Insights from X-Rite Pantone Color Council Forum

X-Rite Pantone is a leader in colour science and technology that provides hardware, software, and digital standards to ensure precise colour management across industries like printing, packaging, textiles, and plastics. X-Rite expanded its reach in 2007 by acquiring Pantone, the company being well-known for the universal Pantone Matching System (PMS) and “Color of the Year.” Today, the company combines physical measurement tools like spectrophotometers with digital colour languages to help designers and manufacturers seamlessly communicate and replicate exact colours worldwide.

X-Rite Pantone recently held a Color Council forum in September 2026 in Illinois, gathering industry leaders, and the consensus amongst the group was that the keys to long-term success for companies within its sphere of influence are:

Knowledge Capture
Workforce transition demands a systematic approach to knowledge and skills.
As experienced employees retire and printers compete with other skilled trades for talent, undocumented expertise is becoming a business-continuity risk.
Participants saw standardisation, training, knowledge capture, and automation as ways to preserve that expertise and make it teachable and scalable.
Practical AI Adoption
AI value starts with the business problem, not the technology.
Participants emphasised identifying meaningful applications, documenting decision logic, measuring outcomes, and establishing clear governance to ensure AI delivers practical business value.
Packaging Compliance
Packaging regulations are adding operational complexity.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), and related requirements are increasing demands for data, traceability, and cost management across brands, printers, converters, and suppliers.
Connected Print Operations.

The event brought together more than 40 senior leaders from print service providers, packaging converters, brands, and ink and equipment suppliers to share perspectives on print and packaging industry trends, discuss today’s operational pressures, and identify practical actions. Discussions centred around the fact that workforce transition, AI adoption, and evolving packaging regulations are interconnected trends reshaping the print and packaging industry. The conclusion was that meeting these challenges will take more than individual effort. It will take industry-wide collaboration to drive growth and sustainable success.

Jeff McKee, President, X-Rite Pantone, said:

“We created Color Council to hear directly from the people navigating these pressures every day. The answers to staffing, AI, and regulation won’t come from any one company. They’ll come from the industry working through them together.”

Keynotes were delivered by independent industry experts Ron Ellis of Ron Ellis Consulting, Amy Servi-Bonner of PRINTING AI, Robb Frimming of Robb Frimming Consulting, and David Zwang of Zwang & Company. Warren Werbitt, The Print Whisperer, kicked off the event with a call for the industry to speak with one voice:

“We don’t all have to be in the same boat, but we need to row in the same direction.”

Success will depend on stronger partnerships. Participants agreed that collaboration among print buyers, brands, converters, and suppliers, supported by connected data, digital workflows, and automation, will define the next generation of print and packaging operations.

Color Council will be an annual event, returning in 2027, with dates and location to be announced early next year.