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Tag: data driven decisions

  • Whisper Report: How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure?

    Whisper Report: How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure?

    Published to clients: July 3, 2025                                            ID: 2079

    Published to Readers: July 4, 2025

    Email Whispers Released: August 11, 2025 8am

    Public and Video Edition Released: August 11, 2025 11am

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    “Integrating AI customer service with existing IT systems starts by setting clear business goals. AI should enhance, not disrupt, current workflows and streamline real-time support. Every organization has unique systems, so tailored integration is essential. A major challenge is fragmented data—making robust pipelines and clean, synchronized data critical. Accurate timestamps and system compatibility across platforms are key to ensuring effective AI performance and a smooth digital transformation journey.”

    Target Audience Titles:

    • Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer, VP/Director of IT Operations, Enterprise Architects
    • Chief Customer Officer, VP/Director of Customer Services/Success, Contact Center Operation Managers
    • Solution Architects, DevOps & IT Administrators, Customer Support Agents, Data Scientists and ML Engineers

    Key Takeaways

    • Start with clear business goals so AI enhances workflows without causing disruptions.
    • Tailor integration to your unique tech environment to avoid inefficiencies.
    • Reliable, clean, and synchronized data pipelines are essential for effective AI-driven customer service.

    How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure?

    We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the technologists gathering at Customer Connect Expo 2025 held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure? As Ford’s Dr. Kalifa Oliver shared, “first we need to break down our needs and our goals and figure out which pieces of AI actually build efficiencies in our IT systems because right now there are too many systems that are fragmented.” With ALL AI projects, it is best to start with the business goal not the technology. We do not want to spend resources to integrate technology that goes unused. Furthermore, the context of the business goal helps guide engineers when they have design choices to make.

    Customer Service Workflows

    AI in Customer Service is all about optimizing and improving the customer service workflow to lead to maximum customer satisfaction. As Zaon’s Jason Kaufman shared, “using artificial intelligence tools within the organization to actually help drive and make more efficient the processes that go into place in order to support good customer service. For example, leveraging artificial intelligence to actually analyze chats real time community forums real time. Actually monitoring that (the communities) helping to gain insights about what your customers have questions about so that you can leverage the AI to actually generate the knowledge on the fly to actually provide that (information removing confusion) back to them real time as if it’s another person on that community thread.” The nonobvious challenge in achieving this solution is best described by Claritiv’s CEO Sean Gigremoss. “Everybody has workflows. Every company is unique. What tools do they use? What products do they use now?  Do we need to build it?” In other words, every organization has a unique, highly mixed environment with varying degrees of maturity both in the technology itself and the organization’s ability to deploy technology.

    Verse.ai’s Zac Brooksher recommends focusing on complimenting the current workflows and processing. “We can integrate AI driven customer service solutions using full funnel metrics understanding all of the conversations the timestamps the channels the appropriate team members what next steps are all integrating into existing systems and processes just to complement what the current workflows and data processing is today like.” Any technology not realizing it is complimenting an existing process will instead create process interrupts. The distinction really is a big difference.

    The Challenge: Data is everywhere!

    As Claritiv’s Sean Gigremoss shared, data is everywhere! “They make it so easy for us to integrate because in the end that’s important because all the data are in this different .. disparate systems. You need information from Salesforce you need information from zoom you need information from slack you need information from your database you need information from your customer’s database so to be able to do that you need to make sure that you’re using the tools or you’re partnering with companies that help you so that you can focus on what you do best.”

    But the data isn’t just everywhere, it comes from everywhere. The first obvious location was shared by Enthu.ai’s Atul Grover, “we integrate with the telephony at the dialer.” And the rest such as the web and email communications, “we ingest that using an API driven environment.” Diabolocom specializes in capturing all that occurs between the customer and the organization on mobile devices. As Diabolocom’s Benjamin Shakespeare shared, “with our mobile solution that we are about to release

    the market  .. So all field reps anybody who is using a cell phone today with every interaction they have on their phone our AI will then score that call transcribe it and push it directly into the CRM So any lack of compliance that you are seeing today in your organization from people that are not sitting behind a computer that will be no longer.”

    Where the magic happens!

    Now that we understand we are complimenting the existing customer experience workflows for the benefit of the customer experience and that data is everywhere, what can we do?  As Macy’s Siva Kannan Ganensan shared, “you need to make sure your data pipeline is very robust when we talk about all this AI integration data is the core so make sure the data is cleansed and always readily available ready to serve with that we’ll be able to integrate an into your existing architecture or in your organization.”

    workflow pictured above a data fabric with robust data pipelines

    Figure 1. Compliment Workflows & Leverage Robus Data Fabric

    It’s all about the data infrastructure! You need robust data pipelines as part of your data fabric to seamlessly integrate any new AI offering as depicted in Figure 1. AND you must ensure data quality. For example, data quality is paramount when dealing with timestamps of customer communications. What time zone is your organizational standard? Do your IT systems work in that time zone, and do you know what systems provide timestamps in other formats or time zones? Is that true for any and all corporate acquisitions feeding data into the system? Is the system designed to handle the variety of daylight savings time scenarios? Are all the clocks adjusted for daylight savings automatically or manually? Finally, are the timestamp clocks aligned? To the second or to the minute?  It’s valuable to know if you can look at time as fact or approximation in your organization. If your organization is going through any type of digital transformation, it is critical to get the best advice available to ensure your success. Ensure your success by scheduling your inquiry with a TBW Advisors advisor before starting any critical phase of your digital transformation journey. Get the smartest advice available and leverage our firsthand experience to your advantage.

    Related playlists

    1. Whisper Report: How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure
    2. Conference Whispers: Customer Connect Expo 2025

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    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, 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.

  • Whisper Report: How can we enhance our cybersecurity measures to protect against emerging Cyber Physical threats? 

    Whisper Report: How can we enhance our cybersecurity measures to protect against emerging Cyber Physical threats? 

    Published to clients: May 20, 2025                                               ID: 2073

    Published to Readers: May 21, 2025

    Email Whispers: June 13, 2025  

    Video Edition: June 13, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    As cyber and physical security continue to merge, proactive, multi-layered strategies are essential to safeguard critical assets in interconnected environments. Secure data practices, including encryption for data in transit and at rest, during compute, and ensure compliance with high security standards. Architectural resilience is crucial, integrating cybersecurity from the outset rather than retrofitting outdated systems. Correlating physical and cyber events provides valuable context. Finaly, digitizing workflows streamlines response efficiency, minimizing the window of vulnerability during attacks.

