays were sold last year alone, underlining how quickly adoption continues to accelerate across both traditional and emerging use cases.
At the same time, several newer technologies are beginning to mature and attract serious commercial interest. E-paper, transparent LED and low-power display technologies generated significant attention throughout the exhibition floor, particularly as organisations look for more sustainable, flexible and energy-efficient signage deployments.
What was particularly noticeable this year was that emerging technologies were being discussed less as future concepts and more in terms of practical deployment scenarios. The conversation has moved towards identifying where these technologies can genuinely solve operational or customer experience challenges.
5. Managed services are becoming central to the industry
As digital signage networks become larger and more business-critical, many organisations are outsourcing more responsibility to integrators and managed service providers. Internal IT and AV teams are often managing increasingly complex environments with limited resources, creating growing demand for external expertise, operational support and lifecycle management services.
Conversations around SLAs, proactive monitoring, remote management and long-term operational resilience were everywhere during the event. In many cases, these discussions appeared just as important as the technology itself.
AI also fits naturally into this shift. Its role is not to sit as a standalone feature, but to strengthen the service layer behind digital signage: identifying issues earlier, reducing repetitive manual work, improving content decisions and helping providers move from reactive support to more proactive operations.
The companies gaining the most traction are those positioning themselves as long-term strategic partners rather than simply product suppliers. Customers increasingly want support navigating complexity across multiple markets, technologies and deployment environments, particularly as signage becomes more tightly integrated with enterprise IT infrastructure. As networks continue to scale, the operational layer behind the screens is becoming every bit as important as the displays themselves.
What’s next?
The overall mood at DSS was optimistic, although the industry itself is clearly entering a more mature phase of development.
Growth in the market is evolving around platforms, services, security, integration and operational intelligence. Digital signage is becoming deeply connected to wider workplace technology strategies, and that shift is reshaping how customers evaluate solutions and partnerships alike.
Over the next five years, success is unlikely to be defined solely by the quality of the screens themselves, but by the ability to simplify complexity, integrate seamlessly into enterprise environments and manage signage at scale.
Adrià Sánchez Asensio, Business Manager Signage & Audio, TD SYNNEX Maverick Europe
