TBW ADVISORS LLC

Category: Conference Whispers

Conference Whispers: Call & Contact Center Expo Las Vegas 2024

Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

Photography: Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

After 2 days of filming, 31 videos and 34 shorts and over 30 factchecks, our coverage of this years’ Call & Contact Center Expo Las Vegas 2024 ends. CCCLV24 was held in Las Vegas from April 24 and 25. The event was held in the Las Vegas Convention Center South Lower Hall. The event featured 4 theaters with each featuring 6 talks each day for a total of 48 keynote sessions. Attendees witnessed endless examples of how generative AI and deep learning are revolutionizing the Call and Contact Center industry.

Conference Vibe

After 2 days of filming, 31 videos and ~30 shorts and over 30 factchecks, our coverage of this years’ Call & Contact Center Expo Las Vegas, CCCLV24, ends. With row after row of exhibits*, the event was made whole by the balanced combination of talks and exhibits. Even better, there was 15 minutes in between the talks so one could catch the exhibits. Furthermore, all theaters schedules were aligned in the event you wanted to switch theaters as well.

The short two-day event is definitely mighty and packs a punch with 4 keynote theatres each featuring 6 talks a day for a whopping 48 sessions. That said, there were also 2 keynotes who were to bashful to be taped which is a highly unusual occurrence. Nonetheless, we captured quite a lot of great content in this year’s CCCLV24 playlist. In fact we also spun out over 30 shorts which are at the tail end of the playlist – in case you only want to catch the super good parts!. We were also able to capture a video of the food available. Overall, it seems the Las Vegas Convention Center hits the mark as there were just as many bragging about the food and prices as there were complaining. The Global Voice of Customer Experience, Dennis Wakabayashi, was interviewing on site and even shared his wisdom in a keynote. Fascinating to see how leveraging global call center talent can truly impact the world in which we live.

Getting Ready for Exciting New Technologies

Sahni Sanjeev’s keynote by eGain appropriately drove home the requirements for corporate data programs to be mature before attempting to dive into deep learning tools and techniques. A second keynote by Uniphone offered up an Enterprise AI blueprint with some very solid advice. Specifically, your knowledge management system should be used so that the data determines your first actions. One must act based on the customer pain points not the cool technology. Of course if you didn’t get to organize it yet, Robot.AI shared their solution on exhibit. Robot.ai is simply feed all your corporate data then provides a gen AI service to answer questions about all of it.

A keynote reminder was given that one cannot use newest and greatest AI tools without thought to protect your customers. This keynote was provided by Private AI’s co-founder Patricia Thaine. In her talk, she detailed the various scenarios and considerations one must take to not end up on the news for an embarrassing compromise. It was a true sign of industry maturity to see a product such as Private AI on exhibit this year as well.

Speaking of protection, a vendor we are familiar with, SecureLogix shared their patented solution to stopping call pumping and TDoS attacks and more. Call pumping wastes an incredible amount of money. During my tenure as a telephony strategist, every public 800 number examined suffered from a call pumping compromise. At one point, 85% of all DDOS attacks had concurrent TDOS attacks- meaning your customers cannot find you on the internet or call you regarding the issue. One modern security concern involves deepfakes, to that end Veridas was on hand with their solution to identify and stop vocal deep fakes!

Conference Whispers: NAB Show 2024 featured translation and transcription services leveraged in editing and broadcast in a keynote as well as in exhibits. Microsoft featured their solution based on Open AI. TRINT featured their text to speech solution adopted across the industry. You may also recall in Conference Whispers: Adobe Summit we covered Transperfect and their 200 languages. For the first time ever, we found the technology that the UN decided to use expanding a ten-minute demonstration into usage for the entire day’s session. Of course, if their presentations was anything like the one at CCCLV24, we understand. Worldwide Tech Connections does text to text, text to speech, speech to text or speech to speech. They build their own grammar and vocabulary models and parse the entire sentence before translating. Of course, if you only needed a bilingual medical back office, Access Salud was there to help.

Technologies for Agents

Awaken’s keynote points out that Agent Experience is your Brand’s experience to your customers. To that end, there were many technologies available to improve Agent experience. You may recall FLOWIT from Conference Whispers: CES 2024 that uses Generative AI over employee satisfaction. They were also featured in an Industry Whispers webinar. CCCLV24 had a similar technology by Centrical focused on improving employee experience. They focus on creating best-in-class employee experience for frontline agents specifically. evaluagent was on exhibit sharing how their technology can execute deep analysis of the conversation and summarize freeing up their agents.

For organizations seeking to add AI to their agents and leave it to the agent’s discretion when and how they use AI, then Smile.cx was there for you! If you want to capture all the folklore in your organization and make it available to your agents, ScreenSteps exhibited. If you want to avoid handing agents a 200 page searchable PDF files, Drop Cowboy may have an answer for you. In another exhibit, Reddy.IO has AI for your agents and stated a system setup takes 5 minutes. If your agents have heavy accents make calls frustrating for them to communicate, Tomato.ai who was on stage last year, was on exhibit this year. We also featured Tomato.ai in an Industry Whispers earlier this year.

Big Profiles was on exhibit to provide intelligent customer profiles that predict certain customer propensities such as churn, purchases, cross sales, and collections. Structurely shared their solution to text or call customers including an AI created voice. Observe.AI can digest all conversations with customers to identify moments of interest. If you would appreciate accurate granular sentiment analysis over all those communications, Sestek and their conversational AI and analytics was on exhibit.

Technology Customers will enjoy

If you are an individual who’s number is the Do Not Call registry, you will appreciate DNC’s solution. DNC to assist call centers in respecting the list by scrubbing it for numbers that they should not contact. Meera.ai enables a company to stop annoying customers by maintaining contact cadence for the organization. TNS was one of the many vendors present that can add a telephony identifier, ANI, to wireless outbound calls to the ANI of the company represented. For readers who absolutely despise IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems, Talkr.ai shared their technology ready to make your corporate IVR system obsolete.

If understanding your agent is critical, you will appreciate it if the agent calling has access to Tomato.ai, especially in the event they have a heavy accent. Likewise, if the company your calling is quite popular, you would appreciate if the company you are calling deployed Omilia – able to handle 6 million concurrent calls. If the company you do business with leverages Drop Cowboy, you may just get a custom voicemail. Drop Cowboy leverages deep learning capabilities to generate a voice to customize mass voicemails. Finally, for those of you that just hate filling out surveys after a speaking with a call center, Miarec has you covered. Miarec leveraged conversational intelligences to automatically score a call eliminating the requirement to survey the caller.