    Target Audience Titles:

    • Chief Technology Officer, Chief Security Officer
    • Chief Information and Security Officer, VP of Cybersecurity
    • Director Cyber Physical Security, Security Analyst
    • Cybersecurity Engineer, Incident Response Analyst

    Key Takeaways

    • Data must be encrypted at rest, in transit, and during execution.
    • Cyber Physical security requires a securely designed architecture from the start.
    • Cyber and physical threats must be correlated.
    • Only a digitized workflow can respond with the required speed to cyber physical threats.

    Secure data

    As with all security, cyber physical security must also be concerned with, “ data security and encryption … that’s data in the device, data in transit, data in rest at the servers, and so all of those things we have the highest level standards and we also meet more advanced requirements, “ Bioconnect’s Edsel Shreve. The solution should be flexible enough to enable any data protection requirements that come into play. Edsel Shreve went on to further explain, “for example you need to do certificate rotation for things like TLS encryption So we can do those things not every customer wants them but those are the things that we’ve actually got in our system for the folks that have those higher level requirements so it really is the combination of how do we make sure that they’re cyber secure sitting on the network and then how do we make sure that they’re  physically and the data is secure on the on the readers and devices themselves.” In addition, TBW Advisors LLC recommends confidential computing architectures for protection and privacy during computations. For additional information see Industry Whispers: Public is Private – Confidential Computing in the Cloud.

    Secure Architecture

    Taking a 1968 mustang and updating it to 2025 safety standards would be quite the challenge and likely land up with an ugly beast that is neither safe nor resembling of a mustang. Cyber physical security is no different than safety. It must be thought of and integrated from the very beginning. As LVT’s Steve Lindsey explained, “it starts with architecture if we can rethink our architectures and we can start building for cyber security in mind.” The challenge of physical cyber security is that, “for the longest time in the physical security space we’ve been using on premise systems and as we’ve lifted and shifted those into the cloud ..  what complicates that is as we’re deploying these systems it’ not just cloud to end User, it’s Cloud to IoT (Internet of Things) device which is going through usually public cellular or satellite infrastructure itself and there’s other things that need to be done to address that” Steve Lindsey.


    Correlate Physical Cyber Events

    The real power of cyber physical security is the two areas working together to correlate events. Through correlation, context and a greater understanding is realized. An example shared by Advancis’ Paul Shanks demonstrates this best. “Someone loses their badge and falls out of their pocket and they’re logged into the network from home and their badge is used at the building. Those two  events by themselves are benign but we take that together and create a an alert for the operator to look into whether is it a Cyber attack or is it a physical attack.”

    Digitize Workflow

    As early as 2019 TBW Advisors LLC has been advising clients to automate security responses when possible for the simple fact you must. Ransomware attacks were already taking place within a 35-minute window. In 2025 the cyber physical attack vector also calls for automation or a digitized workflow at the very least. As Advancis’ Paul Shanks communicated, “we can take that and make that workflow digitized so that all they have to do is read click and go. Simple as that.”

    Related playlists

    1. Industry Whispers: Public is Private – Confidential Computing in the Cloud | TBW ADVISO RS
    2. Conference Whispers: Black Hat USA 2019
    3. Whisper Report: How can we enhance our cybersecurity measures to protect against emerging Cyber Physical threats? 
    4. Conference Whispers: ISC West 2025
    TBW Advisors LLC logo

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    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, 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.

  • Whisper Report: What are the biggest challenges of using generative AI in logistics?

    Whisper Report: What are the biggest challenges of using generative AI in logistics?

    Published to clients: April 28, 2025                                                            ID: 2058

    Published to Readers: April 29, 2025

    Published to Email Whispers: May 8, 2025

    Public: May 9, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    The logistics and supply chain sector faces significant challenges with data. Issues include non-existent data, inconsistent formats, manual errors, and lack of historical context. These problems stem from complex processes and resistance to change. Human-machine interaction adds another layer of complexity. Generic AI models struggle due to the unique demands of logistics. Despite these hurdles, there are opportunities for generative AI to enhance efficiency and provide valuable insights. Successful implementation requires accurate, context-rich data and a willingness to transform processes. Embracing AI can lead to improved operations and better decision-making in the logistics industry.

    Target Audience Titles:

    • Chief Supply Chain, Logistics Officer, Procurement, Technology, and Data Officers
    • Supply Chain, Logistics, Procurement, Technology, BI

    and Data Science Directors

    • ERP Specialist, Supply Chain IT, Data Scientists, BI and related managers

    Key Takeaways

    • Inconsistent, incomplete, and manually entered data hinder AI’s effectiveness.
    • Poorly structured processes and a reluctance to adopt AI-driven solutions slow innovation.
    • Onboarding new suppliers and standardizing systems remains difficult.
    • Generic AI models don’t understand logistics-specific challenges.
    Strategy rating 3 Tech depth 1

    Biggest challenge using Generative AI in Logistics??

    We took the most frequently asked and most urgent questions straight to the logistics and supply chain experts in the industry. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding the biggest challenges using generative AI in supply chain and logistics. The first challenge, however, is not unique to that industry nor is it unique to generative AI. This challenge applies to a all analysis and analytics including all forms of AI – generative or not regardless the size of the models. Put simply, no matter how many ways you state it, when you put garbage data in you will get garbage results.

    Tom Larson with ITS Logistics “bad inputs in = bad outputs.”

    Balaji Gunter with Hoptek, “case of garbage in garbage out.”

    Blake Donaldson with Nutrabolt, “quality of information.”

    Obrie Scarborough with Wolley Digital Innovations, “good in good out.”

    Jacob Hobbs with Cubiscan, “you are only as good as your data.”

    Additional research on technology available to help with getting and cleaning data in supply chain and logistics is available in Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025 and Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo.

    Challenges Unique to Logistics and Supply chain?

    Given the dominance of a common answer, this raises the question, is the sector of logistics and supply chain in worse shape versus other industries? More specifically, is the data itself within logistics and supply chain the problem and if so, why? Put simply and as depicted in Figure 1, the challenges go far beyond the data. As Don Addington of Cloud 9 Perception put it, “in logistics space there is a level of complexity that is more complex than others.” These complexities come in for the following reasons.

    Figure 1. Challenges using Generative AI in logistics

    Data doesn’t exist

    There is an ideal digital world which is very different from the physical world. As Owen Nicholson from Slamcore pointed out, “If you are not seeing real world deployments with all the gnarly things that go wrong you are only creating idealized models that don’t work in the real world.” Distribution centers are full of human and robot workers as well as machines from multiple manufacturers. Unlike construction, many of these machines are in the same building they entered at the start of their usefulness as brand new machines long before generative AI term existed. Logistics is not the neat and tidy world of fintech transactions.

