An On-the-Ground Report from Adobe’s Premier Digital Experience Conference
INTRODUCTION
The 2023 edition of Adobe Summit was another blockbuster event from the company that is changing the world through digital experiences by helping its customers create, deliver, and optimize content and applications. It was a global physical/ virtual event with innovative keynotes, 498 speakers, more than 200 sessions and training workshops across 10 content tracks, and networking activities. It was a unique opportunity to join a community of Experience Makers worldwide to learn, be inspired, and make connections.
The Adobe Summit 2023 was spread across three days (Mar 21st to Mar 23rd) with two additional days of Preconference training on Mar 19th and 20th. The three days at the Summit were full of opportunities to get inspired and build connections through Innovation Super Sessions, keynotes, and Sneaks.
Adobe Summit is known to deliver extraordinary content, and it sure did. The hands-on labs taught by product experts and inspirational sessions presented by leaders of top brands and luminaries across industries were top-notch. Most conference activities happened Venetian Convention and Expo Center.
The hub of Summit was the Community Pavilion, where all the action was, like all the latest product features, snag sponsor offers and giveaways, and talk with solution experts at the Adobe booth.
Opening Keynote
Adobe Chairman and CEO Shantanu Narayen opened the event with his keynote speech. He spoke about delivering profitable, experience-led growth with Adobe’s innovations in personalization at scale and generative AI for business. He was joined by Anil Chakravarthy, President, Digital Experience Business Adobe, with executives from Eli Lilly, T-Mobile, Prudential Financial, and more, as they shared their innovations for creating exceptional customer experiences that build connections, grow trust, and drive business growth.
Sneaks
This was one of the main attractions of the Summit, which showcases and provides a sneak peek at what’s new and next at Adobe Labs and presents the demos of features that may be in store for Adobe Experience Cloud. The sneaks were hosted by Eric Matisoff, Principal Evangelist for Analytics & Platform at Adobe, with over fifteen years of digital experience working with data and visualizations. Eric works with Adobe’s largest accounts to help align their business strategies to the vision Adobe has defined for data ingestion, analysis, and action. This year the special guest for Sneaks was Tig Notaro, an Emmy and Grammy-nominated stand-up comedian, writer, radio contributor, and actor, as well as a favorite on numerous talk shows, including The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and Ellen.
Project Custom Clips – Stefano Petrangeli, Sr. Research Scientist, Adobe, presented the tool to create impactful marketing videos based on the appropriate channel and audience. Project custom clips help marketers create videos in just a few clicks. You can access the on-demand video here.
Project PathWise – Nikaash Puri, Senior Machine Learning Research Scientist at the Media and Data Science Research Lab in Adobe, provided a sneak peek to project Pathwise. Cross-channel campaign execution can take several weeks to execute. Adobe’s “Path Wise” can reduce this effort significantly. PathWise uses machine learning to simulate how much traffic each touchpoint within a customer journey will receive, leveraging data from the Adobe Experience Platform. You can access the on-demand video here.
Project Limitless Options – Dej Mejia, Staff Experience Designer at Adobe, provided a sneak peek at a new tool that seamlessly delivers personalized content via Adobe Journey Optimizer, enabling marketers to quickly create, iterate, and launch personalized campaigns and content. “Limitless Options” is powered by Adobe Firefly generative AI technology. You can access the on-demand video here.
Project Side by Side – Richie Preece – Sr. Software Engineer, Adobe, showcased a genuinely collaborative analytics experience called “Side by Side.” The tool enables synchronized report updates and visibility of who is looking at the report and actively viewing the project. It allows cross-functional teams to log into the same tasks and collaborate with Adobe Customer Journey Analytics for product teams. You can access the on-demand video here.
Project Fast Filtered – Ronald Oribio, Sr. Software Engineer, Adobe, gave a sneak peek of “Fast Filtered,” a feature that simplifies the online shopping experience using Adobe Sensei AI. It analyzes any Adobe Commerce storefront category to identify common and unique product details, ranging from measurements and colors to materials and key features. It allows users to apply their choice of filters to surface valuable data. You can access the on-demand video here.
Project Segment Smart – Jennifer Qian, Practice Lead, Solutions Consulting, Adobe, gave a sneak look into “Segment Smart,”; a tool that empowers Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) content owners to identify the best audiences for existing content based on behavioral modeling. It does this by capturing data from Adobe Content Analytics and Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform. You can access the on-demand video here.
