2adobeThe Adobe Experience Forum 2017, the industry conference for digital experience and business transformation is just around the corner: This year, it will not only take place in Singapore, but for the very first time be held in Thailand and Malaysia, too.

Three tracks will offer six breakout sessions that focus on key marketing and advertising technology areas. But what’s probably more exciting is “Sneaks” at the end of the day, when Adobe’s best R&D staff is showcasing their work that generally sets new benchmarks.

We can expect this year's focus to be on VR innovations in advertising, store analytics, more personalized Alexa, and other inspiring approaches that help improve customer experience.

All this is of course enabled by Adobe Sensei, a central framework of Adobe for Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning, which accesses an immense collection of files and data to support the Customer Experience, including:

The Internet of Things (IoT) - the next generation of language assistance

Interactions with interfaces such as Amazon Alexa are currently anonymous and limited to transactions. Users receive only information on general questions such as playlists or the start of a movie. The core features of the Adobe Experience Cloud and Amazon's open APIs is leveraged, however, to make the assistance more intelligent and personal: For instance, customers can consult Alexa about their loyalty points at hotels, or frequent flier points at airlines, then Alexa can use the data from the respective user profiles, as well as the individual preferences of the user, to propose targeted advertising measures or other actions with a direct added value. In a transparent and privacy-protected manner the loyalty or frequent flier points can be directly used that way.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning - personalizing websites intelligently and geo-based audience targeting

Based on the AI of Adobe Sensei for intuitive design and content recommendations, personalized online experiences can be created that promote the loyalty of customers to brands and impact conversion: For example, retirees can be defined as the target group for a travel website. Using Adobe Sensei, the site can access the brand's digital assets in the Adobe Experience Cloud to provide the most effective layouts and brand assets.

Companies can even deploy location-based targeting and approach their customers on the go with relevant content and promotions: For instance, by using a core service of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, a fast food chain could identify certain user groups with their consent, which suggest a buying interest by using of the company app. With patterns, created with Adobe Sensei’s machine learning, these user groups can be grouped according to their location and provided with individual advertising campaigns that take them to the company's nearest location.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) - VR in advertising and the future of retail

Techniques from Marketing Cloud and Creative Cloud combine real-time advertising in VR environments, so that when properly implemented, VR can be personalized and be immersive without looking unnatural: For example, a VR experience where the user gets advertisements in real-time in his surroundings, e.g. via huge screens on shopping malls or in shopping windows,  there are opportunities of ‘deep learning’, available thanks to Adobe Sensei, as well as the analysis and advertising features in the Adobe Experience Cloud, that recognize what the user is interested in and focus on the appropriate content in the Creative Cloud.

Microsoft's HoloLens is another good example, as it enables the fusion of digital and real world and gives us an impression of where the retail industry is heading. The ability to visualize data and adapting it to real objects - such as voice commands or gestures - allows companies to see how consumers move in real environments and shows retailers opportunities by capturing and visualizing in Adobe Analytics interactions between customers in the shop: For example, sensors can be attached to products that show the trader how many customers are passing through it, thus enabling to develop additional variations and advertising campaigns for particularly heavily frequented items in order to meet the high demand.

Stay tuned on what the future brings to remain competitive. Marketing specialists must invest in new technologies, like Artificial Intelligence (AI), data management platforms, or the Internet of Things (IoT), to provide customers with targeted, personalized experiences and one-to-one marketing across all contact points. At the end of the month there is a chance to get more insights on all that, in case you want to join the Adobe Experience Forum.

By Daniela La Marca