Next Year’s Conference

Call & Contact Center Expo comes to Las Vegas every year. The next CCCLV will occur April 16 and 17th, 2025, in Las Vegas, NV at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

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©2019-2024 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Vendor Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal, or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

May 1, 2024
Conference Whispers: NAB Show 2024
Analyst: Dr Doreen Galli

Photographer: Dr Doreen Galli

Published April 24, 2024

ABSTRACT

After 85 flights of stairs, ~40,000 steps, 12 Vegas loops trips, and over 40 factchecks, our coverage of 2024 NAB Show, National Association of Broadcasters Show, ends. NAB Show was held in Las Vegas from April 13-17. It is the premier event for content professionals in the broadcast, media, and entertainment ecosystem seeking to create superior and innovative audio and video experiences. The conference featured over700,000 net square feet of exhibits, nearly 1300 exhibitors, 750 educational courses and sessions, and over 61,000+ attendees from an amazing 163 countries. Attendees witnessed endless examples of cloud enabled remote production, early implementations of generative AI, and discussions on sustainability in production and technical security for remote live production.

The Conference
- The first NAB Show was held October 11, 1923, in New York City at the Commodore Hotel. There were 16 radio stations represented among the 23 attendees. NAB Show moved to Las Vegas in 1991.
- NAB Show was held April 13-17, 2024, in Las Vegas. The event featured over 61,000 attendees. Within those attendees 27% were international attendees from an amazing 163 countries represented.
- The exhibitions featured nearly 1300 exhibitors in over 700,000 net square feet of exhibits a 30% gain over 2023.
- Attendees at NABShow held titles such as Production Director, Production Editor, Production Engineer, Broadcast and Network Engineer, Logistics Manager, Electrical Engineer, Sound and Video Engineer, Director of Product Management, Technical Architect, and data scientist.
Conference Vibe

After 85 flights of stairs and 40,000 steps, and 12 Vegas loops trip, our coverage of the 2024 NAB Show produced by National Association of Broadcasters, ends. NAB Show 2024 exhibitions surpassed last year’s by nearly 30% with 700,000 square feet in all. Attendance came in at 61,000 attendees with 27% coming from international destinations. NABPAC contributors were recognized in the West Hall. The conference leveraged the entire indoor conference exhibit spaces in the West Hall, Central Hall, South Upper and South Lower and a few rooms in North Halls. A majority of North Hall was under construction. Fortunately, the Vegas Loop was running with free rides so one needed not walk the entire distance. We took advantage of the loop no less than a dozen times. When asked attendees reported meeting their business objectives and described it as really good. Once again – the quality of attendees itself was mentioned by the exhibitors. Our entire playlist of video research for NAB Show is available online at our YouTube Channel.

Deep Learning & Generative AI in Media

With over 200 exhibitions and over 150 sessions on AI, generative AI was once again the star of the show. Amid the buzz about AI and generative AI transforming broadcasting, one question was on the mind of video engineers – “Will it affect our jobs?”. Luisa Winters had an answer in her keynote. If you are adapting and using the new technologies, you will be fine. No different from the move from tapes. More importantly, you will not only be able to deliver something acceptable but have time to make it great! Another keynote emphasized the importance of great metadata for your assets if you want to fully leverage generative AI solutions in sports coverage. As one might expect, there were countless examples* of tools for production and distribution and each of the tasks involved. Pixellot was on hand with their exciting deep learning automated sports tracking leveraged for streaming sports. Their solution leveraging their state-of-the-art cameras and patented technology that stitches it all together. As would be expected, each sport has its own model. In fact, they had over 10,000 live events streaming as I conducted the interview. Pixellot also includes capabilities for monetizing said sports streams.

One keynote provided a demo of Adobe Premier Pro, something we didn’t recall seeing at Adobe Summit. Backlight showcased their extensive collection of products for media content creation and distribution. Backlight’s solution leverages AI and generative AI to simplify media workflows. Backlight allows horizontal and vertical video distribution. Backlight leverages their own AI and LLM models to transcribe the video/audio. That transcription is then used to quickly generate all the metadata to put on social media. They leverage automation to automate the creation of sports highlight clips out to social media by registering all key moments as the game plays. Finally, their solution also enables monetization.

Amazon and AWS were at NAB Show in full force. A huge display was on hand where they shared their entire Generative AI stack with those looking to develop solutions. Experts were on hand if you had any questions including seeking insights on Amazon Bedrock. In the Microsoft pavilion, SymphonyAI was there as part of the beet the buzzer architecture that enables viewers to play along with game shows. Microsoft offered a Pilot demonstration of AI enabled marketing.

Transcription and translation are a big area for generative AI in broadcasting and media, sometimes referred to as localization. This topic was featured in a keynote as well as in exhibits. Microsoft featured their solution based on Open AI. TRINT featured their text to speech solution adopted across the industry. One exciting development is the ability to do full motion capture without putting on a special suit due to generative AI! In fact, Zerospace Captury was on exhibit sharing their solution. Interestingly, the room only requires about 15 minutes to set up the space to capture motion.

With all of the generative content capabilities shown, stopping misinformation and deepfakes was a very popular topic featured in a keynote. The solution involves knowledge of the content frequently communicated through metadata. To that end, Hand (Human & Digital) shared their solution for identity intelligence for notable talent.

Broadcasting Technologies

Leveraging capabilities of 5g, XGN featured their solution that enables users to connect direct to mobile to send content from the field – no SIM card required! Cobalt Digital shared their extensive collection of open gear based on 2110, 12G and ultra-low latency. Their gear also supports Rest APIs. Cobalt Digital featured routers, control panels, and multi-viewers for video and audio processing. As might be expected with the continual increased resolution, a new video compression standard is being rolled out and is already rolled out in Brazil, LCEVC. In the LCEVC showcase, all the providers with their next generation of tech leveraging LCEVC were on display. Ateme also focuses on compression – for the purpose of technologies such as the Apple Vision Pro which they showed off in the exhibition. Once you created all your content, if you wanted to manage the programming data so it is accurate in every tv program listing, Titan TV shared their solution. If you wanted to optimize the way in which you manage ad campaigns, Showseeker shared their solution to simplify advertising scheduling.

For those seeking cost effective or additional footprints to deliver content or to serve an unserved area, Varnish presented their highly cost-effective region. HP demonstrated their HP Anywhere enabling remote teams to leverage power that was not on the remote site. Storj, the sustainable storage solution that leverages unused electronic storage space that we covered in Conference Whispers: World Crypto Con Las Vegas 2019 and last year’s Conference Whispers: 100^th Anniversary NAB Show.

