This week Cognite returned to Houston to kick off the third year of its sold-out Impact Conference series with the Impact World Tour 2026. Built for a wider audience and in a distilled one-day format, the World Tour Series will bring the Impact experience to a wider regional audience and enable more participation across the globe, from Oslo, Norway to Mumbai, India to Tokyo, Japan (and beyond).
Impact has always been a different type of industrial conference; one focusing almost exclusively on the organizations and practitioners making the biggest strides in industrial transformation with AI and Data. Impact 2025 grounded Cognite, our partners, and our customers in a big, audacious mission, $100B in customer value by 2035. After this latest installment, it’s clear that customer innovation with AI and data is moving faster than ever and value is being delivered at scale in more creative ways on the carpeted -- and now the uncarpeted floors.
Leading off, we heard from Girish Rishi, Cognite CEO, on how macroeconomic trends and shifts are only putting more pressure on manufacturers to adopt technology at a faster pace. Not only do the industrial heroes need better AI-enabled tools, but there is a huge opportunity to equip the supply chain heroes with even more connected insights from the production floor. Girish was joined by Shailesh Mishra, Global Lead, IT Business Partner from Beckton Dickinson and Omitope Yoder, Order to Invoice Lead, from International Paper, for insightful follow-up discussion on how their organizations are using Cognite to support their company missions in Life Sciences and Manufacturing, respectively.
Next, Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Dr. Paul Miller led a presentation on the “wild” state of Industrial AI, clearly delineating the specific nuances that make industrial AI particularly challenging to deploy and what it takes to drive success. His takeaways were straightforward – there is plenty of value to be had from Industrial AI if organizations get the data basics right, focus on matching the technology with the right problems, and making sure to keep the human element in mind.
Featuring more customers before lunch, Cognite hosted a panel with Praveen Prasad, Product Owner – Guyana Digital at ExxonMobil, Stephen Krassick, Technical Product Owner at International Paper, and Adam Ballard, Technology Advisor for Asset Lifecycle Innovation. This lively discussion centered on key lessons learned in their AI and digital journeys and how they are navigating important change management at their organizations.
Shailesh Mishra from Beckton Dickinson returned in the next panel, hosted by Cognite partner and Impact World Tour sponsor Radix, to go even deeper into the implications for AI and data in supply chain. With deep supply chain expertise from Flávio Niemeyer Guimarães, Chief Practices and Alliances Officer, and Carlos Novaga, SVP Manufacturing and Life Sciences, at Radix, and Slimane Allab, SVP Manufacturing at Cognite, this discussion got into the details on why foundational data infrastructure and partners with the right domain experience make for more successful outcomes.
Afternoon sessions kicked off with the latest from Cognite’s product team, led by Chirayu Shah, Cognite’s Chief Product Officer, and Lauritz Lont, Cognite’s VP Atlas AI. With compelling demos of the new industrial experiences offered by Cognite Flowsä , the team highlighted how customers are empowering their “industrial heroes” with better end-to-end workflows. They also shared a peek at what’s on the roadmap with new development planned for custom apps and adaptive experiences.
Next, Jacob Vizinat, Founder and Principal Advisor at Iron Stag Advisory, Richard Maidla, Owner and Principal Advisor at Genesis Lone Star, and Jason Harry, Director, Intelligent Operations, at Pontem Analytics – walked the audience through their challenges, lessons learned, and successes when deploying Cognite technology at Hess. It was thrilling to see how they are already developing faster and innovating in days with Cognite Flows. Overall, they guided that success hinges on needing to push the limits of corporate policy while staying sensitive to the human experience.
Paul Miller led one last panel to round out the day, featuring Impact Sponsor, Microsoft. This panel focused on how to make AI more actionable in energy and utilities and included Bobby Lee, Managing Director, Solution Engineers at Microsoft, and Halvard Eggen, Head of Cognite Flows at Cognite. With deep insights and perspectives on the AI journey, it was interesting to see how they both advocated for open, interoperable, and scalable AI and data infrastructure as being key for success.
Overall, the day flew by and you could tell how seriously every attendee was at extracting as much information as possible from the content, demo stands, sponsor booths, and their peers. This is exactly why we created the Impact Conference series and how we know the future of industrial AI remains bright. We’re now off to Oslo, Norway on June 17th for the second event of the series, with some very exciting news and awards occurring that week.
Missed the event or want to join in one of our upcoming cities? Check out the Impact World Tour Page.
