Amid the world of possibilities that the ramp-up of AI-infused technologies offers, I’m glad that wholesale distribution has already progressed past the apex of the AI hype cycle.

There’s no official date as to when that cycle peaked, but the crescendo was likely in late 2023 — about a year after the November 2022 public launch of ChatGPT. That launch set the AI zeitgeist ablaze in the business world, with 2023 full of thought pieces about the potential that AI has across sales and marketing, customer service, project management, data management, human resources and far beyond.

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Along the way, MDM hosted a (free) virtual AI for Distributors Summit in February 2024 to help you make sense of all the AI noise and start making decisions around the technology. It had an excellent turnout, and the relentless demand for AI thought leadership amongst our readers and viewers prompted us to offer it again.

We’re happy to host MDM’s 2025 AI for Distributors Summit on March 12, again in virtual fashion, and it’s free.

Our 2025 virtual AI for Distributors Summit will bolster this knowledge-sharing with four hours of content on March 12 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET. Available live and on-demand, our summit offers a handful of discussion sessions where industry experts will share AI use cases; insights on business processes ripe for AI infusion; what the future holds for distribution AI adoption and executive leadership of it; and new industry research.

Find registration for the event and its agenda here.

So much of that first year post-ChatGPT’s launch was oriented around big picture, shiny object discussion. Expectedly, it caused most distributors to spend 2023 in a watch-and-learn approach when it came to AI. This was reflected in MDM’s research that found 61% of distributors hadn’t applied AI anywhere in their business as of mid-2023 before that figure shrunk to only 46% still on the sidelines a year later. 

We’ll benchmark that statistic again mid-2025, and we can expect the portion of the industry still in the watch-and-learn phase to be considerably smaller still.

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We’re now 26 months past the launch of ChatGPT. In that time, nearly every conference in this wholesale distribution has had breakout sessions or entire content tracks dedicated to AI thought leadership. Numerous articles and case studies have been published detailing what distributors are doing with AI and the decision-making that’s gone into the strategy involved.

On our part, MDM has produced plenty of AI insights from this industry in whitepapers, articles, podcasts and webcasts. We’ve shared research on distribution AI at MDM’s 2023 and 2024 SHIFT Conferences, and are set to do so again at SHIFT 2025 on May 13-15 in Denver. 

It’s all helped this industry get much more hands-on with AI and into the game. Information overload has given way to tactical change management, with leaders like you identifying specific business tasks where AI can be applied with fruitful ROI.

Our AI Summit will help continue to drive this industry forward, and I hope you’ll join us, either live or on-demand. And did I mention it’s free?