中文Ask any label printer what keeps them up at night and, after ‘where’s the next job,’ the answer is almost always ‘who runs the press when my best operator retires.’ Dantex just aimed a product straight at that fear — and it is one of the more humane uses of AI the label sector has seen.
At Loupe Americas 2026 in Chicago (booth 6415), Dantex Group will preview PAL — short for Pico Adaptive Logic — a natural-language AI operator support system it is calling an industry first for the UV inkjet label press sector. Visitors can try it before its official early-2027 launch, when every new Pico press will ship with PAL as standard.
An assistant that speaks plain English
PAL is built into the PicoPilot and PicoCenta interfaces and shows up as an animated globe that replies in a natural voice. Operators can ask questions, understand press functions, hit specific production targets and sort out maintenance issues using everyday language — no memorising command trees, no halting the workflow to dig through a manual. Crucially, PAL also watches press data and jumps in proactively if it spots a fault or an emerging problem during a run.
Dantex built it with 42 Technology, a Cambridge, UK product-design and innovation consultancy, mixing Dantex’s press and converter knowledge with 42T’s track record in applying AI to messy industrial problems. PAL will sit inside the PicoCare service and support offering and keep evolving as Dantex grows its knowledge base from field learning — with customer data protection written in as a core principle, not a footnote.
Why this respects the operator instead of replacing them
Ben Danon, CEO of Dantex Group, framed it exactly right: ‘Our aim is to bring the knowledge and reassurance of a technical specialist directly to the press, making support faster, simpler and more accessible.’ Notice the word ‘support,’ not ‘replacement.’ The pitch is higher uptime, more confident operation and greater efficiency — outcomes that help the person at the console rather than erasing them.
Peter Brown, chief commercial officer at 42T, said the project shows how advanced AI can make complex industrial equipment easier to run and maintain. That is the part worth feeling good about. The skilled-operator shortage is not a hypothetical; it is a daily constraint. An AI that captures the know-how of your best people and puts it in the machine is a way to scale expertise you cannot hire.
The practical picture
Alongside PAL, Dantex will show the PicoJet 1200 DRS and PicoColour 254 digital inkjet presses, plus the GM DC350 hybrid finishing system that turns the PicoColour 254 from a roll-to-roll unit into a complete hybrid platform with in-line finishing. It is a coherent story: smarter press, smarter support, smoother finishing.
The emotional core is simple. Nobody wants to be the lone expert whose departure breaks the line. PAL is a bet that the next generation of operators can be effective without spending a decade absorbing tribal knowledge — because the tribal knowledge now lives in the globe on the screen. For an industry ageing out of its workforce, that is not just clever. It is survival.
Source: Labels & Labeling, 9 September 2026.