For those requiring the ability to manage the labor and payroll for that remote labor, Procrewz shared their solution. If keeping track of and on top of all the compliance requirements for broadcast and streaming is your challenge, Vela exhibited their product.

Broadcast stars and the creator economy

NAB Show also featured technology and solutions to support the creator economy. In Vimeo’s session they stated that one can expect 2% of free YouTube subscribers to convert to a paid subscriber on Vimeo. For those wishing to participate in a reality show about making creators or leverage it for advertising, the team from the TV show Follow Me had a lively panel. The central Main Stage featured an interview with Jennifer Hudson. During the interview Jennifer told the audience that she is always cheering for everyone. A great session on diversity in broadcasting featured the Las Vegas Aces Alysha Clark who majored in broadcasting during her college career. Alysha Clark made the great point to all that inclusion means opening prime spots to diversity be it tv slots or board and executive spots in corporate America.

Next Year’s Conference

NAB Show is held every year in Las Vegas since 1991. The next NAB Show will occur April 5-9, 2025, in Las Vegas, NV.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

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Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-2024 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Vendor Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal, or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
April 20, 2024
Conference Whispers: Adobe Summit 2024
Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

Adobe Summit 2024 took over the Venetian with over 11,000 attendees and leveraging one-million square feet of exhibition to host the conference, keynotes, exhibits and meals. The keynotes and side sessions were all about generative AI for the ultimate in personalization and scale for your marketing content needs. Many service providers and ecosystem partners were exhibited. A Strangely many exhibitors didn’t denote if their products leveraged artificial intelligence within their solutions on their displays.

Analysis is only available to clients at this time.

Highlights
- Extensive examples on stage of how Firefly can scale to quickly generative full experiences target to exactly the right customers.
- Many service providers were on exhibit for those who are overwhelmed by the technology involved.
Cautions
- Many sessions were filled in advance leaving attendees to wait list for desired events. If attending, be sure to create a formal schedule in advance to ensure ability to attend desired events.
Conference Vibe

As a conference for a vendor’s technology for marketing, the atmosphere was set up to be fun with a DJ playing in the hall throughout. The 11,000 strong in attendance could be felt while approaching the keynotes or perusing the exhibits. Meals were served downstairs albeit the word was one might be finding something elsewhere. Readers may experience the entire Conference Whispers: Adobe Summit 2024 playlist.

Keynotes

The keynotes presented endless examples of personalized experiences at scale. The opening day keynote launched with an in-depth overview of Adobe Firefly. They then shared an example using Coca Cola brand assets designing an entire campaign with significant variety in no time. Pfizer’s Lidia Fonseca then came on stage. Lidia Fonseca shared how they are leveraging Adobe’s generative AI capabilities enables campaigns every time a new drug is approved by the FDA. Next, there was a quick announcement regarding Adobe’s collaboration with Microsoft was made surprising without Scott Guthrie who was in town or any other Microsoft executive. With no shortage of examples, they keynote then welcomed Mary Barra of General Motors. It was fascinating to hear how Mary started her career on the assembly line as well as how GM leverages Adobe. At the end of day one, there was an amazing introduction to artificial intelligence and generative AI for those who do not understand its basis.

The second day of the conference commenced with an Inspirational Keynote featuring Delta, TSB, and Major League Baseball (MLB). Admittedly as someone who worked with the MLB in high school, I didn’t expect to hear them talk about a long-lost friend, Bret Saberhagen. The Maximize creativity and scale content strategy keynote provided a Pepsi in depth example. Once again, the theme was how much brand aligned content we can help you create and deliver to exactly who you desire.

The third day brought some other great conference talks and a lot of tired attendees due to the party at Area 51 with Shaq as DJ. We started off our coverage with an Adobe talk that discussed in-depth how to update your content strategy architecture in the age of generative AI. Expanding on this theme, Omnicom provided in-depth case studies on their AI powered ecommerce.

Community Pavilion Exhibits

Exhibitors ran the gambit to support the Adobe ecosystem. Interestingly many that leveraged AI to improve their product did not put any indication on their exhibit. This point was so strangely prevalent that all the industry analysts were discussing it prior to Keynote on day two. According to some exhibitors, the AI was added after the booth was ordered. Others said that at a data conference, every booth specified AI and they thought it was overwhelming. When pointed out if not specifying made it seem like they are displaying legacy technology, the error in their ways was realized. Exhibitors not specifying technology features of their product on the exhibits is not by any means customary!

If attendees were seeking technology to assist in generating content, Movable Ink was present. Conveo provides AI search over your assets and can provide a generative answer to optimize business outcomes. If you would like to create chatbots from any kind of data, Searchblox was on hand.

If you would like a single source of truth over all your marketing data assets, Claravine shared demonstrations and overview of their product. If you would like your assets converted to 200 different languages, Transperfect was on site. Yext shared their SEO intelligent platform to optimize the search over all your digital assets. Glassbox specialized in providing and optimizing customer experience and digital journeys with the use of artificial intelligence. Leveraging all forms of AI, Pathfactory shared their platform for b2b intelligence and personalization.

Session AI’s CMO, Jason Seeba was on hand to share how their technology understands user types within 5 clicks. Knack shared their enterprise grade email and landing page no code solutions. To create a coherent digital journey from telephone calls to web visits at the session level, Invoca conversational intelligence was on display. If you would like to host a conference of your own, Cvent was there with their technology. From planning to hosting to managing all the data for marketing the conference, their product provides an all-in-one solution.

Finaly on the protection side, Cheq shared their solution to remove all botts form analytics, marketing automation and paid advertising. Web governance in the form of removing unapproved cookies from your site was presented by Observepoint.

Service Providers

Adobe exhibit provided many service providers to execute on any of the technologies Adobe shared. We met Webjump who is a Magenta partner in Brazil. We also stopped by Virtusa IT services organization that is proud of their engineering first mindset to enable scalability. Finally, Grazitti not only display but had many their clients also exhibiting at Adobe Summit.

Next Year’s Conference

Next year’s adobe summit will be once again held at the Venetian Resort likely in March, stay tuned for details.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

©2019-20204 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Vendor Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Rankings and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
April 4, 2024
Conference Whispers: Internet 2.0 Conference 2024
Published: April 3, 2024 ID: 2040

Analyst(s): Doreen Galli, PhD MBA

ABSTRACT

Internet 2.0 Conference is one of five conferences that makes up 2.0 Conferences. In total the conferences had seven hundred attendees over 3 days packed with solid keynotes. Attendees seemed to agree that small but mighty was a good description of the event. Common themes including where is society going with technology as well as how these changes will impact society.

