Artificial intelligence is transforming the print industry.
At HEIDELBERG, AI is not a standalone product or a buzzword.
It is a growing set of technologies embedded across our presses, software, services, and digital platforms.
As the global leader in print and packaging production technology, we use AI where it creates real value: helping print businesses automate processes, reduce complexity, improve productivity, and make better decisions.
Today, more than 13,000 connected machines and systems worldwide are linked through the HEIDELBERG ecosystem, generating valuable production insights that help drive automation, optimization, and data-driven decision-making.
Modern printing presses generate enormous amounts of production data. HEIDELBERG uses this intelligence to support operators and automate complex tasks. Our AI-powered assistance systems help optimize press settings, reduce manual intervention, and simplify operation.
Examples include:
Some of these capabilities are based on insights collected from more than 600,000 analyzed print jobs, helping presses start from optimized settings and continuously improve over time.
The result: shorter setup times, more consistent performance, and reduced dependence on highly specialized operator knowledge.
Print production is becoming increasingly complex. Run lengths are shrinking, turnaround times are tighter, and production environments often combine offset, digital, and postpress technologies.
With Prinect Touch Free, AI helps automate production planning and decision-making across the workflow.
Capabilities include:
By drawing on accumulated production knowledge and anonymized operational data, AI helps printers make better decisions automatically, reducing touchpoints while increasing throughput.
Every print shop generates valuable production data. AI makes that information easier to access and easier to act upon. With the HEIDELBERG AI Performance Chat, available in the HEIDELBERG Portal for Print Shop Analytics users, production insights are just a question away.
Instead of manually searching reports, users can simply ask:
The AI delivers immediate answers, visualizations, and clear explanations based on production data, helping managers and operators understand performance and make better decisions in seconds.
Available in more than 18 languages, the HEIDELBERG AI Performance Chat makes advanced analytics accessible across global operations, allowing users to interact with their business data as naturally as they would with a colleague.
AI is already helping HEIDELBERG service teams work more efficiently. Used for technical documentation and knowledge management, these solutions make traditional keyword searches largely unnecessary. Instead, experts can ask detailed questions and receive targeted answers for complex technical issues.
Currently, the underlying AI is trained on trusted HEIDELBERG documentation and product knowledge. Looking ahead, the system will increasingly incorporate the expertise and experience of HEIDELBERG service technicians, extending its capabilities across additional products and services.
By making expert knowledge easier to access and share, AI helps improve service quality, support advisors and trainers, and accelerate problem-solving for customers.
More than 13,000 systems are connected through the HEIDELBERG ecosystem, providing the foundation for data-driven insights, automation, and AI-powered applications.
Within a Speedmaster printing press, around 3,000 sensors continuously capture machine and production data, creating the real-time intelligence that powers AI-driven assistance and optimization.
Production knowledge collected from hundreds of thousands of print jobs helps optimize processes and support intelligent assistance systems.
The HEIDELBERG AI Performance Chat enables users worldwide to access production insights and analytics in their preferred language.
HEIDELBERG AI is engineered to adhere to strict international privacy and security standards, ensuring complete sovereignty over your operational data.
The AI Knowledge Engine queries exclusively internal, verified HEIDELBERG documentation. It does not access the open internet, run external web searches, or expose data to third parties.
Your production metrics and operational logs are never used to train external or public AI models. Powered by AWS Enterprise Infrastructure:
The same technology relied upon by global financial, healthcare, and industrial institutions.
As a European manufacturer, HEIDELBERG adheres to the EU AI Act—the global benchmark for AI transparency, risk management, and data protection.
Access is governed entirely by your organization's authorized HEIDELBERG accounts, giving you full control over user permissions and audit logs.
HEIDELBERG AI is a suite of intelligent assistance systems, cloud software, and conversational analytics tools developed by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG to automate print production, optimize workflows, and analyze pressroom performance.
Prinect Touch Free automatically evaluates incoming print jobs, decides whether digital or offset printing is the most efficient and cost-effective method, and independently calculates the optimal sheet layout without manual pre-press intervention.
Yes. Your data is hosted on enterprise cloud infrastructure (AWS). It is never sold, never shared, and never used to train AI models. Access is strictly controlled via your organization's HEIDELBERG Portal credentials.
It is a conversational feature within Print Shop Analytics (HEIDELBERG Portal) that allows users to ask production questions in natural language (today supported in 18+ languages) and instantly receive charts, OEE metrics, shift comparisons, and narrative explanations.
HEIDELBERG complies fully with the European Union's EU AI Act. This ensures high standards of data transparency, user notification, privacy safeguards, and documentation that exceed standard global requirements.