Heidelberg used its Prinect User Days 2026 event at its “Home of Print” centre in Wiesloch-Walldorf, Germany, to announce the roll out of its AI-driven workflow Prinect Touch Free.
Prinect Touch Free, which was unveiled at drupa 2024, is now live with customers in Germany (Meinders & Elstermann), Poland (CGS Drukarnia), and Switzerland (Schmid-Fehr AG), all of which operate hybrid environments combining Heidelberg offset and digital solutions. Prinect Touch Free fully automates print production, selecting the most efficient and cost-effective output channel for each job based on the PDF.
Axel Zöller, product manager digital workflow at Heidelberg, explained: “The number of web-to-print jobs our customers are receiving has increased by more than 60 percent worldwide over the past year. Conventional, manual methods can no longer handle this volume of jobs cost-effectively. An ‘automation offensive’ is what’s needed! Prinect Touch Free is what’s needed!”
Pilot customer Meinders & Elstermann began using Prinect Touch Free in early December 2025. Volker Havel, a member of the senior management team, said the Jetfire 50 digital press was connected at 8:30am on 9 December, with the first test jobs produced just 90 minutes later. “Our main goal was for automation to bring greater calm to a digital workflow with a highly fragmented job structure,” he explained.
Heidelberg also unveiled a new AI chatbot for its Customer Portal, which will soon be available to more than 9000 users. In its first phase, the chatbot will answer questions about Prinect Production and the apps in the portal, removing the need to search through Prinect Online Help.
Future updates will expand its capabilities to include data-based queries, machine documentation, and operational support. Heidelberg also plans to integrate an assistant into its service ticket app to help customers create more complete requests, speeding up service and improving insight into customer needs.
“The Heidelberg chatbot brings validated knowledge from Prinect and the Customer Portal into one smart assistant,” said Jürgen Grimm, head of Prinect at Heidelberg. “It will enable faster problem-solving, greater ease of use, and global knowledge sharing.”
At the event, which set a new visitor record of over 400 international participants, keynotes, presentations, and workshops by software and AI experts focused on automating processes in response to continuing cost pressures, the skills shortage, and an increasingly fragmented job structure.
“The Prinect User Days are, without question, a success story,” commented Mr Grimm. “The further rise in popularity demonstrated by the number of participants underlines the necessity and potential of this practical event that provides plenty of scope for dialog, knowledge transfer, and networking.”