Highlights
- Five conferences all in one meant this tiny conference packed a powerful punch.
- This event was all keynotes with speakers rotating between the 5 shows.
Cautions
- This conference packs the sessions back-to-back. One must plan on your own for bio and physical movement breaks to avoid excessive sedentary day.
Conference Vibe

As a member of the collection of strategy conferences that create 2.0 Conferences, Internet 2.0 and all the conferences could best be described as small but impactful. The event took place at Caesars in Las Vegas in their Augusta rooms. All the attendees bragged about the amazing food both for breakfast and lunch. Readers may experience the entire Conference Whispers Internet 2.0 Conference playlist.

Where are we going?

The biggest theme at the conference focused on where innovation in technology is going to take us. One keynote on the evolution of intelligence had a panel discuss the paradigms that go beyond AI and ML This session also included an interested example of how Yazzmoney was leveraging blockchain. Specifically, they are helping Zambia government to tokenize cattle, minerals, wildlife and renewable energy. This enables the cattle ranchers, for example to access the value of the cattle. Another keynote with an all-male panel discussed how AR, VR and MR can revolutionize customer experience. Michael Koch keynote was a great discussion on the evolution of work, life, and play. Michael Koch discussed how technology has changed and is going to continue to change even faster with wireless power closer on the horizon than we imagine. Parts of this keynote reminded us of the 100 years of innovation exhibit at CES. One of the fascination aspects of Michael Koch’s keynote was the discussion around moving from creative and getting the ideas to adoption and conversion. There was to be another keynote on AI that looked like great potential at the start. Unfortunately the speakers time was cut in half and the deck didn’t work, thus Gary Y. Wu went Beyond AI in his talk. Futurist writer Jeffrey James Seyferth shared his vision of tech nirvana with attendees.

One thing all agreed on is there will be an adaptation that must occur. Cyber burnout was a real concern in the keynote on wearables, robot and IoT. That session hilariously drew the parallel of the conference attendees not having breaks in between all the sessions to describe how cyber burnout occurs. With all this change, technologist need to be great communicators. To that end, Archer Now CEO, Trung Q. Pham brought his keynote, “The art of Communication Jiujitsu” to meet the demand. Trung emphasized that we retain 90% of what we teach.

Social, Cultural and Environmental Impact

On the keynote titled, “Leveraging tech for environmental and social Impact” the panel emphasized doing the right thing should be rewarded. Vincent Allen from VA-AV industries discussed how new and smart spaces can increase diversity and equity in the global economy. Admittedly, due to the speakers background and slant, we were having flashbacks from our coverage of last year’s NABShow. An inspirational keynote that featured Dee Jones from L3C Esports organization was hosted by gameplay. It was fascinating to learn how they are using esports and gaming to change the lives of inner-city kids in Michigan.

Several panellists mentioned the concern of impact around generative AI hallucinations. To that end, one panellist shared that hallucinations are to be expected as the technology is in its toddler phase of reasoning. An interesting second concern on generative AI was raised concerning the massive computational requirements for a simple answer is surely not good for the planet.

Security

We were able to catch one interesting keynote on security. David Ronn from Zecurity shared their on-premises and edge solution to ending ransomware that blocks and examines all commands outside of a simple read command.

Next Year’s Conference

2.0 Conferences 2025 conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada at Caesars in April of 2025.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

©2019-20204 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Rankings and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
March 25, 2024
Conference Whispers: Fintech Meet Up US 2024
Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

Fintech Meetup 2024 allowed over 4,000 attendees to not only meet up, but see an extensive collection of exhibitors and extended formal interviews as keynotes. Attendees and exhibitors agree the word that best described the event was “different”. The conference featured technologies that are specific to Fintech, those that benefit regulated industries such as fintech and healthcare and interesting technologies for enterprises including those in Fintech and in general.

The Conference
- Fintech MeetUp 2024 was held in Las Vegas, Nevada and had just over 4,000 registered attendees, with large collection of exhibiting companies.
- Attendees at CES 2024 hold titles such as CEO, Founder, Investor, VP, Director, Chief Marketing Officer, VP of Engineering, VP of Product Development, data scientists, Chief Risk Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, and lead engineer.
Highlights
- Fintech Meetup would have to be the meetups that resulted from the preparation for the event and neat matching technology in the background.
Cautions
- It is critical you keep up to date with the deadlines as the Meetup approaches to get the maximum networking from the MeetUp.
- Its much bigger than you would think by the name.
Conference Vibe

As a Meetup I had no idea what to expect as I approached the entrance. The informal font on the conference title makes it seem quite small. In reality, there were over 4,000 people there and the meeting space was literally buzzing! Did the conference meet our expectations? Well it was larger than thought but managed to maintain the quaintness you would expect from the name. I really do think everyone was so much friendlier than I ever experienced at a conference as observed in the walkabouts! There was food galore albeit I heard a lot about the heavy curry on Monday’s lunch!

In Depth Sessions

Much to our surprise there were in fact keynotes sessions. Unlike most conferences, all keynotes were interviews. TBW Advisors LLC was able to catch a few of these. Specifically, Kevin O’Leary on behalf of Beanstalk*. Interestingly, Kevin has a few quotable moments. He reported he only gives start-ups 3 years to make it. He also stated that Shark Tank investments are expected to recoup their investment within 48 hours of airing on television. Finally, he also will not invest in a company that cannot handle its own social media!

Attendees were also treated to an in depth interview of Angela Strong, a long-time venture capitalist. Angela was decidedly giddy about the quality of the current group of start-up entrepreneurs. She further delved into the depth of their experience on the exact niche of a problem they are solving.

MasterCard’s CTO, Ed McLaughlin also provided an in-depth interview to attendees. His advice is to not push new technology aside just because you have something that can do something the new technology can do. Rather, he strongly urged all to explore what the new technology can do that other technology cannot – for that is where the magic of innovation will occur. Max Neukirchen from JP Morgan also shared the passion his organization has for innovation.

Purely Fintech Plays

For banks seeking mobile image capture, UrbanFT was there to meet your needs. Likewise if you are trying internally to get data from such captures, a new startup Docsumo was there trying to get your attention. If you bank is attempting to stop fraud from skimmers, Aries Anti-fraud solution with separate numbers on the front and back of cards caught a lot of attention! If however, your organization is seeking ultimate personalization based on user data, Finalytica.ai offered an option. If your bank is in a state with legal Cannabis industry, Shieldbanking’s solution offers a method to meet AML compliance requirements.

