Adobe Summit 2024 Favorites

Summit this year felt special and could possibly be one of my favorite Summits so far. I don’t think there was one specific thing that made it special, but it felt like it was the first one post the pandemic -even though it wasn’t.

This year we had a good crew from Softcrylic and we opted out from having the Booth in the Pavilion to instead run around everywhere like everyone else at Summit. Looking back there were a lot of things that we experienced at Summit and it is worth highlighting some of my favorites across a few categories.

Favorite Keynote

Frankly, I don’t typically attend the keynote sessions but this year I did sit in a few and one was particularly amusing: Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian. Of course, we are a little biased but you can’t deny how incredible the Delta brand is and how charismatic their CEO is. He talks and you want to listen. He sounds so real, and I love that about such leaders. I enjoyed hearing about the investments that Delta is making in enhancing the customer experience everywhere including on the flight which is what matters most.

Favorite Session

Another thing I did this year that I don’t get to do often is sit through some sessions. There were a lot of good ones but the one that stood out to me was “Cutting Edge: In-session Personalization at Intuit with Adobe Real-Time CDP” by my good friend Greg Paul (Adobe) and fellow Lebanese Makram Mansour (Intuit). A few reasons that made this session special:

• Leveraged AEP beyond the OOTB functionality and tapped into advanced Adobe I/O capabilities
• Great use case of using AEP with internal custom tools for personalization (not Adobe Target)
• Showcased a real demo of how it really worked

Favorite Announcement

Not Gen AI 😊 . I understand that AI is the buzzword and Generative AI gets everyone excited, but I still don’t think Generative AI is revolutionary yet for the type of work we do. On the other hand, the announcement that stole my heart was “Data Collaboration”. I got to hear about it in the AJO Customer Advisory Board meeting (CAB) but then in more detail at one of the sessions led by my good friend, Clayton Smith. Although you might argue that Adobe is a bit late to the collaboration (different name for clean room) but the fact that this can be used for Adobe and non-Adobe clients is very intriguing and a much-needed capability.

Favorite at the Bash

Not DJ Diesel. When it comes to music and DJs I am very opinionated and Shaq needs to work on his mixing a bit more 😊.  My favorite thing at the Bash was getting lost in the Secret Mart. I think we were in there for a good hour. JP and I bonded over some crazy art and visuals as you can see in the picture below.

Favorite Meal

Unfortunately, it is hard to enjoy any meals at Summit because you are always in a rush or talking so much that you forget to enjoy your meal. This year I was able to escape one morning and have breakfast at Urth Café with an old friend of mine. If you have never been to Urth Café then you must try it. It is a nice treat.

Product Favorites

Looking at the different Adobe products and the announcements that were shared at Summit, I had a few favorites:

• RT-CDP: Federated Audience Composition which is a bit beyond what composable CDP is. This post explains the feature really well.
• AJO: B2B Edition. We all know that AJO’s B2C is powerful but lacks the flexibility to support B2B. This new edition could be a game-changer.
• ACC: The Web UI is beautiful. The migration from v7 to v8 won’t be fun for customers but with enhanced queries, faster throughput and Web UI it might be worth it.

My top favorite is always the people. My team, clients and friends. Thank you all for an incredible Summit. See you next year.