B2B Online Atlanta 2026

Day 2: The Practical AI & Architecture Revolution

7:30 am - 8:20 am B2Breakfast & Registration

Pick up your badge, then join a discussion table to kick off your networking early over a delicious meal! Or head over to a quiet table to chill out before the day kicks off.

8:00 am - 8:30 am Women in B2Breakfast for Manufacturing & Distribution Companies (sign up required)

Join us for a special breakfast honoring the women who are shaping the future of the B2B industry. This intimate gathering brings together leaders, rising talent, and advocates for an evening of connection, inspiration, and celebration. Enjoy great food, meaningful conversation, and the opportunity to build community with peers who are driving innovation, leadership, and change across the B2B landscape.

8:20 am - 8:30 am Opening Remarks

8:30 am - 8:40 am Chair's Welcoming Remarks

8:40 am - 9:00 am Keynote Presentation: Rise of the Machines: Mastering Agentic Commerce and GEO

The future of B2B is rapidly shifting toward AI agents researching, comparing, and purchasing products on behalf of human buyers. This keynote explores how to prevent your products from becoming mere commodities in an agent-driven landscape. Learn how to pivot your traditional SEO strategies into Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) so your brand remains visible and authoritative to Large Language Models.

• Adapt your content strategy to answer highly specific, granular technical questions that AI models parse to formulate their answers.

• Optimize your digital catalog and data syndication to be easily readable and executable by AI procurement agents to prevent losing market share.

• Monitor and influence your brand sentiment within LLMs, as these tools now gauge and report on brand authority during the research phase.

• Implement conversational search features that allow human buyers to interact directly with their search results to instantly build complex carts.

9:00 am - 9:20 am B2B Online Partner Presentation

Znode

9:20 am - 9:40 am Keynote Fireside Chat: Topic TBA

Elevate your thought leadership by collaborating with us and two of your best clients to design a custom topic tailored to your specific industry expertise. By featuring a real-world client success story on the main stage, you will have the opportunity to directly influence the strategic decisions of top B2B executives.

Contact Vince.Esposito@wbresearch.com for more information.

9:40 am - 10:30 am NAW CEO Leadership Panel

Access the C-suite like never before as three visionary executives share their unfiltered perspectives on navigating the future of wholesale distribution. Moderated by the CRO of NAW, this exclusive panel will reveal the bold leadership strategies and digital growth initiatives that will take your organizations into 2027 and beyond. Step inside the minds of top decision-makers to discover exactly how they are funding innovation, overcoming legacy hurdles, and aligning their internal cultures to win.

10:30 am - 11:10 am Networking Break

10:30 am - 11:10 am Meetup in the B2B Connect Zone

Keep the conversation going with like-minded leaders who are solving for the same challenges that you're tackling, but each with his or her own unique perspective.

Meet-up 1: Manufacturers

Meet-up 2: Distributors

Meet-up 3: Joint Session for All

Join our small, powerhouse meetups to explore: What I Need Help with Right Now

11:10 am - 11:10 am B2B Interactive Boardroom Workshops

B2B Interactive boardrooms will provide you with the opportunity to engage in any one the four simultaneous boardrooms running throughout concurrently. During these sessions, you can actively address some of the most significant industry challenges in an interactive format. Each boardroom is designed to last 45 minutes, allowing participants to collaborate with fellow attendees, collectively solve problems, and gain essential insights for practical implementation.

Each boardroom will end with a one-page, three-point action plan captured by the table captain to feed into the Atlanta Playbook, a take-home guide to help you accelerate as soon as you're back to the office.

11:10 am - 11:55 am Interactive Workshop 1:

Hosted by Optimizely

11:10 am - 11:55 am Interactive Workshop 2:

11:10 am - 11:55 am Interactive Workshop 3:

11:55 am - 12:00 pm 5-Min Transition Time

12:00 pm - 12:45 pm Interactive Workshop 4:

12:00 pm - 12:45 pm Interactive Workshop 5:

12:00 pm - 12:45 pm Interactive Workshop 6:

12:45 pm - 1:45 pm Networking Lunch and Learn

Mastermind Roundtables Lunch is a relaxed, high-impact way to keep networking while digging into the topics that matter most to you. During lunch, you'll join a small group of 8-10 peers at a themed table designed to spark practical, candid conversation around shared hurdles in B2B digital and omnichannel growth.

Each table focuses on a specific challenge area, with light structure to help the discussion stay actionable and useful. Come ready to swap what's working, compare approaches, and leave with new ideas you can take back to your team.