Preventing risk, as well as the identification and removal of fraud is quite critical for those in financial services. To that end, Engima offers the ability to evaluate SMB credit decisions based on transaction history data. Seon monitors digital signals to prevent fraud. While Op-insights is offering an AI copilot for all your compliance neds. Oscilar.ai was present sharing their risk decisioning solution for financial services. In particular, they touted their purported strength in interacting with 3^rd party data to offer a customer 360. Likewise, Datavisor offers end-to-end data orchestration fraud and compliance tool with full reporting and regulatory filing. What was interesting about Datavisor is that it provides a generative AI solution co-pilot to its customers; therefore, removing the need for custom services. If your organization sought a solution to monitor transactions to identify fraud, Unit21 was the booth for you.

One key to success in Fintech is successful integration. To that end, Rutter API shared their unified API. Likewise, IgniteConnect offers many prebuilt connections for Fintech in their solution that offers data and application integration.

Interesting Technology in General

As you might expect some tech was not specific to Fintech but applied to regulated industries in general. For example, Skyflow offers data privacy for regulated industries and is equally at home in healthcare. While not unusual for VCs to require this tech of their investments, Zeni provides accounting and bookings for startups regardless of what sector they serve with their customers.

There were two interesting vendors that leveraged behavioral science. Symend leverages customer behavior to increase sales as well as detect fraud. For example, some customers cannot resist a FOMO type of advertisement while others never respond. Likewise. NeuroID leverages typing patterns and copy and paste detection to identify fraud. As you might guess, most people don’t have to copy and paste their own addresses into fields, but cyber criminals do.

If you would like to regularly verify the email used to sign up is not belonging to a crime ring or fraudster, Atdata might be someone to look into. Eltropy was on display with their unified conversation platform spanning voice, text and email.

Call centers are a popular topic in Fintech. To that end, Datamatics was present with their capability to depoy as many generative AI agents as you need. Likewise, Versa.ai that specializes in conversational AI for call centers was on hand. Finally, if your product has APIs but not a developer kit and you need one to truly enable your business to take off – then check out Speakeasy.

Next Year’s Conference

Next year’s event will be March 10-13, 2025 in Las Vegas.

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

©2019-20204 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Rankings and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
March 8, 2024
Conference Whispers: CES 2024
Conference Whispers: CES 2024 Playlist

Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

Photographer: Dr. Doreen Galli

Published: January 17, 2024

ABSTRACT

CES 2024 allowed over 135,000 attendees to see more than 4,400 exhibitors. Attendees and exhibitors agree the word that best described the event was “engaging.” There were advances and capability announcements across all product categories and marketplaces. Anything you need to build your own products to those that can build them for you to products about to hit the market could be found. CES 2024 brought current technology advances of artificial intelligence, and virtual reality across the automotive sector, mobility, health, and manufacturing.

The Conference
- The first Consumer Electronic Show (CES) was held in New York City in 1967 with 17,500 attendees¹. It is an industry conference focusing on all aspects of consumer technology. The conference features new product announcements in x product categories and y marketplaces.
- CES 2024 was held in Las Vegas, Nevada and had just over 135,000 registered attendees, with 4,400 exhibiting companies.
- Attendees at CES 2024 hold titles such as CEO, Founder, Investor, VP, Director, Chief Marketing Officer, VP of Engineering, VP of Product Development, data scientists, lead engineer, and buyer. CES attendees came from over B countries.
Cautions
- Care must be taken when creating a CES schedule. CES 2024 spanned multiple venues; buses and the Vegas Loop were provided with convenient routes between all venues. To this end, one’s schedule must allow for the transport or walk time between events. TBW Advisors’ analyst found that 30 minutes was sufficient between LVCC and Sands Convention Space; attendees should plan to allow one hour for transfer between other venues.
- Just because a product has advanced AI and is designed for the home doesn’t mean that your privacy was fully taken into consideration. Adopters must verify data location and policies for any new products before they are brought into the home or office.
Conference Vibe

As an industry conference focused on everything related to consumer technology, CES is best described as a massive conference with highly engaged attendees. CES 20204 celebrates 100 years of innovation. The conference had some 135,000 registered attendees spanned venues, from Mandalay Bay, and Aria, on the Southside of the Strip to the Las Vegas Convention Center Halls West through North and Central. Buses ran frequently to transfer attendees between locations along with the Vegas Loop. One interesting aspect of CES is the juxtaposition of fun exhibits with deep talk tracks that feature impressive speakers discussing considerations taken while creating the various products being exhibited. Viewing TBW Advisors’ Conference Whispers: CES 2024 playlist in order may provide some context for the first-hand experience of attending CES. Alternatively, enjoy our CES Walkabouts Playlist.

What product would you like to build?

CES is a place for builders to go and find the components to build products themselves or find organizations to build them for them. CES 2024 was no different. One might start with MicroEJ* a favorite from 2020 CES (1), an containerized IoT device for software defined everything that is upwardly compatible with Android (2). Need sensors to support a function? Hamamatsu Photonics optical sensors were on display (3). Want your product to be free of requiring a battery? Perovisky shared their indoor solar glass solution (4). Want to make sure you store the energy from the indoor solar glass? Nichicon was present with the LTO IoT battery (5). Perhaps you don’t want just any sensor in your solution but demand a smart sensor with AI models deployed on the edge with the sensor? To that end solutions presented include AI Zip smart sensors that can identify irregular behavior (6). Require data sets to train models in your space? Speeda Edge was onsite to get you quickly moving forward in your data space (7). Perhaps you require a human machine interface (HMI)? If the interaction is from facial movements, Naqi Logix had their Naqi enabled Neural Earbud on hand to control all digital devices and more important, their technology can be licensed to any earbud manufacturer(8). Meanwhile, PalmPlug was present for hand-based HMI interactions (9). Perhaps your IoT product requires a cellular connection. 1nce was one of the companies on hand available to provide a global cost-effective solution (10). Assembling the components but need it waterproof? 3m has any taping solution you might need to make your product come to life (11). If you require a Cloud vendor agnostic platform to manage Linux based secure online development, Strong Network was onsite to share their solution (12). Perhaps the entire process of finding and assembling all the components is just too much for you? Companies were on hand to help you put it all together from Telit Cinterion (13) to Siemens (14). Perhaps you are not even sure where to start or what product you would like to create that would have customer demand? To that end multiple industry analyst presentations were available from CTA itself (15) to the detailed presentation by Circana (16) that let you know exactly where consumers are spending today.

