Newmedia's AI Avatar Wall Logs 402 Conversations at Imex America
2026-10-29 · via invidis
A 12-foot-tall animated character fielded questions, compliments and fictional predictions from trade show visitors at Imex America 2026 in Las Vegas, powered by a system that pairs an LED wall with AI servers located thousands of miles away. The installation is a useful case study for anyone weighing interactive signage against the usual static or touchscreen displays at events.
Newmedia Creative Technology Studio built the piece, called AI Host, for the October 13-15 exhibition and its preceding Smart Monday. Visitors picked one of four animated characters on a 12.9-inch iPad, then spoke to it through an Audio-Technica directional microphone. Responses came back through a JBL stereo system with subtitles on screen.
The hardware stack combined a 6-foot by 12-foot LED wall built from Aoto RM1.5E panels (1.5mm pixel pitch, 1,500 nits, 7,680 Hz refresh), run by Brompton processing. Unreal Engine 5 handled facial animation and lip-sync at 60 frames per second. An on-site PC with an Intel Core Ultra 9 and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU handled local processing, while speech recognition and response generation ran on dedicated servers in Spain.
According to Newmedia, the system does not wait for a complete AI response before the character starts speaking, which founder and CEO Diego De Anna says is why replies feel immediate. The studio reported a median time of 2.6 seconds between a visitor finishing a question and the character beginning its reply.
For operators worried about relying on a remote server connection at a trade show, Newmedia built in a fallback: locally stored responses, animations and smaller AI models kept the installation running during connectivity drops. The company says this covered four internet outages over the event, though the announcement does not say how long those outages lasted or how visitors experienced the fallback mode compared to the full system.
Over four days, Newmedia recorded 402 conversations from 329 individual visitors, in English and 25 other languages, totaling more than 12 hours of live conversation. The studio says 82% of visitors greeted by a character responded.
The announcement does not disclose project cost, so there is no way to gauge what a deployment like this costs against a conventional interactive kiosk or digital menu board setup. Newmedia says it is now offering customized versions of AI Host for trade shows, corporate events, museums and other brand experiences, positioning the combination of fine-pitch LED, real-time rendering and conversational AI as a packaged product rather than a one-off installation.
The announcement in full
Reproduced from invidis for reference. Digital Signage Magazine did not write the text below.
Newmedia's interactive installation handled 402 visitor conversations in 26 languages, with a median response time of just 2.6 seconds.
A 12-foot-tall digital character was answering questions, delivering compliments and making fictional predictions at Imex America 2026 in Las Vegas. Behind the conversations was a system combining an Aoto LED wall, Brompton processing, Unreal Engine 5 and AI servers located thousands of miles away in Spain.
Newmedia Creative Technology Studio developed AI Host, which let visitors choose one of four animated characters and have spoken conversations during the October 13–15 exhibition and its preceding Smart Monday.
The installation used a 6-foot-wide by 12-foot-high LED wall built with Aoto RM1.5E panels, featuring a 1.5 mm pixel pitch, 1,500-nit brightness and a 7,680 Hz refresh rate. Brompton processing drove the display, while Unreal Engine 5 handled real-time facial animation and lip-sync at 60 frames per second.
Visitors selected their characters using a 12.9-inch iPad and spoke through an Audio-Technica directional microphone. A JBL stereo system reproduced the characters’ responses, with subtitles displayed alongside the animation.
The on-site computer featured an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU. It worked with Newmedia’s AI infrastructure in Spain, where dedicated servers handled speech recognition, response generation and other processing tasks.
Rather than waiting for a full response, the system began speaking as it was being produced.
“The system does not wait for the complete answer before it begins speaking, which is why the response feels so immediate,” said Diego De Anna, Newmedia’s founder and CEO.
The installation also included locally stored responses, animations and smaller AI models to maintain operation during connectivity interruptions. According to Newmedia, the fallback system covered four internet outages during the event.
Newmedia recorded 402 conversations involving 329 individual visitors over four days. The system supported interactions in English and 25 other languages, recording more than 12 hours of live conversation.
The four characters offered different experiences, ranging from industry discussions and quizzes to compliments and fictional predictions.
According to the studio, 82% of visitors greeted by a character responded, while the median time between a visitor finishing a question and the character beginning its reply was 2.6 seconds.
Newmedia is now offering customized versions of AI Host for trade shows, corporate events, museums and other brand experiences.