    Data is inconsistent

    As Ben Tracy of Vizion pointed out, “(many) skipped a few fundament steps, being useful and being reliable…  They don’t monitor data quality, they don’t have consistency amongst data formats, and their systems are not exportable for the data that is inside of them.” Or what data professionals call it- ‘good old fashioned data quality’. To put it in the simplest terms possible, we all learned early in elementary school you need data in the same units to perform any math over the data. You do not add inches and feet together. You cannot add meters and feet together. You don’t speak globally about time without time zones. But perhaps most important, you cannot create data quality nor can you analyze data you haven’t or cannot export.

    Data is manual and miss-keyed

    If you are wondering how bad that data can be, Dawn Favier of Green Screens provided some hard facts, “its not uncommon to flag 35% of their (customers) data as dirty. Dirty meaning miss-keyed data, something tagged as full truck load when its partial.” Obviously, if one looked at data for a half truck and leveraged for a full truck, the resulting analytics are useless. With 35% of one’s data being dirty, there is work involved before you can even hope for insights.

    Data lacks historical context
    For any AI to be successful, you need massive amounts of data over a very small problem so the mathematics behind the AI can provide useful information. As Atit Shah of Chetu explained, “

    Even if you have the right collection of data, you can generate incorrect forecasting. A lot of people do not have a huge history or the history of the records so they go into the gen AI because everyone is doing it but it doesn’t meet their expectation.“ No matter how powerful the technology, all forms of AI need good data. Furthermore, the data must have context to be useful for any advance form of AI including generative AI.

    Bad Processes
    One obvious reason for messy data is the messy, manual, and imprecise or undefined processes it represents. The biggest challenge as Bill Driegert of Flexport shared, is simply, “not slapping it (generative AI) on bad processes. There needs to be a lot of process engineering required to leverage AI.”  If process re-engineering and establishing a clean data fabric is your organizations Mt. Everest, TBW Advisors LLC offers a lot of first-hand experience and expertise to teams and executive via inquiry. Any clients at this phase should schedule an inquiry to receive guidance. We will set up a plan of inquiries during your journey to give you any guidance we may have or can gather to assist you. The plan will cover milestones including but not limited to strategy reviews, presentation reviews, and architecture reviews. It is not an area to go through without a guide on your side even if the work is outsourced.

    Resistant to change

    It is always important to consider the culture of any organization when executing or desire to execute change management. As Erica Frank of Optimal Dynamics put it, “need to take a healthy assessment, how resistant are we to change, how are we going to challenge this from the top down.”  As with any change management, executive buy-in with a business objective are critical to success. AI for the sake of AI is always a bad idea.

    Perhaps the reason many in this space are resistant to change is the change is constant. As Jason Augustine of WNS put it, “Environment keeps changing every 3-6 months”. Thus discovering opportunities to align and integrate the transformational changes into these already occurring network constant changes is a less tumultuous approach.

    Human Machine Interaction

    Logistics, like manufacturing and construction, has a lot of machines in the loop. Those machines may or may not be intelligent machines. Thus as Dr. Mario Bjelonic of Rivr.ai shared, “the challenge will come up in terms of how the humans and robots will act as a team together.” Optimizing the total solution over this shared space is the true goal. But as one organization is optimized, what about working between each organization?

    As Justin Liu from Alibaba.com stated, “biggest challenge what it can do and what it cannot do

    is the on boarding suppliers cannot be done by AI”. That’s correct. Bringing each and every machine into the system, or each and every supplier and the complex of array of data that that suppliers managed to coalesce together IS ITSELF NOT standardized thus cannot be automated.

    Can’t use Generic Gen AI

    As Balaji Guntur of Hoptek pointed out, “Most of the models are very generalized.” “AI is data hungry, and you need to train it on real data. The biggest challenge Generative AI in logistics is that the generative models don’t know what logistics is doing. This is the main challenge,” Aviv Castro, Sensos. In summary, as best put by Nykaj Nair of Sugere, “you need data highly accurate data that is relative to the companies supply chain.”

    Opportunities for Generative AI in Logistics

    With all the challenges discussed, it may seem discouraging. It is important to realize the significant opportunity awaits thus easily providing business justification for the work to transform – carefully. As Justin Liu of Alibaba.com put it, “we are continuously adopting AI into our workflow into our latest and greatest features and functionalities to do their business more efficiently.” Rye Akervik of Shipsi believes the value is, “in adding it as a first layer to understand the (customer) issue.” Mick Oliver of Dexory shared, “We don’t see it as a challenge we see it as an opportunity and provide insights based on that data.” Rich Krul of Hoplite observed that the intelligent systems are, “way more efficient, people get their answers a little faster and thinks that is a good thing for the industry.” Most importantly as Georgy Melkonyan of Arnata pointed out, “Shouldn’t fear it (AI) is going to take your job, ai will not replace your job. The people that use ai are going to replace your job.”

    *When vendors’ names or quotes are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference or what we heard doing our research, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document.

    Related Research and Playlist

    1. Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the biggest challenges of using generative AI in logistics?
    3. Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Logistics Expo
    4. Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025

    Corporate Headquarters

    2884 Grand Helios Way

    Henderson, NV 89052

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, 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.

  • Industry Whispers: Public is Private – Confidential Computing in the Cloud

    Industry Whispers: Public is Private – Confidential Computing in the Cloud

    Join us for “Public is Private – Confidential Computing in the Cloud,” featuring Mike Bursell from the Confidential Computing Consortium and Manu Fontaine, founder of Hushmesh. This event will delve into the transformative potential of confidential computing for cloud environments. Aimed at CIOs, CTOs, enterprise architects, solution architects, and technical product managers, the discussion will cover how confidential computing enhances data security and privacy, even during processing. Learn about real-world applications, challenges, and future trends in this critical technology. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain insights from industry leaders and explore how to leverage confidential computing for your organization’s success.

    Research Code TBW2071

    Moderator: Dr. Doreen Galli, TBW Advisors

    Doreen Galli

    Chief of ResearchTBW Advisors LLC

    Dr. Doreen Galli is the Chief of Research at TBW Advisors LLC. She’s led significant and measurable changes as an executive at IBM, DPWN, Dell, ATT, and most recently Microsoft. Dr Galli was Chief Technology and Chief Privacy Officer in Azure’s MCIGET. Gartner recognized Dr. Galli as an expert in data ingestion, quality, governance, integration, management, and all forms and analytics including sensor data.