Modern Green Smart Building

CES is known as a conference for consumers but at the end of the day – it is just an amazing technology conference where you can find things you might not expect. For example, you were building new facilities. To that end you would like to understand modern technology you could include to make the building smart or green. CES has answers for you! At the entrance, you can keep outside dirt outside with Tectonic’s clean matt (17). No need to waste the beautiful energy from the sunlight on the windows with SQPV Glass by INQS that produces energy(18). Perhaps the building is a data center without many external windows then the indoor solar solution could be incorporated from Perivskia (19). If you require weather information for your facilities, MyRadar will provide data rain or shine (20). Camera solutions for security or for indoor autonomous solutions could be found by E-Con Systems (21). Building in an area suffering from water shortages? Genesis Systems allows you to capture water from air (22) while HelioWater provide potable water from any type of water be it river water or salt water (23). Green smart exterior and parking lot lights leveraging solar energy are available from Green Tech (24). Have an emergency presentation and need a huge TV suddenly in a room without cabling? Wireless TVs from Display can be put up anywhere with a wall. It contains a battery that will stream for 6 hours straight or 30 day standby (25). Clean air for workers inside can be made available with a bioengineered indoor plant from Neoplant (26). If you have multiple smart buildings, Technis has a smart fleet building solution for you (27). Finally, if you are trying to grow, retrain, empower, or engage your employees, FLOWIT is a smart adaptive people development tool for your employees leveraging generative AI. It can even recommend training based on results of employee engagement surveys (28).

^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Mobility and Accessibility

CES 2024 had a plethora of mobility and accessibility solutions on hand. As discussed in the session on building a sustainable secure superior future, technology and artificial intelligence advances have been monumental in mobility (29). This point was further emphasized in the discussion on AI powered strategies to transform the mobility experience (30) as well as in the talk, “Technology as a Force for Good” (31). Products on hand included the Mirairi speaker for the hard of hearing has a curved surface to push the voices towards the listener (32). Ives Chatbot for the deaf can understand and produce sign language for customer service solutions (33). For people with vision difficulties, OOrion intelligent locator assistant enables your phone to find anything in your environment or guide you to predetermined locations (34). Lighthouse Tech glasses enable one to identify when obstacles are present above waist height and is targeted at people with low or no vision (35).

Healthcare

Healthcare is always a large topic at CES every year and 2024 was no different. An overview presentation on the area, “Forces Reshaping Healthcare” was presented by Deloitte (36). Whether for home healthcare or telemedicine, The Nuralogix^TM Anura MagicMirror^TM scans your face and in 30 seconds calculates over 100 common metrics (37). Withings BeamO Home Checkup allows a remote practitioner to virtually listen to one’s heartbeat and lungs as well as follow vitals such as temperature, heart rate, ECG, and SpO2 (38). A twenty-minute scan leveraging a virtual reality headset and a program form Machine MD can inform your medical practitioners about any brain disorders (39). An actual virtual twin of the patient for cardiovascular purposes was shown by Dassault Systemes (40). Smart devices of all types were also on display including smart ring by RingConn (41).

Smart insoles for diabetes that are self-powered called SoleCooler were shared (42). If you deal with snoring, the smart pillow by 10Minds will sense the snoring and inflate an airbag to turn ones head on the pillow, causing the snoring to stop (43). Need better quality of sleep? MyWaves for better sleep will playback your best deep sleep brainwaves to help one fall asleep and increase quality by 25% (44). If you just want to see effortlessly, ViXion adjustable eyewear may be the exhibit that called out to you. To use, one simply adjusts so it is aligned with your eyes. Once adjusted, you can go from instantly reading 12-point font a quarter mile away on a wall across the convention center to a business card in front of your face. Yes instantly. While I never noticed eye strain, the lack of eye stress using the glasses was truly notable (45). Speaking of relieving stress, Sana Health VR solution can put your mind into a flow state (46).

Finally, hospitals are a common vulnerability point. For doctors wanting to enable secure transcription at the edge, csky.ai does not allow the data to leave your desktop (47). If your hospital is the Target of ransomware attacks. Galeon EHR takes advantage of the immutable logs of blockchain for storing EHR records. This solution has enabled multiple hospitals to recover and continuously operate despite a ransomware attack (48).

Smart Vehicles

In 2024, CES is now the largest automotive show in the world. “Cracking the Smart Car – what truly defines them” discussed the need for cooperation for functionality and security (49). Today building a smart car can get an advanced start with available middleware such as that provided by Apex.ai (50). For OEMs wanting to set themselves apart, the ever-impressive smart mirrors from Gentex combining mirror and camera views were on display (51). To secure your smart car, Autocrypt provides the ability to secure the embedded systems (52). If you are looking to recreate, Pebble all electric trailer may be in your future (53) or perhaps you want to pack up your all electric dirt bike by GoWow to hit the trails in the BLM Parks (54). Today’s cars at CES are not confined to only driving on roads. The day we have been waiting for since we first watch the Jetsons futuristic cartoon has arrived as Xpeng Aeroht presented their flying car at CES (55). Finally, engineers for next generation cars were able to participate in the Indy Challenge. This challenge is a competitions between colleges to build a fully autonomous Indy Car (56).

Consumer Tech

Walmart was a significant keynote at CES (57) and even brought Microsoft’s Satya onstage (58). Shopping will never be the same. If Walmart has its way, shopping will it be easier, more convenient, automatics and quicker than ever before leveraging drone delivery (59). CES 2024 also brought you the magic of automated cooking from Tech Magic (60). While currently used in industrial kitchens, anyone involved in adulting can hope one is coming to a kitchen near them soon! One no longer has to drive to a brewery to get freshly brewed beer. CES featured the all-in-one Exobrew enabling all to brew at home (61). Likewise, one no longer must fuss with the step in between the washer and dryer or even adding detergent every load. GE Profile highlighted their all-in-one washer dryer that can hold an entire bottle of detergent (62). Scrubbing the floors is easier with The Narwal Freo X Series robotic vacuum mops, the uniquely designed new models displayed include the Narwal Freo X Ultra and Narwal Freo X Plus models (63). Even mosquitoes don’t stand a chance in 2024 with the Reptilian smart mosquito repellent design in Africa (64). If one would like to interact with your grandchildren, Zoog has a solution for you (65). Finally, discussions were held on the reality of the post hype metaverse (66).

High School and College Participation

CES 2024 featured the Indy autonomous challenge,a college competition to create the fastest autonomous Indy car. The cars raced at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. TBW Advisors was able to hear from the former Waterloo team captain (67).

Charity

This conference did not feature a specific charity event. CTA, the organizer of CES, has a related Foundation for its charitable contributions and actions – the CTA Foundation³.

Next Year’s Conference

CES 2025 conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The announced dates are January 7-10, 2025.

