By Catie George, Director of Communications & Storytelling
The Dallas Regional Chamber’s second-annual Convergence AI Dallas conference, presented by Accenture and Google, showcased Dallas-Fort Worth as the hub for applied AI in business on April 30 and May 1.
With more than 750 attendees representing more than 350 companies, the conference’s expanded two-day format delivered powerful insights from 75 industry leaders across mainstage presentations, intimate labs and Table Talks, and specialized summits.
Here are the top takeaways you need to know.
The evolution of AI is faster and more transformative than expected—and DFW is on the leading edge.
“Dallas has quietly become a North American powerhouse for AI thanks to our robust talent pipeline, strong business environment, top-notch research, and so much more,” said Accenture Managing Partner Jorge Corral. “Applying AI to solve business problems provides a real return on investment for companies—a real ROI in pursuit of a competitive edge. And we’re at a moment in time where scaling these capabilities is accelerating.”
According to experts, AI’s impact will be comparable to that of the Industrial Revolution or the advent of electricity.
Google Public Sector CTO Chris Hein noted, “Because when steam power, when electricity was coming out, you wouldn’t have anticipated that they were going to change everything unless you were deep in it… We’re at a very similar point when it comes to artificial intelligence. We have created a new general-purpose tool set.
“Even we at Google, who have invented much of the industry… can’t tell you how it’s going to fully change other industries,” shared Hein.
AI applications have rapidly evolved from experimental to essential business tools.
Companies across industries are finding transformative applications of AI.
McKesson Pharmaceutical Senior Vice President and CIO Ladd Laid explained that in health care, AI applications range from “driving productivity in our clinician space [to] making the reservation environment better for our patients.”
For manufacturing giants like Caterpillar, AI offers tremendous operational value.
“AI has undoubtedly been a transformative force within our industry, and Caterpillar understands the benefits of leaning in to AI to enable teams to work more efficiently and gain deep insights from mass amounts of data,” said Caterpillar’s VP of Innovation and Emerging Technology Jody Howard. “We have been using machine learning for many years to help customers best manage their machine fleets, and we are also using AI to predict maintenance needs to prevent equipment failures. We are continuing to explore and develop the new ways we can use AI to benefit our customers and our own operations.”
The human-machine partnership is being redefined through responsible AI development.
The traditional relationship between humans and technology is undergoing a fundamental shift.
“We’ve seen automation substitute for more routine skills rather than so-called non-routine ones,” said Xavier de Souza Briggs, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. “But AI, when embedded in these larger systems that we’re all doing, looks likely to upend that paradigm and to be able to do very effectively a lot of what we thought of as quintessentially human labor, non-routine sorts of tasks and judgments.”
As AI capabilities accelerate, the importance of thoughtful implementation becomes critical.
“As we’re thinking about developing responsible AI, all too often we are going too fast,” cautioned Amy Blankson, Co-Founder of the Digital Wellness Institute. “We find that incentives, the economic incentive, and the pressure to go fast far outpace the ability to stop and ask the questions that we really meant to or wanted to ask.”
Creative industries are experiencing revolutionary disruption and new possibilities.
The creative industry is witnessing revolutionary tools. Tricia Biggio, Co-Founder & CEO of Invisible Universe, showcased “an end-to-end content creation tool that is the first 100% AI native tool for end-to-end short form content… from idea to export, you can do it all [and distribute your ideas] without the gatekeepers of traditional media.”
The conference featured enhanced experiences that showcased DFW’s AI ecosystem.
Building on the success of 2024, the DRC built out new Convergence AI Dallas programming to showcase the depth and breadth of AI-related innovations business leaders can learn from and apply.
Newly added features of the conference include:
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- Convergence Labs, presented by Slalom: Salon-style, hands-on learning sessions with top AI leaders
- University Summit: Featuring cutting-edge research from DFW’s academic institutions and briefings by DARPA and NVIDIA
- Startup Alley: Showcasing the region’s most promising AI startups
Returning for a second year were Table Talks, offering guided discussions on targeted AI topics and a packed Exhibit Hall demonstrating the latest AI innovations.
The conference reinforced Dallas-Fort Worth’s position as an emerging AI leader, bringing together established corporations, innovative startups, research institutions, and policy experts to collectively shape AI’s future.
As DRC President & CEO Dale Petroskey observed, AI “impacts everything all of us do every single day and will increasingly in our lives going forward.”
Thank you to our co-presenting sponsors, Accenture and Google. Thank you to our Convergence Labs sponsor, Slalom. Thank you to our platinum sponsors: Bank of America, Thomson Reuters, and TIAA. Thank you to our gold sponsors: Troutman Pepper Locke, SAP, Worlds, BGSF, Axxess, Walmart, and Pariveda. Thank you to our happy our sponsor, Munck Wilson Mandala. Thank you to our exhibitor sponsors: 7T, Balfour Beatty, Capsher, Cien AI, Frisco EDC, Inclusion Cloud, North Highland, Plug and Play, SnapLogic, Weaver, and Zallpy. Thank you to our Startup Alley sponsors: Dallas Venture Capital and Sentiero Ventures. Thank you to our university sponsors: Southern Methodist University, Texas A&M University – Fort Worth, University of North Texas, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas Baptist University, and Dallas College.