    Mike Bursell

    Executive DirectorConfidential Computing Consortium

    Mike Bursell is the Executive Director of the Confidential Computing Consortium, having been involved since its foundation in 2019, and Co- chair of the OpenSSF’s Global Cyber Policy working group. He is one of the co-founders of the open source Enarx project and was CEO and co- founder of the start-up Profian. He has previously served on the Governing Boards of the CCC and the Bytecode Alliance and currently holds advisory board roles with various start-ups. Previous companies include Red Hat, Intel and Citrix, with roles in security, virtualisation and networking. He regularly speaks at industry events in Europe, North America and APAC and has a YouTube channel dedicated to cybersecurity education. Professional interests include: Confidential Computing, Cyber Policy, the EU Cybersecurity Resilience Act (CRA), Linux, trust, open source software and community, security, decentralised and distributed systems, Web3, blockchain. Mike has an MA from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the Open University, and is author of “Trust in Computer Systems and the Cloud”, published by Wiley. He holds over 100 patents and previously served on the Red Hat patent review committee.

    Speaker Profile

    Manu Fontaine

    CEOHushmesh Inc

    Manu Fontaine is the Founder and CEO of Hushmesh, a dual-use Public Benefit cybersecurity startup in the Washington DC area. The company believes that people need safe code and authentic data, just like they need clean water and stable electricity. To deliver this, Hushmesh leverages Confidential Computing to develop and operate “the Mesh”: a global information space, like the Web, but with universal zero trust and global information security built in. Secured by the Universal Name System (UNS) and the Universal Certificate Authority (UCA), the Mesh provides global assurance of provenance, integrity, authenticity, reputation, confidentiality, and privacy for all information within it, at internet scale. Hushmesh is a NATO DIANA Innovator startup.

    Dr. Roy Fune

    Cannot make it live? Register and submit your question. The answer will be in the video on TBW Advisors’ YouTube Channel.

    NO AI note takers allowed. Event copyrighted by TBW Advisors LLC.

  • Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025

    Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025

    Las Vegas, NV March 3-6

    Published to clients: March 10, 2025

    Published to readers: March 11, 2025                   

    Published to Email Whispers: June 18, 2025

    Publicly Published with video edition: June 19, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): D. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    The gathering of Health Information and Management Systems Society, 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSS 2025 allowed over 28,000 attendees from 88 countries to gather. Discussions revolved around the pursuit of global health equity, the impact of digitization on revenue growth, and the importance of security in healthcare technology. Thought-provoking questions were raised about common household medical devices, and innovative solutions to improve patient access and operational efficiency were highlighted. The event centers on the intersection of technology and healthcare, emphasizing the need for secure, efficient, and patient-focus approaches to modern medical challenge.

    The Conference

    • The 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSSS 2025 saw over 28,000 attendees gathered with a net gain of over 2,000 attendees from the previous year.
    • The event spanned the Sands convention center at Venetian as well as leveraged the connector bridge and all of Caesars Forum.
    • Attendees titles spanned clinician, IT director, Chief Medical Officer, founder, investor, security analyst, to Chief Privacy officer.

    Cautions

    • At HIMSS the entire expo hall is treated as a patient operating room from a privacy perspective. Thus, if you want press coverage of any type, one must have executed all planning before the start of HIMSS. Press was not allowed to walk up and film attendees without prior authorization. Many first timers at HIMSS were caught off guard by this aspect.

    TAGS:

    ACH payments, aries fraud, aries fraud solutoins, consumer finance, drivers license, fintech, FM25, Fraud, Gitlab, Identiverse, Incentive.ai, Intellicheck, Interface.ai, Money 20/20, MoneyLion, Onbe, OnFido, payments, phone intelligence, Provenir, risk decisioning, Security Metrics, socure, Thetaray, Wysh

    Conference Vibe

    Every event has their own personality and HIMSS 2025, the conference for Health Information and Management Systems Society or HIMSS annual gathering is no different. In Healthcare, data privacy is not just about protecting data. As attendees regularly shared, health data represents a patient’s whole body, a patient’s being, a patient’s life history, the data represents the patient’s life – not to mention individuals can be fined for making mistakes. Thus, one might expect, HIMSS25 was a very, very private conference. A huge no cameras sign welcomed all to the expo hall and Press were required to be prebriefed and reminded multiple times, no advance permission, no video. As a point of comparison, our video to time on site ratio was 50% of what we were able to achieve at CES. Nonetheless, we were able to work with the system and bring you a whopping 37 videos and over 110 minutes of video, endless shorts to enjoy, and research for 4 different research documents including this one. The Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025 playlist is available on our channel for you to enjoy.

    HIMSS welcomed 28,000 attendees to see more than X exhibits and y sessions with over Z startups represented. The energy was quite high as all awaited the show’s opening and the registration lines moved quickly. The Sphere, right next door, even put on a wild psychedelic show to welcome all. Finally, the moment arrived all were waiting for when the Expo Hall Opened. Food could be found for purchase at both locations. The Venetian had their Bistro open with multiple locations throughout the event. Much like SEMA, the Venetian Expo leveraged the bridge connecting it to Caesars Forum which also hosted HIMSS. For those that were at Caesar’s Forum, food was available at the café known as cash-concessions.

    We were able to conduct research for three forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.

    1. Whisper Report: How can AI be effectively integrated into healthcare systems?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the best practices for enhancing cybersecurity in healthcare?
    3. Whisper Report:  How can telemedicine be optimized to improve patient care?

    Sessions and Deep Dives

    Due to the restrictive privacy nature of the conference, we could not record any keynotes and sessions were limited but we were still able to capture great research. First, enjoy the press Q&A session held by HIMSS very own President and CEO Hal Wolf. This session covered the gambit including HIMSS instrumental role in ensuring citizens around the world achieve health equity. Their mission is independent of any specific government. He has high hopes that private organizations will step in to compensate for any globally shifting landscapes. TBW Advisors was excited to say that we were able to secure HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf’s answer for the Whisper Report based on Question 1 and Question 2 above. These answers are presented separately from the primary session video. Hal Wolf’s answers to Question 1 and Question 2 are in their respective playlists.

    The Alexander Group provided their framework in the session titled, “From Strategy to Success: Rel World Go To Market Studies”.  This session provided their framework for revenue growth in healthcare through digitizing. The framework nicely summarizes the primary objectives of current investment areas that are occurring within healthcare to grow revenue. The session included a specific case study to drive the point home. The session, “Revolutionizing Healthcare: The AI Powered Stethoscope? During this session, Minttihealth CEO Xiaong Zou left attendees with one important question. “Why is there a thermometer in every home but not a stethoscope!?” For those seeking to secure and extended resilience across endpoints used to manage care and smart technologies, Absolute Security provided a session on a model to secure the health enterprise. Specifically, they leveraged a healthcare model to minimize risk into IT Security.