Citations
Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-20204 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Rankings and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
January 18, 2024
Conference Whispers: Channel Partners Conference & MSP Summit 2023
Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

Published May 8, 2023

ABSTRACT

The Channel Partners Conference and Expo and MSP Summit, held in Las Vegas from May 1-4, 2023, brought together industry professionals seeking insights and strategies to advance their businesses. The event brought together industry professionals seeking insights on the workforce and business landscape amidst current times. With over 120 sessions, the conference addressed the pandemic’s impact on leadership styles, customer expectations, and growth opportunities. Attendees were advised to adapt to the evolving economy and invest in talent retention. The event also focused on current technologies like cloud, security, AI, and IoT, covering topics such as private cloud capabilities and defending against unknown threats.

Conference Vibe

The Channel Partners Conference and Expo and MSP Summit (Managed Service Providers) was held at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas on May 1-4, 2023. It features over 120 sessions across the 4 days. Attendees were excited to garner insights on current times and current technologies to move their business to the next level.

Current Times

Understanding the impact of current times on business was top of mind at the Channel Partners Conference and MSP Summit. During the panel session for ‘Rethinking the Workforce of Tomorrow,’ it was pointed out that there are 5 generations in the current workforce (1). The ‘Ultimate Vendor Power Panel’ featured discussions among industry leaders regarding how the pandemic changed leadership styles, customer expectations, employee expectations, and growth opportunities (2). The consensus was that current times are very different from pre-pandemic.

Attendees were also reminded that the current economy is always good for some business segment (3). The message was to always evaluate and adjust to who is winning today. For those concerned with scaling and finding the right people, C3 Technology Advisors emphasized the need to invest upfront to attract and retain people (4). Magnitech poignantly reminded everyone that it takes happy employees to make happy customers (5). Likewise, we were reminded that technological tools will continue to evolve. Furthermore, resisting or failing to adopt the advancements will be a barrier to growth and market competitiveness (6).

Current Technologies

The Channel Partners Conference and MSP Summit did have some coverage of technology topics. Cloud, security, AI (Artificial Intelligence), and IoT (Internet of Things) were all showcased at the event. US Signal demonstrated their Private Cloud capabilities (7). The Field

Guide to Cloud Native Maturity was showcased on stage so attendees could properly advise their clients (8). IBM not only shared their cloud capabilities but shared how using their products on

AWS can help meet your AWS commitments (9). Verizon highlighted the current trend of customers to focus on optimizing their cloud spend (10).

In TBW Advisors Conference Whispers highlights, it was noted that the NABShow showcased their mature enterprise generative AI solutions used in production for some time. Furthermore, our highlights of the Call & Contact Center showcased their newly developed solutions already in production. Together, these examples demonstrated the progress of enterprise generative AI. Nonetheless, during the AI Panel at Channel Partners Conference, it was suggested that Large Language Models (LLMs), the underlying technology of generative AI, were not yet in enterprise production (11). However, there was an active conversation building on the insightful history of AI that kicked it all off by Talus (12).

The Internet of Things (IoT) was another important topic of conversation during the event. BH IoT Group shared insights on how to make money on IoT and even offered their services to assist attendees in getting started with their ventures (13).

Various security providers and products were also present to share their capabilities. Xcitium emphasized the importance of defending against unknown threats (14). Securing endpoints be it remote workers or IoT solutions are of particular importance. Fortunately, ThreatLocker delivered a highly engaging keynote to meet the needs of attendees and provide a roadmap to related solutions in this space (15).

Next Year’s Conference

The next Channel Partners Conference and Expo will be held June 13-14, 2023 in London UK.

Citations
^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-2023 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal, or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
May 8, 2023
Conference Whispers: Call & Contact Center Expo Las Vegas 2023
Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

Published May 1, 2023

ABSTRACT

The Call & Contact Center Expo was held in Las Vegas from April 26-27. The conference featured 94 educational sessions across 8 theatres. This two-day packed event featured 94 educational sessions. Attendees witnessed numerous examples of generative AI changing their industry right before their eyes. Finding and securing remote talent were also showcased. Unfortunately, the conference organizers were unable to provide any attendance or show metrics by the time of press; they are in the unique position of being the only conference to fail in this regard.

Conference Vibe

The Call & Contact Center Expo was best described as short and sweet and to the point. There were eight presentation theaters with constant sessions during the two-day expo held in the Las Vegas Convention Center South Upper Hall. Each day featured a Vegas 10am start and ended by 4pm so conversations could continue through offsite business dinners. Exhibitors considered it a successful conference and were pleased with those in attendance. Some attendees represented start-ups looking to decide on a solution. There were a surprising number of outsourcers also looking to acquire technology for their customers. Overall, attendees were delighted at the plethora of generative AI sessions.

Advancements in Generative AI: Key insights and best practices

The Call & Contact Center Expo showcased significant advancements in generative AI. Several key insights emerged regarding the application of generative AI for call centers. First generative AI or AI based on large language models (LLM), is already being successfully deployed in production. Birch.ai demonstrated how their technology is used to summarize complex after call work (1). SliceX.ai showcased their solution which can readily summarize content out of the box (2). Tomato.ai demonstrated their solution that remarkably changes the accent of contact center worker (3).

Second, generative AI works best when combined with human agents conversational AI, and remote process automation. As noted by Thrio, it took 77 years for the telephone to get 100 million users and 16 years for mobile phones, whereas Chat GPT only took two months. Effective utilization of generative AI requires integrating it with remote process automation, connecting the new tool with human agents and other technologies (4). Typically, the process involves pre-filtering data to remove personal identifiable information (PII) then applying generative AI. Finally conversational AI or similar technologies are then deployed to remove hallucinations – when generates incorrect or baseless claims. Laivly emphasized the importance of combining generative AI and human agents (5). Kore.ai improved poorly trained agent performance through generative and conversational AI (6). Smartbots.ai discussed the deployment journey depending on your legacy technologies in place and willingness to jump into new solutions (7). Openstream.ai which built their business on conversational AI, expressed some caution, and warned of the potential risks associated with this emerging technology (8). Fiber.ai had a new product for automated customer support leveraging AI and was seeking customers (9). Finally, Talon displayed their browser based on Chrome that can ensure the wrong data doesn’t get entered on web based generative AI solutions. (10).

Finding and Securing Remote Workers

During the pandemic, contact centers faced significant challenges and underwent major changes. Finding and retaining talent became a crucial task for the industry. Scalepex highlighted the advantages of tapping into the talent pool in Mexico (11). Google emphasized the benefits of ChromeOS for remote and on-site call center employees during their presentation (12).

Addressing the concerns surrounding cybersecurity in the context of remote work, Pentamix delved into the topic (13). They shed light on the importance of securing the remote workforce and ensuring data protection. Additionally, Magnitech discussed the significance of training staff in both onsite and remote environments, emphasizing the need for cybersecurity awareness (14).

