It’s a delicate balancing act when it comes to planning the Global Security Exchange, better known to most of you in the security industry as GSX, an event that will celebrate its 71st edition Sept. 14-16 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
On one hand, it’s important to preserve some of the popular features that annual attendees expect when they come to the event. On the other hand, organizers must make sure they’re keeping up with the times and sprinkling in new features every year.
After more than a decade leading the planning for GSX, Christine Peck, chief global learning officer for ASIS International, seems to have mastered the balancing act once again and she’s excited to find out if GSX 2026 attendees will agree.
“We are thrilled to be back in Atlanta,” she says. “When people go to Atlanta this year, they are going to see a city transformed.” The new-look city includes several new restaurants and hotels, she says.
Peck is particularly excited about the annual ASIS Celebrates event, which will be hosted at the Georgia Aquarium on Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m.
One word has stood out in the preparation for GSX 2026, which is expected to attracted about 15,000 people to A-Town to learn more about the newest products, solutions and services that will shape the future of the security industry.
“As we look at all the elements of learning and as we get data from our own research and from Freeman Company, it really is about interactive and expansive experiences around learning,” says Peck.
“Each year, we work really hard to ensure that the show floor is a centerpiece of learning,” she says. “We have learning throughout the entire event, starting on that Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 12-13) predating when we open up GSX at large on that Monday morning (Sept. 14).”
Photo courtesy of ASIS International
What to Expect at GSX 2026
GSX 2026 once again features myriad stages with all sorts of educational opportunities for attendees of all types, says Peck, ranging from the threat intelligence zone to the X Stage, featuring what she calls “rapid-fire innovation directly on the floor.”
GSX 2026 will feature more than 500 exhibitors across 155,000 square feet of exhibition space, so attendees are sure to come home with new ideas about how to solve their customers’ latest security issues.
One of the biggest and most highly anticipated additions to the GSX 2026 slate are a trio of interactive workshops, all of which sold out quickly and saw organizers add more seats, says Peck.
“We tweak while we go,” she says, noting that planning for the 2027 show scheduled for Orlando, Fla., is already in progress, even before the ribbon is cut on this year’s event.
“We’ve got a core audience and we’ve got a lot of people who are looking for ‘the GSX I know,’” says Peck. “Every year, we add new elements so that we’re appealing to more and more of our next-gen members who are attending and our core members, who tend to be Gen X and Baby Boomers.
“People are hungering for a little more in-depth conversation and a little more hands-on learning,” she says.
Here’s a rundown of the interactive workshops, one of which Peck will be leading with Alejandro Lieberman of the Wertheim Group:
- Monday: Learning as a Strategic Advantage: Successfully Training Your Organization’s Security Teams and Executives
- Tuesday: Hands-On LLM Security Lab: Building Threat Intelligence and Malware Analysis Workflows
- Tuesday: From Surveys to Strategy: Accelerating Risk and Resilience Through Value Stream Mapping
The GSX 2026 show floor will also feature the School Security Zone, which will be set up like a classroom and feature interactive elements.
The education at the event will also once again be organized around nine tracks, all of which will be part of ASIS’ year-round educational opportunities as part of a coordinated content strategy.
The tracks are: executive protection, governance, information security, intelligence, investigations, organizational resilience, site security, supply chain security and personnel security, which Peck calls “the whole gamut of the security space.”
“Within that, there’s lots of room to move and play,” she says. “We’re really excited about centering that content strategy with GSX. That’s our message as we move forward. It ties into the standards we’re developing or revamping because it’s their time to be updated. It really does put GSX, which is our jewel, in the middle of that.”
Getting Down to Business
GSX 2026 expects to attract more than 100 of the top corporations in the world, says Peck, one of the reasons why organizers enjoy bringing the show to Atlanta regularly.
“People find GSX as a place where they can conduct business,” she says. “They find it a meaningful place to be and they really want to be there, and they look to expand their investment with us. So, they keep growing as we grow. And that to us is the big, exciting feature.
“It’s just nice to see that we have really made this a place for them to feel like, ‘I see the right people at GSX,’ ‘I have the right conversations at GSX,’ ‘I see the people I want to see,’ ‘I really want to talk about strategy,’ ‘I want to talk about leadership at GSX’ and they can do that,” says Peck.