    Front Office AI Applications

    In healthcare, standard business operations are separate from technologies leveraged to provide healthcare. While both may deal with health data, health operations are significantly riskier and more restrictive. There were innovations serving both aspects of the healthcare system at HIMSS. On the front office side, we found one of those technologies you hope the next doctor you see with has deployed. Relatient’s focus is on enabling patient self-scheduling, even for new patients without using the Patient Portal. No more hold time and spending hours trying to get into the doctors’ office. Relatient purports Practices leveraging the technology have realized 70% of self-scheduling are brand new patients with 30% making their appointments after hours. Xcaliber shared their agentic AI solution for healthcare which can anchor to any of your organization’s data stores. Problems they solve include prior authorization and discharge summaries. Aisera is another agentic AI solution for Healthcare with three separate fully developed ontologies for healthcare ready to go. Aisera purports it is designed to leverage agentic AI to build out new workflows opening the doors to endless possibilities.

    Healthcare Support Applications

    When you move from the front office of healthcare to the back office, many things change. Even the keyboards and mice must be different so they can be sanitized. Fortunately, Man & Machine has waterproof and washable keyboards and mice available. The mice can even be dipped in 10% bleach! Warning, do not try that at home with your equipment!

    Keyboards are not the only devices to support providing health,  doctors leverage many handheld devices. Stethoscopes, blood pressure meters, glucose meters and the likes. Telemedicine and AI are also impacting these medical devices. In turn, these medical devices are also becoming more intelligent and capable of provide remote and real-time data such as those now available by Minttihealth. For those in cybersecurity, at this point your head might start to spin at the possibilities of it all. Have no fear, there were many providers on hand to help including Absolute Security. Absolute Security solutions aim to ensure those end points such as tablet and PC’s in use are secure and resilient.

    Some of those endpoints are more expensive than others. Some may be huge expensive machines. Keeping track of all those assets and ensuring the safety of staff require an intelligent location solution. Cognosos provides an infrastructure light, location intelligence solution for your assets – man or machine.

    Moving on to the care side and practitioner support, Evidently provides clinical summarization and decision support created leveraging actual clinicians. Notice it is a decision support tool as the clinician is ultimately responsible for taking care of the patient. We often refer to this as Human in the Loop or HIL. One interesting capability of Evidently is to provide a very clear line where facts originated. This makes it easy for the clinician to decide to agree or disagree with the technology’s suggestion, ultimately building trust.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    HIMSS 2026 conference will once again be held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The announced dates are March 9-13, 2026.

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025

    Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025

    Published to clients: February 19, 2025                                               ID: 2056        

    Published to readers: February 20, 2025              

    Published to Email Whispers: May 28, 2025

    Publicly Published with video edition: May 29, 2025

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    Manifest 2025 allowed over 6,000 attendees to see more than 1,500+ shippers +1200+ startups and investors + 300 Speakers with over 50 countries represented. Key highlights included a case study on supplier globalization, a new AI tool for supply chain communication, and comprehensive logistics solutions. A new international bridge, opening in Fall 2025, promises to streamline trade between the USA and Canada. Innovations in urban deliveries, last-mile solutions, and digital verification were also presented. Advances in data and inventory management were demonstrated, along with AI-driven solutions aimed at optimizing logistics. The event emphasized the industry’s move towards digitization and automation.

    The Conference

    • Manifest 2025 allowed over 6,000 attendees to see more than 1,500+ shippers, 1200+ startups and investors, and 300 Speakers with over 50 countries represented.

    Cautions

    If you were speaking on stage, the terms and conditions of the conference meant that no one, even members of the press, were able to capture even a minute of any session. It is hoped next year the conference will adopt more standard T&C. In the meantime, we did capture some session summaries from speakers.

    Conference Vibe

    After more than 60 videos, endless shorts forthcoming, and research for 4 different research documents including this one, our coverage of Manifest 2025 closes. Manifest 2025 allowed over 6,000 attendees to see more than 1,500+ shippers, 1200+ startups and investors, and 300 Speakers with over 50 countries represented.  The Expo Hall* was full of suppliers across the supply chain and logistics. The event featured a full breakfast as well as a Waffle Station. One could also purchase their breakfast or coffee at the Venetian Bistro. If you were still hungry, it wasn’t long before the extensive lunch was also available. Admittedly, the dedicated pasta station was also a huge hit with the attendees. However, of all the conference food available at the Venetian, it is their desserts that are always the biggest of hit – yes they taste as good as they look! If logistics and supply chain are in your interest area, enjoy and save the entire Manifest playlist so you will be notified when related shorts are posted as well. If you are not a client, it is even more critical you like your favorite videos, so we understand what technology you are most interested in seeing us capture.

    The event opened on Monday with a lot of energy and select sessions. The registration lines moved quickly. Unfortunately, we were not able to record any sessions due to the terms and conditions of the conference. Many sponsors seemed quite upset and are hoping this is fixed for future years. We were able to conduct research for three forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.

    1. Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the biggest challenges of using generative AI in logistics?
    3. Whisper Report: Can generative AI prevent supply chain disruptions?

    Moving Products

    One persistent truth at any conference on supply chain and logistics, there is a knowledge set shared strictly about getting things from point A to point B. While the T&C of the conference meant no one could capture the sessions, we were able to get an exclusive overview of the Super Shipper Case Study by Alibaba straight from the executive at Alibaba.com. Titled, “Shipper Case Study, Globalization of Suppliers” announced several solutions for finding sources. The selections are customizable, extensive, b2b, and are meant to enable optimized scale for even the most sophisticated, and dynamic shipping environments of 2025. A new AI support communication tool, AXCIO, was announced that enables a conversational interface for your supply chain and logistics needs. Alibaba.com marketplace has also received significant update for its fulfilment capabilities particularly for cross border fulfilment. Capabilities include direct access to the logistics marketplace with the ability to get real-time live quotes.

    With explicit and extensive hubs in Reno, Dallas, and Atlanta, ITS shared their end-to-end logistics capabilities and solutions. If you happen to be a freight carriers and your questions is how best to move freight from A to B  – Optimal Dynamics has software designed to help you answer that question if you should use your assets or those of others. Nothing saves time going from point A to point B like a direct route! The Gordie Howe International Bridge announced it is opening Fall of 225. Connecting I-75 in the USA directly to Highway 401 in Canada minus 7 traffic lights!  This new direct route will save time and money through the busiest commercial land border crossing between the USA and Canada.

