中文Dantex Group will unveil PAL, short for Pico Adaptive Logic, at LOUPE Americas 2026 in Chicago from 15 to 17 September, and the company is calling it an industry-first AI operator support system for the UV inkjet label press sector. PAL will appear at stand 6415 ahead of its official launch in early 2027, and Dantex is betting that the future of press support sounds less like a manual and more like a colleague.
PAL is a natural-language-enabled system placed directly on the press. Integrated into the PicoPilot and PicoCenta interfaces, it appears as an animated globe and responds in a natural voice. Operators can ask questions, understand press functions, achieve specific production results and address maintenance issues by speaking to PAL in everyday language, without memorizing commands or interrupting their workflow to hunt through technical documentation. The system also monitors press information and proactively assists if it identifies a fault or emerging issue during production.
That proactive stance is the part converters should care about. Press downtime is rarely one dramatic failure; it is a slow drift in registration, a warning ignored, a setting left from the last job. An assistant that watches the machine and speaks up before a fault strands a shift attacks the largest hidden cost in digital label production. Dantex says PAL draws on its technical knowledge base to shorten response times and simplify service and maintenance, helping customers maximize uptime and production efficiency.
The system was developed with 42 Technology, a Cambridge, UK-based product design and innovation consultancy with expertise in artificial intelligence, product and system development, and manufacturing innovation. The collaboration combines Dantex’s knowledge of digital inkjet presses and converter requirements with 42T’s record of applying advanced technologies to industrial challenges. Ben Danon, Dantex’s chief executive, said PAL marks an incredibly exciting new direction for operator support in the UV label press sector, bringing the knowledge and reassurance of a technical specialist directly to the press.
Danon said LOUPE visitors will be among the first to experience how naturally they can interact with PAL and to see its potential to support higher uptime, more confident operation and greater production efficiency. Dantex will continue to develop and teach PAL ahead of its official launch in 2027 and beyond. Peter Brown, chief commercial officer at 42T, added that the project showcases 42 Technology’s expertise in deploying advanced AI to make complex industrial equipment easier to operate and maintain, and pointed to a track record of practical, first-of-a-kind innovations in digital printing.
PAL will keep evolving as Dantex expands its knowledge base, introduces new capabilities and applies insights from field use, with customer data protection central to its development. It will form part of the PicoCare service and support offering, and all new Pico presses will ship with PAL from 2027. Alongside PAL, Dantex will showcase its latest Pico digital inkjet portfolio, led by the flagship PicoJet 1200 DRS and the PicoColour 254, with information on the GM DC350 finishing system that turns the PicoColour 254 from roll-to-roll into a roll-to-hybrid platform with inline finishing.
For the label sector, PAL illustrates where AI is genuinely useful on the factory floor: not replacing the operator but extending them. A voice assistant that knows the press, answers in plain language and flags faults early turns scarce expertise into a shared, always-available resource. If Dantex delivers on uptime and confidence, PAL could become the feature converters ask for by name when they next specify a UV inkjet line.
Source: THE PACKMAN (https://thepackman.in/dantex-to-unveil-ai-operator-support-system-pal-at-loupe-americas-2026/).
PAL is a useful illustration of where AI is genuinely useful on the factory floor: not replacing the operator but extending them. A voice assistant that knows the press, answers in plain language and flags faults early turns scarce expertise into a shared, always-available resource, which matters most at sites where a single experienced operator once held the whole knowledge base in their head. For the UV inkjet label sector, where job mixes are getting shorter and substrates more varied, that kind of support directly attacks the largest hidden cost in digital production: downtime from a slow drift in registration or a warning nobody acted on.
The collaboration with 42 Technology is the detail that gives the project credibility. Building a natural-language assistant that understands a specific press requires deep domain data and rigorous industrial-software discipline, not a generic chatbot bolted onto a cabinet. Dantex’s commitment to keep customer data protection central to PAL’s development also matters, because an assistant that learns from a press is only acceptable if the learning stays with the customer. Making PAL part of the PicoCare service and support offering, and shipping it on all new Pico presses from 2027, turns a demo into a default, which is how operator-assist technology actually spreads.
For competitors, the move raises the bar. As more press makers add voice or vision assistants, the differentiator will be whether the system proactively prevents faults or merely documents them after the fact. If Dantex delivers on uptime and confidence, PAL could become the feature converters ask for by name when they next specify a UV inkjet line, and the label sector’s quiet AI race will have moved from the brochure to the booth. LOUPE Americas is where that claim first meets a skeptical, knowledgeable audience.
