The AI Experiment Phase Is Over. Now What?
For the last couple of years, a lot of the AI conversation has been about possibility.
What can it do? What should we try? Which tool should we use? And, occasionally, what did I just break?
That experimentation mattered. It helped all of us learn, but the conversation is changing.
AI matters most when it creates a better business outcome.
That's the idea behind Automate & Elevate 2026, a free 90-minute online summit from Branded Merch Network on Thursday, November 12, from 1:00–2:30 p.m. ET. We're bringing together leaders from print, promotional products and apparel decoration to talk about what's working, what's changing and what's worth trying next with AI.
Rather than focus on what AI might do someday, we want to explore what it's doing for businesses right now. We've organized the summit around three conversations that reflect where businesses are today and where we think the biggest opportunities are ahead.
This is where we think the conversation needs to start. We've spent plenty of time testing tools, writing prompts and experimenting with automation. Now we need to ask a harder question: What is actually working?
Where are businesses saving meaningful time, improving workflows or using AI to make better decisions? More importantly, where are those improvements creating measurable value for the business?
This panel brings together Dane Clement of STAHLS’, Jake Krolick of ASI, Davis Slagle of BeeGraphix and Rick Molenaar of FastEditor to look beyond the novelty and share practical applications happening today. Experimentation has been an important part of learning how to use AI, but it's time to understand which experiments are turning into real results.
Efficiency has been one of the easiest AI benefits to understand. We can complete tasks faster, reduce repetitive work, automate processes and save time. Those improvements matter, but they shouldn't be the finish line.
The bigger opportunity may be what businesses can do with the time, information and capacity they create. Can we respond to customers faster, deliver more personalized experiences or recognize opportunities we might have missed? Can we offer something new that simply wasn't practical or possible before?
Marshall Atkinson will moderate this conversation, featuring Brian Badillo of Mind Fire, Ali Banholzer of Wear Your Spirit / Shirt Lab, and Jesse Freeby of Custom Corvallis. Together, they'll explore how businesses can move beyond thinking of AI primarily as a cost-saving tool and start considering how it can help them create more value for their customers and their businesses.
It's an important distinction. Instead of only asking what AI can take off our plates, maybe we should also be asking what AI now makes possible.
How will AI change the way we work, serve customers, and prepare for what's next?
Eventually, we stop thinking about new technology as something separate from our everyday responsibilities. It simply becomes part of how we work. We're already starting to see that happen with AI, and it raises some important questions about how our businesses, teams and roles will continue to evolve.
Amy Servi-Bonner of PRINTING United Alliance, Eric Granata of PromoPilot and Kavish Soningra of AltOps will explore what happens as AI becomes more integrated into everyday workflows. How will our roles change, and which skills will become more valuable? How do we prepare for what's coming without feeling like we have to chase every new tool or technology?
There's also an important question about where automation should stop and human judgment should begin. At BMN, we believe just because we can automate something doesn't mean we should.
Human expertise, creativity, relationships and judgment are still essential to building successful businesses. As AI becomes more capable and accessible, those qualities may become even more valuable.
THREE CONVERSATIONS. ONE BIGGER QUESTION.
Automate & Elevate isn't designed to convince anyone that AI has all the answers. We certainly don't believe it does. Our goal is to bring together people who are actively working with these technologies, learning what works and discovering where the opportunities and challenges exist.
We want to create a useful conversation about the questions businesses should be asking today. Where is AI producing real results? How can we use those improvements to create new opportunities? And how should we prepare as AI becomes a more natural part of the way we work and serve our customers?
That's also why we've built this event with partners representing different parts of our industry and different perspectives on the changes happening around us.
PromoPilot joins us as Presenting Partner, with PRINTING United Alliance and ASI serving as Education Partners. AltOps is our AI Showcase Partner, while FastEditor and STAHLS’ join us as Resource Partners. And The 2 Regular Guys will serve as our Official Broadcast Partner and hosts for the event.
These organizations bring different areas of expertise and perspectives to the conversation, which is exactly what we were hoping to accomplish. Print, promo and apparel may approach AI from different places, but all three are wrestling with many of the same questions. We believe there's a lot to be gained by learning from each other.
And none of us has to figure it out alone.
JOIN US FOR AUTOMATE & ELEVATE 2026
Thursday, November 12, 2026
1:00–2:30 p.m. ET
Online | FREE Registration
If you're ready to move beyond asking what AI could do and start talking
about what it's actually doing for businesses today, we hope you'll join us.
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