1. Mastering PIM and Data Hygiene for AI Readiness

2. Surviving E-Commerce and ERP Integrations

3. Combating AI Impostor Sites and Digital Fraud

4. Navigating the Amazon Business Threat and Marketplace Strategy

5. Data Privacy and Marketing in a Cookieless World

6. Using Instant Financing and Payments to Drive Growth

7. Securing Budget and Shifting from Efficiency to Growth

8. Winning the Internal Sales Battle and Change Management

12:45 pm - 1:45 pm Private Lunch

CONFERENCE TRACKS

Track A: Architecture, Data, and AI

1:45 pm - 1:55 pm Track Chair Remarks

Track A: Architecture, Data, and AI

1:55 pm - 2:25 pm Panel: Under the Hood: Surviving the E-Commerce and ERP Integration Nightmare

Building a beautiful storefront is pointless if it cannot effectively communicate with your core backend operational systems. This highly technical panel dives into the messy reality of connecting modern e-commerce platforms with legacy ERPs and payment gateways. Learn how to navigate API limits, synchronization delays, and the dreaded Available-to-Promise (ATP) inventory challenges.

• Evaluate the true Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and the "build vs. buy" dilemma when selecting a new e-commerce architecture or PIM system.

• Design robust APIs that seamlessly pass pricing, order history, and real-time inventory availability between the site and the ERP.

• Establish a clear source of truth for customer data to prevent conflicting records when bolting disparate legacy systems together.

• Secure post-launch funding by accurately budgeting for the maintenance, enhancements, and integration tweaks required in years two and three.

Track A: Architecture, Data, and AI

2:25 pm - 2:45 pm B2B Online Partner Presentation

Track A: Architecture, Data, and AI

2:45 pm - 3:05 pm Case Study: Killing the Fax Machine: Automating Inbound Orders with AI

Despite living in a digital age, a shocking number of B2B orders still arrive via emailed PDFs, spreadsheets, and faxes. This rapid-fire case study showcases how progressive companies are deploying AI engines to instantly read, parse, and enter these manual orders directly into their ERPs. See exactly how automating this bland and time-consuming process saves thousands of human hours and drastically reduces order entry errors.

• Identify the highest-volume manual ordering formats (PDFs, CSVs) that are ripe for AI-driven Optical Character Recognition (OCR) automation.

• Deploy AI tools to extract line items, quantities, and pricing from unstructured emails and automatically map them to your internal SKU formats.

• Free up your customer service representatives from manual data entry so they can focus on high-value, consultative selling and support.

• Calculate the immediate ROI of order automation by measuring the reduction in processing time and the elimination of costly return errors

Track B: Strategy and Change Management

1:45 pm - 1:55 pm Track Chair Remarks

Track B: Strategy and Change Management

1:55 pm - 2:25 pm Panel: Show Me the Money: Building Bulletproof Business Cases for Digital Growth

The greatest hurdle in B2B e-commerce isn't technology; it is convincing executive leadership to fund your digital vision. This session reveals how to shift the internal narrative from viewing e-commerce as a defensive, cost-cutting measure to an offensive strategy for market expansion. Discover how to construct ROI models that secure buy-in and protect your budget in an era of economic uncertainty.

• Frame digital investments around tangible growth metrics—such as unlocking new verticals or regions—rather than just operational efficiency.

• Utilize the "cost-to-serve" metric to prove how migrating manual fax and phone orders to zero-touch digital channels drastically improves profitability.

• Structure your pitches to clearly articulate the long-term cost of doing nothing against the immediate, upfront investment required.

• Leverage industry benchmarking data and competitor case studies to create a sense of urgency among hesitant C-suite executives.

Track B: Strategy and Change Management

2:25 pm - 2:45 pm B2B Online Partner Presentation

Track B: Strategy and Change Management

8:00 am - 8:30 am Case Study: Beyond the Blueprint: Market Intelligence and Cross-functional transformation as Strategic Growth Engine

Mohit Sheera - Vice President – Business & Enterprise Transformation, Terumo

Transformations often fail not because of lack of intent or faulty technology, but because organizations lack the alignment required to guide people through the resulting disruption. This intensive case study draws from a real-world transformation journey in MedTech industry to drive successful transformations by, first, building strong foundation through Market Intelligence and customer centricity, and then driving alignment across executive intent, strategic planning, technology implementation, and change management roadmaps across various functions involved.

Mohit Sheera

Vice President – Business & Enterprise Transformation
Terumo

See Bio

Track C: CX

1:45 pm - 1:50 pm Track Chair Remarks

Track C: CX

1:55 pm - 2:25 pm Panel: Frenemies No More: Hacking the Manufacturer-Distributor Data Ecosystem

Manufacturers that do not sell direct-to-consumer must rely entirely on their distribution partners to represent their brand accurately in the digital wild. This panel explores the delicate art of sharing rich product data, syncing technology roadmaps, and influencing how your products are positioned on partner sites. Learn to break down the silos that lead to disjointed customer experiences across the supply chain.

• Develop a streamlined syndication process that easily feeds high-quality product specs and rich media directly to your distributors.

• Align your digital roadmaps with major distributors to ensure your tech upgrades synchronize seamlessly with theirs.

• Share vital e-commerce analytics and customer search data back and forth to identify new product opportunities and purchasing trends.