    Urban deliveries can be difficult and are frequently burdened with the congestion of the population. An exciting solution by Aeroscraft was on exhibit. Aeroscraft is an EVTOL – electric, vertical take-off and landing – like INVO EVTOL we saw at CES. In contrast to INVO, the Aeroscraft is a not a flying saucer for personal transport but rather a Blimp with the smallest model capable of a 9-ton payload – yes 9 tons.

    Furthermore, it launches with a fleet of drones, their chargers, their operators, and massive payload. Once above the urban area, the drone operators get busy with line-of-sight capability delivery packages to the urban area below without adding to traffic! For additional research on drones, see Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo.

    Another challenging space involves delivering small products and the last mile. Hailify is a tech company that focuses on last mile of packages smaller than 2 shoe boxes and under 20 pounds. They focused heavily on the integration for small regional delivery. Likewise, TUSK provides an integrated network of the 9 top tier carriers into a single API, unified pick-up, contracts, everything creating a simple process to leverage multiple logistic solutions. Once you accomplish that last mile, the challenge for many solutions involves the last 10 feet. In theory, the network can be fully automated but how do you get the package from the vehicle to the person expecting the delivery? River.ai demonstrated their fully autonomous solution that can climb any stairs in any weather to take a package from a truck and hand it to a human expecting the delivery or accept a package from the human. That leaves one critical step left – verifying that the recipient and the related supply chain documents are accurate. Fortunately, the expo hall featured Trustd,  a digital verification and identity platform designed for supply chain and logistics.. This solution enables not only verification of humans but document identity as well. Trustd provided an exclusive overview of their talk to TBW Advisors. In their session, “Platform Security in the age of Fraud”, Trustd explained why it is not only critical to verify the carrier, but all of the ‘paperwork’ must be authenticated. Was there supposed to be 3 crates or 6? How many crates did they pick up? Getting that information wrong can be expensive and crime rings have targeted this space. Additional research on Identity and Access Management is available in Conference Whispers: Identiverse 2024.

    Clean Data and Digitization

    During our coverage of Conference Whispers: ConExpo in 2023, we observed the fundamental advantages of construction over manufacturing for digital transformation. Thus, we were very interested to understand the progress being made in supply chain and logistics towards cleaning up the data and digitization. As a first step, one can add intelligence to your existing forklifts with Slamcore. Their solution doesn’t require new forklifts but adds a camera, related sensors, and intelligent platform to suddenly provide forklift visibility to your facility. Barcode scanning and related manual data entry is frequently another troubled data spot – unless you have the right technology. The complex array of barcode layouts can make it extremely difficult to efficiently capture the alphanumeric text. This information represents the inventory and must be digitized accurately. Cloud 9 provided TBW Advisors LLC with an exclusive demonstration how their solution can efficiently handle this complex array of barcodes in the logistics space. Data regarding the size and weight accuracy of inventory is one of the critical pieces of data required in the logistics space. Cubiscan was one of the solutions exhibited that shared their approach involving sensors, cameras, and some intelligent algorithms to provide you what you need.

    Not sure if the address is accurate and want to ensure the recipient didn’t move? Woolpert Digital Innovations is a Google location partner and can help you integrate with anything and everything Google offers in this space. Want to go more granular? Sensos shared their exciting innovations that help one track not only package’s location, but the condition of the package in transport with the convenience of a tiny label that has embedded cellular! As a former AT&T strategist, this capability used to come in something analogous to in size and agility matched only by the original brick cellular phones!

    Inventory is a critical data space in supply chain and logistics. Fortunately 2025 includes autonomous inventory solutions such as the exciting solution from Dane Technologies. Such solutions leverage cameras for each shelf and autonomous technology to navigate the warehouse. Understanding the limits and how they match to your inventory is critical to select the right solution for your warehouse. We were also able to catch the demonstration of Dexory robot in action on the exhibit floor. Of course if you do not want to do inventory but rather pick the inventory for a customer order, then Brightpick is someone to evaluate. Leveraging drones for inventory management vs a moving robot, the Swiss Tech solution by Verity is something to also consider if you are seeking to get efficient clean inventory data.

    If one prefers to just bring someone in to assist in cleaning up the data space, plenty of integrators were also on hand. WMS specializes in business process management for the supply chain space. WMS capabilities include digitizing everything to prepare and leverage the new generation of logistic intelligent solutions. 4flow is another example of someone that was available to enable digital transformation in this sector.

    AI, Robotics, and Automation

    If an organization is fortunate enough to have their end-to-end data clean enough for AI, there are solutions ready to help you become optimal! Want predictive capabilities for freight costs and visibility to your buying power? Greenscreens.ai is a truly predictive solution with an impressive accuracy rate. Vizion provides container intelligence, tracking, and monitoring through its comprehensive consolidated APIs for most freight carriers. The goals are accuracy in arrival time. For those with clean data and seeking to move all the way to agentic AI in logistics, Arnata shared their solution. If you have a factory full of robots and you simply want to know where they all are on a single pane of glass? InOrbit.ai is all about simplifying robot orchestration and giving you that exact unified view. We have exclusive interview with Dexory to understand how their inventory visibility robot works. TBW Advisors LLC was also able to capture an exclusive description regarding the capabilities of Rivr.ai that isn’t stumped by the stairs leading up to your front door! Admittedly, of all the autonomous solutions, the most jaw dropping was the loading of a semi-truck trailer in 5 minutes flat. From the financial reduction of risk to the lessoning of burden on hard-to-find workers, a case study on Slip Robotics in a distribution center would be quite an interesting read.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    The Manifest 2026 conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The announced dates are February 9-11, 2026.

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: APPEX & SEMA  2024

    Conference Whispers: APPEX & SEMA  2024

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Published: November 12, 2024                    ID: 2054

    Readers: November 13, 2024

    Email Whispers: April 5, 2025

    ABSTRACT

    After 25 flights of stairs, over 35,000 steps and almost 280 minutes of recording, our coverage of AAPEX and SEMA closes. AAAPEX and SEMA are two different shows that take place at the same time. Together the two shows hosted 160,000 attendees, 2,400 brands, 1400 vehicles across 1.2 million net feet of exhibits. AAPEX specializes in automotive aftermarket replacement parts. In contrast, SEMA focuses on specialty equipment manufacturing that enhance safety, performance, styling, comfort, and convenience of cars, trucks and SUVs. The technology at AAPEX & SEMA spanned pressure, temperature, and oxygen sensors to technology to run the shop to marketing solutions.

    Highlights

    • The technology at AAPEX and SEMA focused on the variety of sensors available to build products to the technology to run the shop or to market the business.

    Cautions

    • Important to realize that technology at a non-technology conference is just a sample of the technology available. Common technologies such as those for marketing can just as easily be leveraged for other SMBs. Likewise, there may be similar solutions that did not come to the specialty industry conference.

