Find out all about the TWAIN Direct Certification Program with Keypoint Intelligence!
If you have spent any time in the imaging world, you probably think of TWAIN as the quiet behind-the-scenes handshake between devices and software. But if you were at TWAIN Converge 2025, you could feel it in the room: The scope of the standard is expanding fast.
TWAIN Direct, the open, driverless, cloud-ready version of TWAIN, was started to modernize scanning. Yet what became clear during this year’s sessions is that TWAIN Direct is no longer just a scanning standard—it is turning into the trusted pipeline for any system that needs clean, authenticated, reliable data.
And that now includes robotics.
A Conference Built Around Trust, Insight, and a Changing Industry
The theme of the event was “Convergence and Trust,” and that really is the story here. Scanning is not a back-office chore anymore. It is becoming the first step in feeding intelligent systems that run everywhere from enterprise businesses to global logistics centers to federal, state and county governments.
Several presentations hammered home the same point from different angles:
- Data is the new gold, and the world needs trusted ways to authenticate it.
- AI depends on clean, verified input, especially in regulated industries.
- Physical and digital worlds are merging, sometimes in almost invisible ways until you see them side by side.
- The copier and imaging channel is shifting toward supporting automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered services.
Nathaniel Palmer’s Gigatrends session set the tone, laying out just how quickly the world is moving. According to his analysis, digital ecosystems are growing to the point where they will innovate on their own, and the global robotics market may reach tens of trillions of dollars in value, which surprised even seasoned attendees.
Chris Surdak followed with a sobering explanation of why organizations struggle with AI: They frequently rush into automation before they build trust in the data itself. You could feel heads nodding. Anyone who lived through the early RPA wave understood exactly what he meant.
And then the robots entered the room.
Robots, AMRs, Humanoids, and an Unexpected Connection
Before TWAIN Converge, most people probably did not think TWAIN Direct had anything to do with robots. After the event, it seems obvious.
Every autonomous system needs to see the world through sensors, cameras, labels, forms, instructions, and identification materials. That is imaging. And this was the realization: Robots need the same clarity, structure, and trustworthiness we have always required from imaging hardware.
Certification Becomes the Foundation
Standards only matter if they are consistent and verifiable, so the TWAIN Working Group and Keypoint Intelligence introduced the TWAIN Direct Certification Program. This is a practical way for vendors to prove that their devices and applications meet TWAIN Direct requirements.
Attendees even had access to the automated test harness itself, which let them validate their drivers on the spot. It was the first time many developers had a chance to test hardware in a fully neutral certification environment, and the feedback was eye-opening.
Where Imaging Meets Automation
In past years, TWAIN events focused primarily on scanning. This year was different. The conversations stretched across compliance, cybersecurity, content authenticity (C2PA), generative AI, agentic AI, and intelligent document processing (IDP). Panels explored how AI is reshaping the value of human-generated content, why tokenization and content credentials matter, and how organizations can prepare for the next wave of automation.
The Hackathon brought it all together. Developers had a single day to design and build applications using real hardware before presenting their work at the showcase. It was lively, fast-moving, and surprisingly practical. Several teams walked away with working prototypes.
A New Identity for TWAIN Direct
By the end of the event, the shared conclusion was that TWAIN Direct has the fundamentals to serve as a much broader foundation. What started as a modern approach to scanning is quickly evolving into something much more: A data foundation for robots, AMRs, humanoids, and AI agents to navigate the physical world.
This collective realization made TWAIN Converge 2025 feel like a turning point. The standard that once connected office scanners to desktop software is now helping shape the future of automation, becoming the bridge between human workflows, machine intelligence, and the rise of embodied AI.
Stay ahead in the ever-evolving print industry by browsing our Industry Reports page for the latest insights. Log in to the InfoCenter to view related research through our Workplace CompleteView and Production-based Advisory Services. Not a subscriber? Contact us for more information.
