The 2026 NAB Show begins this weekend at the Las Vegas Convention Center.  From connected dashboards to AI workflows and podcast production, the Conference program includes a significant number of audio topics.

The event will bring together a broad spectrum of the global media ecosystem, including creators, technologists and industry leaders to spotlight advancements in AI, streaming, broadcast technology and the creator economy.

NAB Show 2026 will introduce a reimagined TV and Radio H within the newly reopened Central Hall, elevating the profile of traditional broadcast sectors. New features this year include the AI Pavilion and a more robust Creator Lab.

The NAB Conference program has a strong audio thread running through radio, podcasting, and in-vehicle listening, with several sessions aimed at how broadcasters can grow audience, revenue, and measurement in 2026.

Radio is no longer being discussed as a standalone medium; it is being repositioned as a data-driven audio platform-aware business that now lives in the digital multimedia landscape. Important recurring themes for audio are connected cars, audience measurement, podcast monetization, AI-assisted production, and the continuing effort to make radio more visible inside automobile entertainment systems.

Car Audio Sessions

 “Visual Radio at Scale: Automation, Connected Car Platforms and Smarter Channel Regionalization” focuses on visual radio automation, engineering practices for in-dash platforms, and local channel regionalization, showing how broadcasters can build richer experiences while improving reliability and revenue.

“DTS AutoStage: The End of the Measurement Guessing Game” will showcase how millions of vehicles can provide real-time listening data, replacing gut feel and old ratings methodology with faster evidence about AM/FM behaviour. A related connected-car session on engineering best practices says that support for RDS, HD Radio, and connected-car ecosystems is now a baseline requirement.

Podcasting and Creator Audio

Podcasting is part of the wider audio strategy. Sessions include: “Podcasting Gear Essentials: Everything You Need to Create and Launch a Professional Podcast,” which will cover practical production guidance for creators entering the audio space.

Creator Lab also broadens the audio conversation by examining how sound supports storytelling and scale, including sessions like “Sound On: How Audio Drives Storytelling,” which centres music and sound as core creative tools rather than afterthoughts. Podcasting and audio production are now being seen as part of the wider creator economy, not only as broadcast extensions.

Business and monetization

Several sessions address the commercial side of audio. The Small/Medium Market Radio Forum gives broadcasters a forum for business insights, topic briefings, and roundtables tailored to stations that operate with tighter resources than major-market outlets.

Other sessions focus on revenue growth through digital assets, ad sales, political advertising, and how stations can better package inventory for local clients. The podcast-facing panel “The Future of Ears” will discuss how to attract advertisers in a crowded market.

AI and workflow

AI is woven through the audio program rather than isolated in a single track. Radio sessions cover AI in content creation, misinformation detection, sales, operations, and audience engagement, showing that broadcasters are trying to use the technology without losing trust or human identity.

The BEIT conference also includes “The AI Audio Revolution: Intelligent Broadcast Workflows and Creative Production Reimagined,” moving the engineering conversation moving beyond automation towards workflow redesign.

Visualising Radio

Fritz Golman from RadioDNA will present a session on “Successfully Launching Compelling Visual Radio Automation” as part of the Broadcast Engineering & IT Conference.

Storage

 (OWC^®), a trusted leader in

High-performance storage, memory, connectivity, software, and accessories company, Other World Computing, will launch the OWC Express 4M2 Ultra, Thunderbolt 5 four-slot NVMe M.2 SSD enclosure.

Built for professionals seeking the fastest DIY RAID performance in a compact design, the OWC Express 4M2 Ultra enables customers to install their choice of NVMe M.2 drives and configure in RAID 0, 1, 4, 5, or 10, as well as JBOD, for speeds of up to 6622MB/s. A solid aircraft-grade aluminum body and smart adaptive fan provide effective and quiet thermal management. A second Thunderbolt 5 port enables daisy chaining of up to five additional Thunderbolt devices, including additional Express 4M2 Ultra enclosures that can be combined into a single massive capacity volume. OWC Express 4M2 Ultra is compatible with Thunderbolt 5, 4, 3 (Mac only), and USB4 systems.

“The OWC Express 4M2 Ultra is the fastest compact DIY NVMe RAID. Period. Thunderbolt 5 unlocks extraordinary bandwidth, and we designed this enclosure to let professionals harness every bit of it using the drives they trust and the RAID configuration their workflow demands,” said Larry O’Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing (OWC). “Thunderbolt 5. Your drives… your RAID… it’s about putting complete control, maximum performance, and future-ready scalability into a single compact solution.”

This year’s NAB audio program is notable because of the way it connects traditional radio’s strengths to new delivery models. Radio is still leaning on live talent, local relevance, and in-car listening, but the conversation is extending to metadata, better measurement, better platform integration, and new ways of monetization. Podcasting is now part of a broader audio ecosystem that includes creators, advertisers, and broadcasters looking for new ways to package sound.

We will have a range of reports from the NAB Show over the coming week.

Images: S Ahern, 2025 NAB Show.

_{We used AI to gather conference topics from the extensive Conference agenda. The story was written by Steve Ahern.}