    Conference Vibe

    After 25 flights of stairs, over 35,000 steps and almost 280 minutes of recording resulting in 28 videos and a few hundred shorts forthcoming, our coverage of AAPEX and SEMA closes. AAAPEX and SEMA are two different shows that take place at the same time. Together the two shows hosted 160,000 attendees, 2,400 brands, 1400 vehicles across 1.2 million net feet of exhibits. AAPEX, Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo, specializes in automotive aftermarket replacement parts. AAPEX was held at the Venetian. They hosted the new products showcase in the halls outside the exhibitions. The lower-level expo hall hosted Joe’s Garage, wheels, parts for EVs, and the podcasters media row*. APPEX upper-level expo had a variety of lubricants, oil, headlights, taillights, lights simply for tailgating and all things that make vehicles smell good. Food could be found at the Venetian Bistro or the Grab-n-go also at the Venetian. An outdoor beer garden could be found on the way to Caesars Forum connected by a handy walkway. Caesars also hosted exhibits for AAPEX specifically featuring products from China and Taiwan. Caesars’ Forum is connected to a Monorail station that can take one to the Las Vegas convention center for SEMA. Note: Caesars’ Forum is not located at Caesars’ Palace Casino.

    SEMA, Specialty Equipment Market Association, focuses on specialty equipment that enhances safety, performance, styling, comfort, and convenience of cars, trucks, and SUVs. SEMA took place at the Las Vegas Convention Center with its own eateries. SEMA West Hall was full of attachments for pick-up trucks to hold or tow any recreational or sporting equipment one could imagine, film to keep the sun out or wrap to change the vehicle color. A walkway from West Hall connects to LVCC Central Hall or one could ride the Vegas Loop. SEMA Central Hall hosted exhaust, gears, batteries, fuel injection solutions, any engine part one could imagine, transmissions and garage flooring. SEMA South Upper featured power solutions and lifts and collision repair. SEMA South Lower exhibits displayed various propulsion technologies, wheels, rims, and tailgating lights. Seeking to see custom cars? Head to the outdoor exhibits in the parking lots.         

    *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.

    Technology and Data Finds

    At TBW Advisors LLC we care most about Technologies and data solutions. The first stop is all about sustainability, a popular topic in any senior staff meeting. If your organization has a fleet of electric vehicles, a portable electric vehicle charger by Ampure may be something to evaluate. No longer needing to find a charging station, this portable charger can leverage any standard outlet and get your EV running! Likewise, when you get your fleet serviced, it may be easier to track your organization’s numbers if the service center leverages Sustainable estimatics by Solera that enables shops to provide carbon footprint estimate for all repairs.

    The second technology stop is all about sensors! MTE is one example of a vendor on hand that shared their oxygen, pressure, and temperature sensors. While smart manufacturing consultants were present, they all turned out to be camera shy. except for Bosch. Bosch had exhibits in multiple Expo Halls across the event. We were able to catch their talk on leveraging vision positioning to improve calibrations. The geospatial data content admittedly gave us flashback to our coverage of Commercial UAV Expo. Another talk discussing leveraging 3d data scanning to significantly save time on custom parts was given on the central stage.

    The third pillar of technology found at AAPEX and SEMA involves software running the shop. We had already mentioned Solera with their sustainable estimatics, ALLDATA is a one stop shop for OEM repair instructions for 95% of all vehicles on the road today. Shopmonkey is a cloud-based solution to run all your automotive bays from scheduling, estimating, inspecting to handling payments. If you are seeking an intelligent automated solution to run your automotive shop, then R.O. WRITER will even ensure you have maintained profits and all your service writers function as your best.

    The final technology stop was all about digital marketing, a topic heavily covered during our analysis of Adobe Summit. Optimize is a general digital marketing solution for any small or medium sized business. Their specialty is handling your google search page, your Facebook and your yelp, ensuring you show up on searches. Autoshop Solutions is a firm specializing in marketing for the aftermarket companies from the website, to search engine optimization to help you find your next customers. On the other end of the spectrum, Epicor Automotive Sector featured an advanced data aggregation solution including ERP and CRM.

    Next Year’s Conference

    Next year’s AAPEX and SEMA will be held in Las Vegas at the Venetian, Caesars Forum, and the Las Vegas Convention Center on November 4-8, 2025.

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking , The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo 2024

    Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo 2024

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photographer: Dr. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    After 12 hours of standing and over 200 minutes of taping, 40 videos and a few hundred shorts forthcoming, our coverage of the Commercial UAV Expo closes. The Commercial UAV Expo 2024 had over 3,000 attendees, Y exhibits and Z keynotes. The attendees travelled from over ZZ countries. The Expo had exhibits and keynotes on how to become a drone pilot to the drones themselves. There were countless examples of the latest technology in all types of UAVs and UASs, including the sensors and equipment they carry. The expo also showcased solutions for remotely operating and managing drone fleets, as well as advanced methods for analyzing geospatial data.

    Highlights

    • Information was provided across the vertical and horizontal spectrum for UAVs, UAS. Note: few were fully autonomous and would be referred to more accurately as remote-controlled helicopters, drones, and marine vehicles.

    Cautions

    • One must understand the use case to select the correct drone or solution route if one doesn’t want to take on the training burden internally.

    Conference Vibe

    After 12 hours of standing and over 200 minutes of taping, 40 videos and a few hundred shorts forthcoming, our coverage of the Commercial UAV Expo closes. The Commercial UAV Expo 2024 had over 3,000 attendees and was one of two conferences held at Caesars Forum not to be confused with Caesars Palace a stroll away. Everything seemed very organized with no significant registration lines on Wednesday morning. Attendees arrived from across the global and each was invited to put a pin on the map to represent where they traveled to attend. For those that had a full event pass, boxed lunches were available; we were able to catch videos of the boxed lunches Wednesday as well as Thursday. The exhibition hall* was open on Tuesday for cocktails, as well as Wednesday and Thursday. Overall, the expo had exhibits and talks on how to become a drone pilot to the drones themselves. There were endless examples of the latest technology in every type of UAV or UAS, to the sensors or equipment they may carry, to solutions to remotely operate and manage fleets of drones to advance solutions for analyzing geospatial data.

    Becoming a Drone Pilot

    One hot topic at the Commercial UAV Expo is getting enough pilots for the industry as most technology today is remote controlled versus truly autonomous. An entire aisle in the exhibit hall was dedicated towards pilot schools including the Pilot Institute. The Pilot Institute even has a free class for those just getting started with a hobby license. Dan Tartaglia from Droneability shared his lessons learned from his journey as a recreational drone pilot to a commercial pilot with his own company. Paul Rossi shared detailed information on his methodology for a pathway to professional drone pilot. Meanwhile, another session by FlyGuys highlighted that if you have a license and equipment, they will hold our hands and give you the settings if needed to help drone pilots to get experience on a 1099 basis.

