As always, we left ICSC Las Vegas this year with more connections, knowledge, and a spike in our average step count. Sore feet aside, we were glad to meet so many old and new colleagues.
Before taking on the show, the team tried to have some fun. Mike and Gary took a scenic drive to the top of Mt. Charleston with Gary’s sports car. Afterwards, they proudly corrupted our Canadian friends at Piinpoint with old-school American gangster history at the Peppermill Fireside Lounge. Later that night, we met up as a team at Piero’s for a lovely Italian dinner. For some of the team, this was our first time meeting in person. Definitely livelier than our typical Teams meeting.
We started the show by meeting with some of our partners: SitesUSA, Kalibrate, Tango, Placer.ai, Devonshire Associates, Shovels, and more. We collaborated on potential ideas, shared plans and of course, talked data. Between meetings, we also made time for some important figures from other industries, including culinary legends Joey Chestnut, Grimace, and Ronald McDonald.
The change that stood out most compared to last year (and to no one’s surprise) was the prevalence of AI. Almost every booth with a technical product promoted it in some way. There seemed to be many more “new” companies this year than last, all with AI front and center in their pitch. And it was the same game for established players as well, most of their promotion focused on advertising their recent LLM integrations. Any conversation about product roadmaps or next steps had AI somewhere in it.
While we believe that this is a technology that should be guided (see our February write-up), we were pleased to hear how many organizations see our data fitting into their AI products and workflows. With over 70,000 variables in a clean format and easy delivery options, our data works well alongside this new generation of AI-powered tools.
Will AI be here to stay or will this be like the Metaverse we saw at ICSC in 2022? I think we all know AI is not going anywhere. But with recent talk of a bubble and the nature of trends, it does leave you wondering what the next “big thing” will be at ICSC in 2027.
