Industry On The Move: Adobe Summit 2019 Takeaways

While the eyes of the consumer technology world were pinpointed on the Apple event this week, the enterprise technology community was focused on the 2019 Adobe Summit this week in Las Vegas. It is known as one of the most prolific marketing and customer experience conferences.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the 2019 Adobe Summit.

New Tools In The Adobe Experience Cloud

This was the first Summit since Adobe acquired Magento in October 2018, so naturally it makes sense for Adobe to integrate elements of Magento Commerce’s platform. On the first day of the Summit, Adobe announced new features into its own marketing platform that were heavily inspired by Magento Commerce.

Adobe introduced its end-to-end solution to optimize customer experience and business operations. Called the Adobe Commerce Cloud, the new solution will exist within its highly-popular Adobe Experience Cloud.

“For Adobe, that’s really important because it actually closes the last mile in its Experience offering,” said Jason Woosley, Adobe’s VP of its commerce product and platform and Magento’s former VP of product and technology. “It’s no mystery that they’ve been looking at commerce offerings in the past. We’re just super glad that they settled on us.”

The new Adobe Commerce Cloud manages all commerce operations (both retail storefronts and e-commerce) to provide insights about user experiences in real time. It is fully integrated with Adobe Analytics, Amazon, and it is powered by Adobe Sensei, its artificial intelligence (AI) tool.

In addition to the new Adobe Commerce Cloud, there were also other new innovations to the Adobe Experience Cloud that were announced, including more integrated workflows. Adobe Analytics Cloud is welcoming a host of new capabilities, including Journey IQ (which offers deeper customer insights), and streamlined advertising workflows.

Expanded Partnerships

In addition to the new tools, the Adobe Summit was also a launching pad for new partnerships. Adobe announced its partnership with ServiceNow to provide seamless digital workflows and personalized customer experiences. The result of the partnership is a centralized, intelligence Customer Experience Management (CXM) tool. Internal teams will now have an easier time to streamline work, such as a quicker way to build customer profiles.

Perhaps the biggest new partnership announced was between Adobe and Microsoft. The partnership will feature data integrations between both companies that align data sources with account-based profiles. It is fully compatible with LinkedIn, Marketo Engage, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

“Orchestrating the engagement of multiple individuals in a complex marketing and sales journey is at the heart of account-based experiences and what B2B marketers do day in and out,” said Steve Lucas, senior vice president, Digital Experience business, Adobe. “With these new account-based capabilities, marketing and sales teams will have increased alignment around the people and accounts they are engaging, and new ways to measure that business impact.”

What Does This Mean For Enterprises?

In recent years, there has been a strong trend for marketing teams, especially in e-commerce, to integrate AI capabilities into a digital platform as a way to provide more immediate context into behavioral data from consumers. Adobe Commerce Cloud is the next iteration in that trend, due its user-friendly dashboard and real-time data intelligence integrations. In other words, solutions such as this can make an internal marketing team more productive, which in turn enhances the customer experience. The solutions represent new ways to accurately track the full customer experience and to engage with customers in new ways.