    Drones

    As one might expect, commercial drones were absolutely the highlight of Commercial UAV Expo. Many drones, like those of Swiss Air are remote-control helicopters. SwissDrones had their remote-controlled helicopter on exhibit along with Phoenix Air Group who manages a fleet of pilots across the US flying Swiss Air Drones. If you might have to travel somewhere before you fly your commercial drone, A2Z drones shared their 4 models during the Press Briefing. A2Z drones also had an extensive display sharing these collapsable charging docks as well as their release hook for packages. Attis Aviation introduced the new ROC VTOL UAV drone with extensive sensors leveraged for firefighting during the Press Competition. During the same event, Drones Amplified demonstrated how their drones are leveraged to create prescribed fires and backburns.

    For the healthcare industry, DrUber shared their solution during the press competition. Dr Uber can be leveraged for cross town emergencies be it organs or blood supplies. If weather interferes with your commercial operations, SwellPro, the pioneer of waterproof drones, was happy to share their solution with you. Of course, if one desired a fully automated drone, one of the more famous consumer manufacturers, DJI shared their Matrice 3d Fully autonomous drone. For the entertainment industry, we found the exciting drone shows. Not just any show but the drones that enable pyrotechnics plus drone lights by Pablo Air.

    The military use case is of course on top of everyone’s mind at the Commercial UAV show. If you were seeking paper or cardboard drones, you were in luck! Often referred to as blue drones, US military drones are not allowed to have components from outside of NATO countries. Harris Aerial shared their NDAA certified drones in the exhibit hall. The press competition shared impressive drone tech from Ukraine. Likewise, the exclusive provider of drones to Israel until 2027, Rhino Drones was also in the competition.  

    Finally, if you want a one stop shop and expect to need a variety of drones or perhaps prefer to lease them, then Exhibitors such as Blue Skies Drones, that manufactures and sells others’ drones was on hand. Frontier Drones provided an extensive tour of their exhibit. As an organization, they represent over 30 different manufacturers.

    Drone Components and attachments

    The key to the success of the industry is working together. Successful integration and successful collaboration dictate agreement on how things work or standards. The drone pilot hub featured a talk on establishing standards to ensure quality. One safety measure that was popular was drone parachutes which are required to enable flight over people in the USA. One vendor, VSS was involved in the press competition. Parazero Drone recover system was on exhibit and demonstrated how the parachute is as easy as buckling a seat belt to attach.

    Drones requiring satellite communication could leverage Gotonomi who presented in the Press competition. Ultrafast optical tracking technology was shared by SixdofSpace. Their optical tracking technology can be leveraged for landing UAVs or UASs. LiDar systems are popular cargo on UAVs but there are so many variations it can make you head spin. One attempt which looks promising is by Balko Tech who shared their Connectiv Modular LiDar solution. Many distributors were validating this solution internally – it will be exciting to see how it plays out!

    A new occurrence due to drones use in warzones is the requirement to operate even if GPS is jammed or spoofed. Annello Photonics shared their Silicon Photonics Optical Gyroscope (SiPhOGTM). It is the world’s smallest gyroscope on a chip which enables robust navigation that is reliable even in such hostile GPS contested environments. Another challenge of commercial real-world solutions like War is range. Range anxiety is as real for drones as it is for electric car owners. Gas solutions are as loud as a flying lawn mower. How do you triple the range of a UAV? The exciting news is that the UAV industry has a solution in hydrogen engines. Intelligent Energy provided TBW Advisors LLC with a detailed walk around of their hydrogen energy cells. Not only is the range better but hydrogen cells and hydrogen weigh must less over other energy solutions leaving more space for cargo and sensors.

    Fleets

    At the enterprise or sovereign level, there is an additional level of management required. SparrowHawk can identify UAVs in your airspace – friendly or hostile! flytebase provides an enterprise done autonomy software and platform for advanced field placement. Together it enables complete remote management of one’s fleet of drones. If you are seeking to manage the drones, missions and airspace with one piece of software, Anra Technologies shared their effortless solution. For enterprises just looking to get started and have no idea what drone is appropriate let alone how to build the entire solution to get the mission accomplished, Attis Aviation was in the exhibit hall to share their story of helping customers realize their UAV solutions.

    Geospatial Data

    Geospatial data is an exciting area within data that is critical for UAVs. Geospatial data has to do with the real world and is three-dimensional information about a space. Geospatial data is considered time-based data related to that exact location on earth. GeoCue shared their out of the box LP360 solution for evaluating LiDar information. This enables organizations to take the information from the LiDar and processes providing information that humans recognize and can leverage. Sense Aeronautics took great pride in their drone video analytics solution and its ability to recognize humans or cars coming into the monitored scene. Assetta has a specialty solution to detect red tide when spotted by drones. Dat/em also specialized in drone’s famous stereo image and makes it useful for customers, providing a coherent image as expected by clients. Finally, those that just want the data and don’t want to mess around with drones or getting the data useful, FlyGuys is a (DSP) data service provider that provides that exact service!

    Next Year’s Conference

    Next year’s Commercial UAV Expo will be once again held at Caesars Forum on September 2-4, 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, 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.

  • Conference Whispers: CONEXPO-CON/AGG & IFPE 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

    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conexpo-Con/Agg
    2. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-cases-surpass-1000-us-tsa-agents-test/story?id=69525688
    3. https://youtu.be/IbvC4mMd-l8
    4. https://youtu.be/_jZawl8zD0I
    5. https://youtu.be/btAlIcG9rEw
    6. https://youtu.be/dzjPV2WrXY8
    7. https://youtu.be/t1BLnp0iNNg
    8. https://youtu.be/MG2R9badaW4
    9. https://youtu.be/_jZawl8zD0I
    10. https://youtu.be/Xgl0z1xQZGc
    11. https://youtu.be/oI4phMkytB0
    12. https://youtu.be/QbbkZl4u-04
    13. https://youtu.be/EFx-SqwNDMw

    ©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.

  • Whisper Report: Business Agility Requires Modern Data Management

    ABSTRACT

    Business agility is a must during these pandemic times. Business agility requires data-driven decisions. Data-driven decision making requires data agility and the modernization of data management to enable business-led analytics. The most common, successful, and scalable data management modernizations involve data virtualization, IPaaS, and data hub technologies to provide a data layer.