Atlanta is known as Transaction Alley, with about 70 percent of all debit and credit card transactions going through the city.
“This is a city that understands security,” says Andy Cutler, vice president of communications for ASIS International. “This is a city that has hosted the World Cup. This is a city that’s hosted Olympics. It’s hosted Super Bowls. It’s hosted world-class events and they understand security.”
What’s New for GSX 2026
In addition to the interactive workshops and other programming updates and enhancements, GSX 2026 will also feature expanded hours on the show floor, says Peck, based largely on feedback from attendees in previous years.
“People want more time on the show floor,” she says. That added time on the trade show floor means fewer concurrent education sessions, changes that were made in consultation with Freeman Company and marketing outreach company MDG.
“We’re looking at our show and then how it compares to shows of our size around the globe and what people are interested in and what’s attracting next gen and what’s attracting Boomers and Gen. Xers and putting that all together,” says Peck.
“We can’t blow the whole thing up,” she says. “It’s a careful management.”
Among the most popular recent additions are mentorship day, which will have 300 people at this year’s event, and volunteers day, which attracts about the same number of people.
“That is part of the learning,” says Peck. “They come to connect. They don’t need to be in the classroom. They want to be talking about what they’re learning. What we know about people attending shows and about adults in general is that’s how they learn. The entire event is one big learning laboratory.”
GSX 2026 will once again feature sessions dubbed Game Changers, touching on the next generation of leadership and what tomorrow’s security leaders need to know, with information from the annual Clarity Factors chief security officer survey.
“That’s a format that people continue to enjoy,” says Peck.
Peter Diamandis, the founder and executive chairman of XPRIZE Foundation and executive founder and director of Singularity University, will kick off the keynotes on Monday at 8:30 a.m. with “Beyond the Budget Battle: An Abundance Framework for Security Leaders.”
Cassie Kozyrkov, the CEO of Kozyr and former chief decision scientist at Google, delivers the Tuesday keynote, “Upgrading Your Decision-Making with AI and Data,” at 8:30 a.m.
Travis Mills, a retired U.S. Army staff sergeant and quadruple amputee, delivers the Wednesday keynote at for Military and Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, at 11:15 a.m., “Resilience Under Pressure: Life Lessons from the Front Lines.”
“All three of these people could not be more lovely and engaged and excited to be there, so we are really thrilled to have them with us,” says Peck.
Image courtesy of ASIS International
Room for Last-Minute Changes
Although the bulk of the planning for GSX 2026 started more than a year ago, there’s still room for last-minute changes if something in the security industry dictates a late addition to the schedule in some form, says Peck.
“We do have flexibility and there’s so much talent in that event space, so many subject matter experts that if we need to do something that’s additive, we have the right people there in order to do it,” she says.
“It’s comforting to me to know how quickly our team can activate and how much subject matter expertise there is in that place on any given day,” says Peck. “That includes the thought leadership that’s coming from our exhibiting and sponsoring companies. It includes our subject matter expert speakers.
“It includes our board and our global and regional leadership. If there’s an issue that happens, I’ve got people there who can speak to it,” she says.
“It also helps us be agile in the event that we need to address something immediately,” says Peck.
What Makes a Successful Show?
Peck keeps a close eye on the metrics and numbers before, during and after GSX to see what worked and what didn’t, but she also makes sure to walk the show floor often, listening to what people are saying and seeing the quality of conversations.
“I watch the buzz on the floor,” she says. “I watch the feeling. I watch the response. It’s buzz and feeling. It’s also execution.
“We’ll get the numbers later on, but I love like watching people talk and I love, ‘did you hear that?’ ‘Yes, I heard that.’ They don’t know who I am so they don’t know that I’m walking around the show and listening,” says Peck.
For those who aren’t able to be in Atlanta for the in-person GSX experience, they can secure a digital registration and online translation services.
Peck wants GSX 2026 attendees to walk away feeling like they got everything they need “to be the best possible professional to help my teams be the best they can be.
“If we do that, and if people leave with that feeling, then I know we’ve done the job,” she says.