• Create robust marketing partnerships that leverage both the manufacturer's brand budget and the distributor's localized customer relationships.

Track C: CX

2:25 pm - 2:45 pm B2B Online Partner Presentation

Track C: CX

8:00 am - 8:30 am Case Study: One Size Fits None: Hyper-Personalizing the B2B Onboarding Journey

A Fortune 500 enterprise procurement officer and a local freelance contractor require completely different digital experiences to successfully transact with your business. This case study breaks down how to architect distinct, tailored onboarding flows based on the specific vertical and size of the customer. Discover how to provide frictionless self-service for SMBs while accommodating the complex approval hierarchies of massive organizations.

• Design a rapid, frictionless guest-checkout and instant onboarding process specifically catered to low-volume, self-serve SMB buyers.

• Implement complex, multi-tiered user hierarchies and automated approval workflows required by large enterprise procurement teams.

• Customize your site's search facets and product recommendations dynamically based on the logged-in user's specific industry vertical.

• Integrate specific localized data, such as regional distribution center inventory and geopolitical restrictions, into the user's customized portal.

Track D: C-Suite Meetup

1:45 pm - 1:55 pm Track Chair Remarks

Track D: C-Suite Meetup

1:55 pm - 3:05 pm AI in B2B eCommerce: What to Pilot, What to Scale, and What's Actually Working

AI is everywhere right now, but for B2B eCommerce leaders, the real question is not whether to explore it. It is where to test, how to measure it, and what is actually worth scaling.

This interactive workshop is designed for B2B eCommerce executives who are actively thinking through AI use cases, pilot opportunities, and technology investment decisions in a market still shaped by economic pressure and shifting business priorities.

The session will bring the full group together to frame the current landscape, highlight where companies are testing AI today, and explore how leaders are deciding which pilots deserve time, budget, and internal buy-in.

From there, attendees will break into smaller working groups to compare notes on what they have tested, what has shown promise, what has stalled, and what innovative ideas have emerged over the last 12 months. Groups will discuss how they are evaluating success, gathering meaningful data, and making decisions around scaling AI initiatives across the business. The goal is to move beyond the buzzwords and leave with practical peer-driven insight into where AI is creating real impact in B2B eCommerce.

Key Discussion Areas:

• How to determine which AI pilots are worth launching

• How to test quickly, gather meaningful data, and evaluate success

• When a pilot is ready to scale and when it is not

• The most innovative AI initiatives launched in the last 12 months

• How macroeconomic and global pressures are affecting tech investment decisions

• Where B2B eCommerce teams are seeing the strongest early returns from AI

Format Breakdown:

2 Hour Workshop

Part 1: Full Group Workshop Discussion

Set the stage with a moderated discussion focused on the current AI landscape in B2B eCommerce, common pilot areas, investment considerations, and where companies are seeing traction.

Part 2: Small Group Breakouts

Attendees break into smaller groups to work through guided discussion prompts, share examples, compare approaches, and surface practical lessons from their own organizations.

Part 3: Share-Out and Compare Notes

Groups reconvene to report back key findings, highlight common themes, and identify where opinions or strategies differ.

3:05 pm - 3:10 pm Transition to Roundtables

3:10 pm - 3:50 pm Mastermind Roundtables

Dive deep into the trenches with your peers during these highly interactive mastermind sessions. Each table is dedicated to a specific, urgent B2B hurdle—from navigating the threat of AI impostor sites to evaluating global e-commerce platform rollouts. Choose your battleground and collaborate with 10-15 fellow practitioners to map out tangible solutions you can implement on Monday morning.

1. Evaluating and Comparing E-Commerce Platforms

2. PIM Data Syndication and Best Practices

3. ROI Modeling and Budgeting for Years Two and Three Post-Launch

4. Expanding Globally: Navigating Geopolitical, Payment, and Distribution Challenges

5. Selling Through Marketplaces: Strategies for Amazon Business and Zoro – Hosted by David Hosei, Director of Digital Partnerships, Trends International

6. Managing Partner Ecosystems: Protecting Brand Representation on Distributor Sites

7. Driving Growth Through B2B Services and Subscription Models

8. Leveraging Conversational Search for Complex Catalogs

3:50 pm - 4:35 pm Networking Break

3:50 pm - 4:35 pm Private Tasting

3:50 pm - 4:35 pm Meet-up in the B2B Connect Zone

3:50 pm - 4:35 pm Private Tasting

4:35 pm - 5:30 pm ROUNDTABLE LIVE! Hot Seat and Even Hotter Takes

Ditch the script in this rapid-fire roundtable live. Three industry leaders will kick off the debate, but three seats remain deliberately empty on stage, inviting any audience member to tap in, dynamically join the speaker pool, and drop their unfiltered hot takes. Prepare for a highly interactive, completely spontaneous exchange as attendees continuously rotate in and out of the hot seats to fiercely debate the industry's most pressing challenges.