Project True Colors – Dej Mejia, Staff Experience Designer, Adobe, presented Project True Colors. This tool enables Adobe Commerce shoppers to find clothing products and color palettes that best suits their tastes. While allowing a shopping experience for everyone, it also enables commerce merchants with the ability to deliver personalized experiences. This usage of data for inclusive purposes improves shopping for everyone. You can access the on-demand video here.
Industry Keynotes
Adobe Sensei GenAI helps you connect with more customers, humanize conversational experiences, and create audiences and journeys with exponential productivity. The industry keynote around Adobe Sensei GenAI, Adobe’s generative AI for Adobe Experience Cloud, saw the industry’s eminent leaders and innovators discuss the challenges they face in the ever-changing world and the opportunities they bring to the future. Adobe President, Digital Experience Business, Anil Chakravarthy welcomed Lisa Su, Chair and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., and Aaron Sorkin, Academy Award-winning writer, director, and playwright, in this session.
Innovation Super Sessions
Loni Stark, VP of Experience Manager and Commerce, Adobe, Meg Knauth, VP of Digital, T-Mobile, and Jennifer Small, Principal Solutions Consultant, Adobe, discussed how businesses must evolve to meet the digital economy’s demands in their session Commerce Made Personal. It had a total of six sessions. These exclusive sessions let the audience dive deeply into the latest product innovations with Adobe leaders and customers.
In the session titled Scale Your B2B Organization with Next-Generation Experiences, Amit Ahuja, SVP, Experience Cloud, Platform & Products, Adobe, Karen Hopkins, Global CMO, EY, Brian Glover, Sr. Director, Product Marketing & Strategy, B2B Marketing, Adobe, and Bridget Burne, Principal Solution Consultant, Digital Experience, Adobe discussed how Adobe’s B2B offerings could help marketers advance their personalization, campaign velocity, lead and account qualification, and routing and attribution automation efforts.
How Adobe is Transforming Omnichannel Customer Engagement had Sundeep Parsa, VP of Experience Platform, Real-time Customer Data Platform and Customer Journey, Adobe, Ajay Kapoor, Global Director, Performance Driven Marketing, General Motors, and Kara Kelley, Principal Solutions Consultant, Adobe discussing Adobe’s strategy for tackling today’s and tomorrow’s most significant customer engagement challenges, as well as to see the newest customer journey innovations designed to help brands create personalized experiences.
Using Data and Insight as a Force Multiplier for CXM – This session was led by Eric Hall, SVP, Global Professional Services & Customer Success, Adobe, Vasanth Williams, EVP & CPO, MLB, Sanjay Vachani, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Adobe and Jennifer Werkmeister, Sr. Product Manager, Adobe. It looked at how businesses could transform their CXM approach with unique and powerful omnichannel insights that fuel real-time acquisition, retention, cross-sell/upsell, and personalized marketing campaigns using Adobe Analytics and Adobe Customer Journey Analytics.
Impactful Experiences: From Content Creation to Personalization had, senior executives from Adobe’s marketing, product, strategy, and brand, along with Jody Fales, VP of Omnichannel Enablement, Wesco, look at how Adobe’s latest innovations, uniquely help businesses to solve the challenges of connecting disparate teams, accelerating content velocity, and eliminating duplicative technology. It was a fantastic session to learn how a disjointed content supply chain can be transformed into a well-oiled content machine that drives value at scale.
Personalized Insights and Engagement with Adobe Experience Platform – This innovation super session was led by Anjul Bhambhri, SVP, Engineering, Experience Cloud, Adobe, Srini Nallasivan, Executive Vice President, Chief AI and Analytics Officer, U.S. Bank, Klaasjan Tukker, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Adobe, and Rakhi Patel, Principal Product Marketing Manager, Adobe. It discussed how Adobe Real-Time CDP, Adobe Journey Optimizer, and Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, all powered by a natively connected foundation with Adobe Experience Platform, are helping in building a winning personalization strategy by leveraging deep insights to supercharge the entire customer experience stack.
Final Thoughts
Adobe Summit is an event like no other, encompassing not only the extraordinary things Adobe has lined up but also a great place to connect with like-minded technology, design, and digital experts to learn more about delivering profitable, experience-led growth using Adobe’s latest innovations. McFadyen Digital has a thriving Adobe Commerce practice for marketplace implementation. Learn more about marketplace technology solutions here.