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AMS 2026 may have been altered by flight delays and snow-covered streets, but once you made it, the energy felt anything but frozen. This year’s Additive Manufacturing Strategies, which wrapped up last week in New York City, mixed big ideas, financial updates, and plenty of conversations about where additive manufacturing is headed. Between panels, presentations, and networking chats, it felt like the industry is at a turning point, even if no one is quite sure what comes next.
The view from the venue
A massive blizzard hit the city in the days leading up to the conference, which obviously changed travel plans for a lot of attendees. I personally had five separate flights canceled before finally managing to fly to Washington, D.C. to hop an Amtrak train to NYC. We heard from many others who also rode trains into the city; this probably made Stefanie Brickwede, head of AM at Deutsche Bahn, very happy indeed.
Stefanie Brickwede, Mobility goes Additive
Unfortunately, many people were unable to make it to the event, so we’re sharing some of the highlights with you!
A Tale of Two Keynotes
Thanks to the blizzard, the word of the week was flexibility, and the schedule was fairly fluid. Yoav Zeif, the CEO of AMS Diamond Sponsor Stratasys, had long been scheduled to open the conference, just as he has the past few AMS events. Unfortunately, his arrival was delayed, so our own Executive Editor Joris Peels, Chairperson for AMS 2026, took the stage that first morning and delivered his own opening presentation, “3D Printing in a Fractious World.”
AMS Chairperson Joris Peels, 3DPrint.com
Peels described companies acting “like a dog with five or six tennis balls,” bouncing from one initiative to another without follow-through, and said that in the uncertain geopolitical climate, what matters most is earning trust, knowing your customers, and building real relationships. He called this “very old school” focus more essential than ever.
He also said the biggest disruption in our industry may be taking place in plain sight: the very real possibility of a desktop 3D printing revolution.
Stratasys CEO Yoav Zeif
Luckily, Zeif was still able to deliver his official opening keynote on the “State of the AM Industry.” He just did so in the afternoon on the second day of AMS. Zeif said he aspires for the AM industry to be mainstream, like CNC.
“It’s a journey. When you look at CNC, it took them 40 years to become the mainstream of producing parts…What happened in those 40 years? They removed those barriers, one by one,” he told the audience.
“We need to remove the barriers…There is no reason in the world, none, that we will not remove the barriers as well. We just need to do it with our customers.”
Zeif also echoed what Peels said, noting that desktop is taking over the additive sector, and that this is a good thing, because it helps expand the industry.
Snowy Song Lyrics
A memorable moment came when John Barnes, Founder of The Barnes Global Advisors (TBGA) and CEO of Metal Powder Works, began his presentation. True to recent tradition, he opened with pun-filled song lyrics he’d written himself.
John Barnes, TBGA and Metal Powder Works
This year, they were all about the snowy weather that made travel difficult for most attendees.
“I thought about perhaps ‘Do You Wanna Build a Snowman,’ but that might be in bad taste, so maybe I should just ‘Let It Go,’” Barnes quipped amidst raucous laughter, dropping the names of two popular songs from the movie “Frozen.”
He mentioned the “flurry of ideas” he had while planning and thinking about his “20(/)30 Vision: Adoption” presentation, noting that his head was “a blizzard of thoughts that I had to claw my way through.” It was a great way to make everyone smile, even in a year filled with uncertainty.
3D Printing for Helmets
On the final day of AMS, the conversation turned to a very specific AM application. With football helmet in hand, Carbon CEO Phil DeSimone took the stage with Riddell representatives Thad Ide, Chief Product Officer, and Erin Griffin, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications. The two companies launched a 3D printed helmet liner in 2019, and have been collaborating to innovate sports gear ever since.
L-R: Erin Griffin and Thad Ide, Riddell; Phil DeSimone, Carbon
Ide called Carbon’s DLS technology “the perfect fit” for Riddell’s helmets. Additionally, Ide and Griffin let the audience in on some breaking news: Riddell is actively working to include more additive across all levels, including its varsity line.
Formlabs Financials
Speaking of breaking news, Formlabs CEO Max Lobovsky’s featured talk included numbers that many attendees described as a “huge deal,” and got people talking afterward about how companies can grow in today’s AM market.
Max Lobovsky, Formlabs
The privately owned company has achieved a $2 billion dollar valuation, which makes it a unicorn. But because it’s not public, the financials are not typically shared…until Lobovsky put them up on the big screen at AMS.
“Yeah, I see everyone getting out their phones to take pictures,” he said wryly, as I and nearly everyone around me did just that.
CEO Roundtable
The popular CEO roundtable always feels to me less like polished keynotes and more like honest conversations about where companies really stand today. The CEOs on the panel talked openly about challenges, opportunities, and the reality of operating in a market that’s still evolving. They focused on real issues instead of big promises.
L-R: Stephen Butkow, Cantor Fitzgerald; Max Lobovsky, Formlabs; Yoav Zeif, Stratasys; Phil DeSimone, Carbon; Brigitte de Vet-Veithen, Materialise; Glynn Fletcher, EOS
One of the last questions Cantor Fitzgerald‘s Managing Director Stephen Butkow asked the CEOs was what they are most excited for in 2026. DeSimone is most excited about “the sheer quantity of resin that we will be shipping for individual applications.” Brigitte de Vet-Veithen, Materialise CEO, said she’s excited for the company’s software part of the business this year, while Lobovsky was excited about all the products Formlabs is currently developing.
Yoav noted that the world is “unfortunately not really stable,” which equates to major demand in aerospace and defense applications, so that’s what he’s most excited about. Finally, Glynn Fletcher, the CEO of EOS, said what he’s excited about is “under a strict NDA,” so he can’t discuss it openly. But, he also said the company is embedded in many programs where AM is the default, not the exception, which he also finds exciting.
Networking Opportunities
Then there were the networking moments, and there were plenty of those. As always, some of the most important conversations happened there, in small groups, over drinks, between people who have known each other for years or were just meeting for the first time.
The presentations start the conversation, but the real work often happens afterward. Once again, AMS showed that what happens between sessions can matter just as much as what happens during them.
Despite the snow and travel delays, AMS did what it always does: brought people together, made sure it was the center of real conversations, and reminded everyone why this 3D printing community matters.
Images courtesy of Sarah Saunders for 3DPrint.com
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