Last week, more than 100,000 visitors and 2,250 exhibitors descended on Orlando, Florida, for Design & Construction Week, home to the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show and the International Builders’ Show. Led by the National Kitchen & Bath Association, the annual trade show attracts industry veterans and newcomers alike, offering brands a chance to showcase their latest products and technology—everything from smart toilets to phone-charging countertops—while giving designers the opportunity to network, gather inspiration, and soak up insights from an array of panels and programming.
This year’s event came at an unprecedented moment for the kitchen and bath sector, which became a key target of industry-specific tariffs within the Trump administration’s sweeping new trade policy. In his annual membership address, NKBA global president and CEO Bill Darcy recognized how the tumult had affected the organization’s members—for better or worse.
“We heard from our members that tariffs, along with continued consumer uncertainty, have generally slowed business growth and restricted opportunities,” he said. “The effects are being felt across the board, with overall increases in cost, higher prices, and decreases in margin and consumer confidence. It’s not the case for everyone, however. Some of our members, including kitchen cabinet manufacturers here in the U.S., have told us that tariffs are having a positive impact on their profitability, and we’re mindful of that too.”
NKBA’s research team predicts a bright second half of 2026, which is expected to usher in a return to growth for the U.S. residential kitchen and bath industry after three consecutive years of contraction. Judging by the innovations and new launches on the show floor this year, exhibitors didn’t let macroeconomic pressure slow them down either.
Ahead, BOH has rounded up some of the top takeaways from this year’s event.
Embracing Borderless Design
The evolution of the American kitchen has seen the domestic space transform from a private meal-prep station into a multipurpose room, equally suitable as a work-from-home environment, a hosting space or a kids playroom. It comes as no surprise, then, that the product innovations from this year’s show helped to hide clunky or obvious elements of kitchen functionality. The move toward sleek spaces and streamlined appliances offers what some vendors called “borderless design.”
LG Signature’s new Seamless collection was a prime example, featuring an array of products with sleek exteriors nearly devoid of external handles or knobs—even the brand’s new dishwasher model features a handle capable of folding into the device—and complete with flush-fit designs aligned with surrounding cabinetry. In a similar vein, Cosentino’s Dekton brand partnered with induction cooking company Invisacook to create a cooktop that can be used by placing pots and pans directly on a counter surface entirely free of visible burners. Outdoor kitchen brand Urban Bonfire debuted a similar feature with its stepped sink and telescopic faucet, which can retract into the sink’s basin, while Chinese appliance manufacturer Robam’s new Mega Power Range Hood can extend over a cooking area or fold flat into the wall when not in use.
Over at the Fabuwood booth, the brand debuted the InFocus drawer: a product embedded with FreePower technology that allows users to charge their phones by simply placing them in the compartment, eliminating charger clutter and keeping devices out of sight. (It’s the first cabinetry application of FreePower’s tech, which is already available on stone surfaces.)
The broader bath category took part in the trend as well, with Infinity Drain displaying its Slot drain—a shower- and outdoor-compatible design that channels water into a nearly invisible linear opening in the floor or basin.
AI Is Back—and Better Than Before
Artificial intelligence was once again present at the show, this time reflecting the leaps and bounds the technology has made over the past year. In addition to GE’s AI-powered in-oven Cookcam—which distinguishes between different types of food and makes cooking temperature and time suggestions accordingly—several of the company’s GE Profile, Cafe and Monogram models feature a built-in microphone and speakers so owners can utilize the appliance hands-free via voice prompts. Meanwhile, the brand’s new Smart 4-Door French-Door Refrigerator with Kitchen Assistant allows homeowners to discover recipes through a touchscreen on the device, which also automatically detects if any food or beverage product is in low supply (the technology can recognize over 4 million items) and add it to a digital shopping list.
Elsewhere in the kitchen category, LG displayed its new LG Signature refrigerator, which now comes equipped with conversational AI capabilities and a new AI Fresh feature that records temperature-fluctuation patterns based on usage and, in response, precools the appliance’s interior up to two hours before an anticipated door opening. The Signature Oven Range touts the return of Gourmet AI, which uses a camera inside the appliance to detect dishes and automatically select compatible cooking settings, as well as the addition of an AI Browning feature that is specifically designed to monitor bread as it bakes, then notify users via a mobile app when it’s ready.
In the bath realm, Kohler highlighted the launch of a new internal product category geared toward positioning the bathroom as “an untapped hub of vital health data and information.” The new initiative, called Kohler Health, debuted with an AI-powered flagship product dubbed the Dekoda. The device attaches to a toilet bowl, and uses a blend of machine learning and optical sensors to record information on hydration, gut health, blood detection and bathroom routines, sending data securely to a user’s Kohler Health App alongside relevant insights.
Whole-Home Designers Step Into the Spotlight
This year, KBIS exhibitors continued to appeal to a broader audience of whole-home designers with next-level vignettes. At Kohler’s 15,600-square-foot booth (this year’s Best in Show winner), the House Party showcase featured spaces conceived by seven different designers—including Laura Hodges, Cara Woodhouse and Michael Hilal—along with a spot dedicated to the Audrine sink collection, the Edalyn kitchen faucet and the forthcoming Claude bathroom collection, the brand’s latest collaborations with longtime partner Shea McGee. Fabuwood’s booth included vignettes designed by creative director Kerrie Kelly alongside ones by Pulp Design Studios, Claire Staszak and Nikki Levy, while Artistic Tile showcased its third collaboration with designer Ali Budd. Elsewhere, the new Ametrine bath collection from Pfister Faucets, designed in collaboration with interior designer Evan Millárd, secured a Best of KBIS 2026 award for its statement-making design.
NKBA laid its own groundwork to attract whole-home designers, with panels led by shelter magazine editors like House Beautiful’s Carisha Swanson and BOH’s own Kaitlin Petersen at Luxury Lounge and KBIS NextStage, as well as the return of the NKBA Design Council—which this year comprises designers Bobby Berk, Mandy Cheng and Nathan Orsman. According to Bill Darcy, those efforts align with the organization’s broader goals of capturing designers and vendors beyond the U.S. kitchen and bath market.
“We’ve had a lot of success with the programming and the membership growth that we’ve done, and it put us in a financial position to be a lot more aggressive internationally and also outside of the kitchen and bath,” he tells Business of Home. “My job is to grow the association and grow the community, and the two biggest opportunities for that are internationally—especially in Europe and Brazil—as well as [through] this design community that is not necessarily all engaged with KBIS or NKBA right now.”
The organization’s leadership has pursued the first part of that objective by attending design trade shows in France, Germany and Brazil in recent months, along with making plans to travel to Salone del Mobile this spring. “There’s a lot of fragmentation among these different groups, and we have the biggest resources, especially this big show,” says Darcy. “We feel like we could be the global hub. It takes a lot of effort and time for that to come together, but we feel like we're on a really good path right now.”
On top of that, the group has also increased its collaborative efforts with High Point Market over the past two years, both through NKBA/KBIS pop-ups at the biannual show and by introducing a greater High Point Market presence at NKBA’s education conference and chapter events. “We’re continuing to bring both shows to one another, and feel like this is the circuit for the designer,” says Darcy. “Competing for people’s time is very difficult. … We’re trying to reinforce that High Point and [KBIS] are the most important things for designers to attend.”
