Well my two week Amazon conference trip to the West Coast is about to come to an
By Gwen Mcshea · October 2, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Well my two week Amazon conference trip to the West Coast is about to come to an end. Two weeks of having my brain stuffed at Amazon Accelerate and Amazon Unboxed, loads of great conversations with Amazonians & industry friends new and old, a fun block party at Accelerate and a fabulous Black Keys concert at Unboxed and I'm finally heading home.
My takeaways... all Amazon or anyone wanted to talk about was AI. Where are you in your AI journey, where is Amazon, where is it going? I learned a ton, am motivated to learn & try more and see where this road leads. I like the promise of better data that I can control, format it the way I want to and find efficiencies in our business. What still scares me is AI brand/product/data fidelity, hallucinations and security. But I got a ton of great advice on how to minimize (not eliminate) those still valid risks.
Amazon Accelerate was good for connecting with Sellers and Amazon. The announcements were underwhelming (just a variety of AI enhancements), the sessions fairly weak (although good for talking to teams), the hours seemed truncated (especially for the vendor area) and there were little missing details (no t-shirts, no keynote speakers, no morning DJs, no water bottles, no charitable giving checks, etc.) that felt like cutbacks to the event. I was the most excited to hear about dedicated B2B promotions and Amazon Quick. I am still in disbelief that Seller Assistant will live up to all the hype when it still can't give you a link to a page in Seller Central effectively. It was also great to be with Amazon's teams when agencies like ours went into crisis mode when Amazon dropped the ball on the migration to SPP. I appreciate their responsiveness.
The announcements and product releases at Unboxed were superior. I learned so much at this event (even if a lot of it was intended for developers) and was bombarded with a ton of new acronyms and ideas for what is possible. The Black Keys rocked and Martha Stewart was hilarious and this event had the am DJ (which I still don't know is a good idea). Memo to the event organizers about something that seems obvious at a conference... people need tables and chairs - especially at meals (breakfast had none) and table space where lunch was served was extremely limited. This lacking element limited the great conversations with strangers. Meal times were too limited and the fact you couldn't get hot water an hour and half before the end of the event was absurd (when we need a caffeine boost). Also the QR code for the event app only linked to the Apple app. I also wish more of the ad-based teams had booths at the event (A+ Content, Brand Stores, Creator Connections & more).
I will write more on specific updates and thoughts around changes but as I attempt to process the last two weeks - this is where I decided to start.
It was great to see all my Amazon peeps.