Earlier this spring I had the absolute pleasure to moderate an all star panel on how artificial intelligence (AI) is and will impact customer engagement. The panel consisted of executives at some of the leading vendors in the CRM industry, including:

Marco Casalaina, vice president of products at Salesforce.com’s Einstein division

Volker Hildebrand, Global Vice President at SAP Hybris

Rajan Krishnan, Group Vice President of Applications Product Development at Oracle

Michael Wu, Chief Scientist at Lithium Technologies

Kishan Chetan, principal PM manager of Microsoft CRM Dynamics 365

Morgan Cornelius, Instagram’s community programs lead for SMBs, shared with me why businesses are turning to Instagram Stories, how they are using it to engage their audiences, and how they are able to measure the impact Stories is having on their engagement efforts.

Jeremy Epstein, CEO of Never Stop Marketing and blockchain expert, just published a really great free ebook on blockchain, titled The CMO Primer for the Block Chain World: How this Trust Machine Impacts Branding, Customer Experience, Advertising and Much More. Jeremy shared with me the crux of what blockchain is, why it’s important beyond bitcoin, and how it might change the way marketers operate and disrupt how businesses create effective customer experiences going forward.

Small Business Trends Publisher Anita Campbell led a great conversation on the benefits and challenges of running a subscription based business, from both a B2C and B2B perspective. Rohan Gilkes, owner of Wet Shave Club, and Sangram Vajre, cofounder and CMO of account-based marketing platform Terminus, share their experiences in growing subscription businesses. And together they cover a lot ground and provide some great insights that can help those considering this business model understand the what to do, and what to avoid.

Last month we posted a conversation with The Center for Generational Kinetics CEO Jason Dorsey discussing the research study they did with America’s SBDC, titled America’s Voice on Small Business.

To get additional perspective on the results and what they mean, I also spoke with Tee Rowe, CEO of America’s SBDC. Tee discusses how millennial entrepreneurs are different than their predecessors, and how those differences drive changes in the way organizations like America’s SBDC assist in helping them succeed.

FinancialForce, a leading provider of cloud-based apps like ERP, financial management, and professional services automation (PSA) built entirely on the Salesforce platform, recently held their annual user conference – Community Live. And a theme resonated throughout the three days I attended the event – speed is the currency in the new Services Economy.

One of the ways discussed at the conference for speeding up your company’s ability to deliver consistenly good experiences throughout sales/service processes is combine the power of CRM with professional services automation. Austin Rohr, Product Strategy Manager for FinancialForce’s PSA offering, shared with me where PSA fits into the sales and service mix, and why the combination of PSA and CRM can provide faster, more profitable outcomes that improves overall customer engagement.

Benedict, a member of Oracle Team USA, took a few minutes away from the race to share how the team is using an unbelievable amount of data they are able to collect during the race, along with video and pictures captured, to help change strategies in realtime to move the team forward. And while this is fascinating to see how modern tech is changing the race for The Cup, there are definite business lessons to take away. Plus, I get to bust out my cabana wear for the first time in a while. So I owe a big debt of gratitude to the folks at Oracle for inviting me down to see the races and learn more about technology’s role in the event.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Bullhorn founder and CEO Art Papas during the conference, where he shared his thoughts on why he feels all the AI talk is just that – talk, for now. He also shares why AI and voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa will play a major role in CRM in the not-too-distant future.

Last month America’s SBDC teamed up with research firm The Center for Generational Kinetics on an interesting study – America’s Voice on Small Business. You can check out infographics and download a copy of this free report here (no registration required).

Jason Dorsey, co-founder of the Center for Generational Kinetics and leading expert on researching millennials, shared with us some of the key findings of the survey, including what’s driving millennials into entrepreneurship, and how their journey is different from their parents and grandparents’ journey.

Bpm’online CEO and Founder Katherine Kostereva shared a few thoughts with me on why she believes stats like the ones above are still happening in 2017. And why artificial intelligence will be a catalyst for more companies to begin automating important processes in their businesses in order to compete today and into the future.