Erica Salm Rench
I've had a lot of roles at digitalNow over the past decade. I've been an attendee, soaking up every session I could fit into a day. I've been an exhibitor, working a booth and talking to folks about why AI mattered for their organizations before most people believed it did. I've spoken from the main stage. And last year, I emceed the whole show and ran the conference itself. This year, I'm coming back as both an attendee and a speaker, and no other event on my calendar gets me this excited.
Here's my thesis, and I'll say it plainly: digitalNow is, by far, the most influential event at the intersection of AI and associations. Not "one of the best." The most influential. I've watched it from every possible vantage point, and I've never seen another room where association executives leave with an actual plan instead of just a page of notes and good intentions.
Part of that comes down to who's in the room. But this year, it also comes down to who's on stage.
Safi Bahcall is headlining, and if you haven't read Loonshots, block time for it before you go. Bahcall is a physicist and former biotech CEO who took a company from startup to a multibillion-dollar FDA approval, and his book has become required reading for leaders trying to figure out how to protect the wild, unproven ideas inside their own organizations long enough for them to matter.
Kipp Bodnar is also speaking, and I could not be more excited about this one. Kipp is HubSpot's CMO, and he's got a new book with Kieran Flanagan, Loop: Outlearn. Outmarket. Outgrow. If you've been paying attention to how buyer behavior is shifting toward AI chatbots instead of search bars, Kipp is one of the foremost experts on what that means for how organizations get found and stay relevant.
And then there's Eric O'Neill. Eric is a former FBI counterintelligence operative who helped take down Robert Hanssen, one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history, and he wrote the book on it (literally: Gray Day). He now brings that same tradecraft to cybersecurity, and for associations sitting on member data while adopting AI tools faster than their security policies can keep up, his perspective is not optional listening. It's essential.
And of course, Amith Nagarajan, founder of Blue Cypress, is back on the keynote stage. Few people have pushed the association world to take AI seriously for as long as Amith has, and his keynote is always the one people are still talking about at dinner.
Those folks are only four of the speakers, and I haven't even mentioned the rest of the lineup or the hallway conversations, which are where half the real learning happens.
AI is not a future consideration for associations anymore; it's the infrastructure decision being made right now, this year, by the people who show up. digitalNow is where many of those decisions get made. I'll be there October 25 to 28 in Washington, D.C. If you're an association leader trying to figure out what AI actually means for your organization instead of just what it's supposed to mean, I hope I see you there.
About the Author
Erica Salm Rench helps organizations cut through the noise and grow using AI-powered marketing and sales. She's delivered 300+ talks on marketing AI, served seven years as COO of rasa.io, and later served as CMO of Sidecar.ai. She was honored with the 2026 AWTC Technology Leadership Award for her leadership and impact in the association technology community. Today she runs her own AI Growth Agency, helping executives build visibility and modernize their marketing and sales operations with AI. Erica is a proud Sidecar Ambassador, promoting and living out Sidecar's mission to educate one million association professionals on AI by 2030.