In response to the increasing need for endpoint security, Watchguard presented their solution (15), offering a comprehensive approach to safeguarding endpoints and protecting sensitive information.

Overall, these presentations and discussions at the conference provided valuable insights into talent acquisition, technology adoption, cybersecurity, and endpoint security in the evolving landscape of contact centers.

Citations
^*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-2023 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal, or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
May 2, 2023
Conference Whispers: 100th Anniversary NABShow

Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

The 100^th Anniversary of NABShow, National Association of Broadcasters Conference, was held in Las Vegas from April 15-19. It is the premier event for content professionals in the media, entertainment, and technology ecosystem seeking to create superior and innovative audio and video experiences. The conference featured over635,000 net square feet of exhibits, more than 1200 exhibitors, 700+ educational courses and sessions, and over 65,000 attendees from an amazing 166 countries. Attendees witnessed endless examples of cloud enabled remote production, early implementations of generative AI, and discussions on sustainability in production and technical security for remote live production.

April 24, 2023
Conference Whispers: CONEXPO-CON/AGG & IFPE 2023
Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

ABSTRACT

North America’s largest construction trade show, CONEXPO-CON/AGG and IFPE are held together every three years in Las Vegas. The conference featured over 3 million net square feet of exhibits, over 2400 exhibitors, 200 educational courses, and 139,000 attendees from 133 countries. There were endless examples of Industrial Intelligence of Things (IIoT) and early examples of digitally transformed construction sites. The digital transformation of the construction site is well underway enabling multivendor views to optimize asset use and the total carbon footprint of a given job.

The Conference
- The first CONEXPO was held in 1909 in Columbus, Ohio. The first CON/AGG was held in Detroit Michigan in 1928. CONEXPO and CON/AGG merged for the 1996¹ show held in Las Vegas. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) is responsible for putting on the show. Today, CONEPXO is one conferences with three domains: specifically, CONEXPO, CON/AGG and IFPE. Due the size and complexity of bringing all the equipment together, it is held every 3 years at the LVCC – the only location that can physically accommodate the weight of the equipment.
- CONEXPO-CONN/AGG and IFPE was held in Las Vegas and leveraging the entire expanded LVCC including West, Central, South and North Halls and the festival lot. The Conference featured with 139,000 registered attendees including international attendees from 133 countries. The exhibitions featured over 2400 exhibitors in over 3 million net square feet of exhibits. There was a significant presence of women at the conference not simply joining attendees.
- Attendees at CONEXPO-CONN/AGG and IFPE 2020 held titles such as Job Site Director, Director Heavy Equipment Rentals, Machine Operator, Logistics Manager, Electrical Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Director of Product Management, Director City Planning, and new this time – data scientist.
Highlights
- Sensors is standard on heavy equipment this time around. Today’s sensor solutions are more intelligent than ever. Predictive maintenance is a reality when information from telematics systems is integrated into maintenance systems.
- Digital transformation is arriving at construction job sites and heavy equipment rentals.
- While there are new Government regulations such as US bidding requirements to disclose carbon footprint and plan to reduce emissions, OEM (original equipment manufacturers) equipment itself does not provide this information. Additional work is required to understand one’s footprint.
Cautions
- The industry would benefit from leveraging six sigma or other practices common in manufacturing to formally document the business benefit of their digital transformation.
- There are many lessons learned in IT data management and manufacturing transformations that can benefit the construction digital transformation. Hopefully, these lessons will be shared so maximum success can be achieved.
Conference Vibe

The largest North American construction conference surpassed the attendance of their last conference which was held while Covid 19 was declared a pandemic². The conference requires an entire month to set up – complex enough that it is only held every 3 years. The exhibits leveraged the entire Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). It spanned the parking lots, South Hall, North Hall, Central Hall, the new West Hall, and the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. When asked attendees reported meeting their business objectives, the answer was a resounding Yes. Some indicated the expected deals came through along with a few pleasant surprises. Once again – the quality of attendees itself was mentioned by the exhibitors. Fortunately, the press room and many exhibits had coffee available – both regular and decaffeinated AND hot water for tea this time around.

Digital Transformation of Commercial Fleets and Job Sites

According to IFM³, 85% of vehicle telematics is used for vehicle tracking with only 27% used to track fatigue management. While the 2020 conference had education modules on digital transformation, in 2023 there were competing modules. CONEXPO 2023 live forced one to choose between ‘Top 10 Uses Cases using advanced Machine Data⁴’ and ‘Predictive Maintenance: Plan the Work and Work the Plan’. In 2020 participants were told the value of sharing one important piece of data⁵. In 2023, the conference offered a plethora of machine data transformational use cases.

Attendees saw a Plante Moran’s customer discuss how they learned to leverage data to better manage their fleets⁶. ICC provided a great session on crane operation safety using data analysis of standards and incidents. When all was finished, the audience understood that less than 23.8% of crane safety responsibility falls on the operator’s shoulders⁷.

POLARIS Laboratories® demonstrated the advantages of simply connecting one’s fluid analysis to the maintenance management system⁸. In another session, participants learned how to use their machine data for 10 separate use cases. The use cases varied from maximizing the ROI of their machines, saving money by maximizing use of remote investigation to minimizing the costs of batteries⁹. Another topic growing in popularity due to federal contracting requirements was understanding the carbon footprint of a job site. A complete solution set with various accuracy levels to measure fleet emissions was presented by Clue¹⁰. DOKA presented a platform that can estimate your carbon footprint. In addition, DOKA platform can optimize most metrics for job sites across the company and across machine vendors¹¹. Furthermore, DOKA offers an augmented reality solution to help customers and teams picture the job site before it is realized¹².

Finally, one cannot discuss all this technology and data without a great session on cybersecurity. To that end CONEXPO did not disappoint with a great panel revealing ransomware and DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are top of mind¹³.

In conclusion, it was exciting to see how far and how fast the construction and agricultural industries are progressing toward digital transformed job sites and enterprises. Unfortunately, transformations stories frequently could not communicate their business impact. If I had one piece of advice to share with the industry it would be leverage six sigma or some business process impact/improvement (BPI) assessment during the transformations. These types of processes capture the financial advantage of the actual transformation. Despite the lack of BPI assessment, construction benefits from the constant turnover of construction equipment within companies. Thus, I would not be surprised to see the construction industry successfully transform faster than manufacturing.

Next Year’s Conference

CONEXPO-CON/AGG is held every three years. The next CONEXPO-CON/AGG and IFPE will occur March 3-7, 2026, in Las Vegas, NV. One may find more information here: The Future of Construction on Display: CONEXPO-CON/AGG Exhibitors Take the Industry.

Citations
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March 22, 2023