The second (and hopefully last) virtual Adobe Summit (formerly Magento Imagine) was held last week with hundreds of speakers and sessions April 27-29. Accorin sponsored the Commerce Track sessions but many of us wandered outside of that track in search of some deeper understanding of Adobe’s AXP (Adobe Experience Platform) integration plans for Magento, a glimpse of state-of-the-art marketing tech, and some entertainment with celebrities.

The session catalog was overwhelming but given the virtual format it was nice to be able to double up on sessions and review and replay the video from sessions that you missed. Adobe also did an awesome job with its conference app. Some virtual conference apps are good, some are bad. Adobe’s was GREAT – I found myself browsing and listening to sessions by phone more often than not, just because the interface was more tuned to browsing.

Adobe’s annual conference is typically gigantic; 4 or 5 times the size of Magento Imagine. It was nice to be able to skip around to different sessions – something that is not possible “in-person.” One can only hope that this type of conference app can be combined with in-person format in the years to come.

Here are 5 sessions from the two days that we thought were the most compelling (at least to the Accorin team) from an e-commerce perspective.

1. The New Commerce Imperative with Jason Woosley

This session was a great mix of Jason (VP Commerce Product / Platform at Adobe and former Magento head of product) recommending how to apply Adobe Commerce’s top new features along with a glimpse of where the product development team is headed next in response to e-commerce market pressures.

Jason recapped the best features of recent releases, including the new features of B2B, new B2B workflows, and the integration of Adobe Sign into the checkout process. Adobe is pushing hard on integration of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven experiences because of its focus on AXP and Adobe Commerce fits right in.

“Seller Assisted Shopping” is a value of the features framework as is the combination of Headless Commerce / PWA studio – with the focus of product development being to maximize flexibility.

E-commerce is complex, ever-evolving, and always on with all of its integrations and Adobe has a new Site Wide Analysis Tool (SWAT) that provides proactive site reviews and suggested changes – “best practices in one place – best practices as a service.” SWAT is available as of Version 2.4.

The integration of Sensei was a key topic that was discussed in a number of sessions including this one – including its importance for B2B as well: “B2B merchants are looking to create the ultimate B2C-like experience but with robust B2B requirements” and Sensei with AI-driven product recommendations is a key aspect of meeting B2B buyer requirements for satisfying purchasing experiences day after day.

Jason’s presentation stressed the 5 e-commerce success factors that can be achieved with Adobe Commerce:

Agility – the ability to change, evolve and move quickly to changing market forces (are you ready for the recovery?)

Continuous exploration of and opening of new channels

Enabling new buyer journeys as a business innovates

International expansion

Flexibility and capability with insights and “best practices as a service”

2. 5 Fundamental Steps to Becoming Data Driven – Petra Blixt Svenska Spel Sports and Casino

One of the great things about the virtual conference at scale is being able to view off-hours international content on demand. Normally I wouldn’t attend the European sessions because of the time difference; however, at Adobe Summit Virtual the presentation format made it easy.

Svenska is essentially the state run gambling business in Sweden. Petra provided some great insights on how an organization became data driven by using practical examples from their work. Petra first defined “data driven” right from Google: ”……enabling companies to examine and organize their...