NI (part of Emerson’s Test & Measurement Business Group) used its NI Days 2026 UK keynote in Birmingham to mark two anniversaries – 50 years of NI’s impact on test and measurement, and 40 years of LabVIEW – while setting out a roadmap built around its Nigel AI assistant, a refreshed PXI hardware line-up, and a series of RF and software-defined radio launches.
Platform strategy: the “genius of the and”
Opening the keynote, Luke Schreier, VP of Global Sales and Marketing, framed the company’s strategy around what he called the “genius of the and” – the idea that engineers should not have to trade off proven methods against new possibilities, or human judgement against AI. Schreier argued that value from AI depends on high-quality data, deep system context, and tight integration across hardware and software, which he positioned as the rationale for NI’s continued investment in an integrated platform rather than standalone tools.
Nigel AI: author mode arrives 28th July
Kevin Schultz, CTO set out the roadmap for Nigel, NI’s AI assistant, which launched in an ‘advisor’ capacity last year to answer questions and explain products. NI confirmed that Nigel’s ‘author’ mode is scheduled for release on 28th July 2026, adding the ability to generate LabVIEW code, TestStand sequences, custom UIs, and data visualisations from natural-language prompts. Author mode will be available across the LabVIEW+ suite, including FlexLogger, VeraStand, and Instrument Studio.
Looking further ahead, Schultz outlined a third stage – Agentic mode – in which Nigel moves beyond individual applications to work across a user’s entire toolchain, including open-source tools, while still relying on what he described as NI’s “trusted IP” and engineering context rather than generic AI models.
NI also announced that Nigel is coming to SystemLink this Autumn, allowing users to prompt the platform to generate data visualisations – such as charts for distribution and outlier analysis – from aggregated test data across a lab or enterprise.
Further LabVIEW+ suite updates
Alongside Nigel’s expansion, NI previewed several other additions to the LabVIEW+ suite due in the same release cycle, including TestStand sequence deployment on Linux, Unicode support for LabVIEW front panels, and new analog input/output DAQ panels in Instrument Studio.
New PXI hardware: over 60 products in recent months
Distinguished engineer John Hammond detailed NI’s hardware progress, noting that the company has released more than 60 PXI products in the past few months.
Announcements included:
- New embedded PXI controllers without a GPIB port, built on 11th-generation Intel processors, offered at a lower price point than their predecessors
- PXIe-1081 chassis – an 18-slot, all-hybrid chassis with reduced bandwidth (2GB/s) aimed at lower-bandwidth applications such as DMMs and SMU switches, offering 58W per slot of cooling
- PXIe-5108 oscilloscope – up to eight channels per slot, 14-bit resolution, 100MHz bandwidth and 250MS/s sample rate
- Synchronised Multi-Instrument Sessions, a new NI-SCOPE driver feature allowing multiple oscilloscope modules to be used as a single instrument with automatic clock, reference, and trigger alignment. NI said the feature is supported in LabVIEW, Python, C and .NET, and works with any NI-SCOPE-compatible device, not just the 5108
- New high-performance DAQ modules offering up to 208 channels per module, up to 18-bit resolution, accuracy to 980 microvolts, and a selectable 40kHz filter, now supported in Instrument Studio
- PXIe-4311, a new flexible-resolution analog input module combining high-speed simultaneous sampling with high resolution at lower frequencies, aimed particularly at CPU and GPU power validation, and supported in both FlexLogger and Instrument Studio
Data acquisition beyond PXI
Outside the PXI form factor, NI announced a new USB-based DAQ device offering up to 20-bit resolution at one mega-sample per second. The company also confirmed 10 new C Series modules with snap-in connectors, a new 200kS/s, 16-channel simultaneous-sampling C Series module, and progress on its PCI Express line, including a module offering up to 208 channels.
RF and software-defined radio launches
NI’s RF portfolio saw several announcements:
- A new OBX daughter card for the USRP X310 series, extending frequency coverage up to 8.4GHz for spectrum analysis and 6G applications
- USRP B206 Mini, a credit-card-sized software-defined radio
- A third-generation Vector Signal Transceiver (VST) with frequency coverage up to 54GHz and instantaneous bandwidth of up to 4GHz, aimed at electronic warfare and radar test applications
- A new Vector Network Analyser (VNA) that can be paired with the VST to perform high-performance RF and S-parameter measurements through the same calibrated RF port
- USRP X420, a new addition to NI’s software-defined radio family offering frequency coverage up to 20GHz, 1GHz of instantaneous bandwidth, and local oscillator sharing with phase coherence of around 1 degree RMS – targeted at electronic warfare, radar test and 6G applications
- A new lower-cost variant of the VST Core (PXIe-5841), with bandwidth reduced from 1GHz to 200MHz to lower the price point for cost-sensitive applications such as IoT testing (Zigbee, Wi-Fi), ISM-band and medical device testing
The bigger picture
Taken together, the announcements point to a consistent theme running through the keynote: reducing the complexity of modern test and measurement work.
Each announcement was framed as removing a specific piece of friction from an engineer’s day-to-day workflow and NI was explicit that this is by design – company executives repeatedly stressed that AI is intended to sit inside existing engineering workflows and amplify what engineers already do, rather than operate as a separate or generic tool layered on top.
The result is a product roadmap less about any single flagship launch and more about a broad set of software, hardware, and AI updates that, together, are pitched at giving engineers back time to focus on solving problems rather than managing systems.
