Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Warehouse Tech, AI, and Community Building: Recapping Manifest 2026 with Kevin Lawton

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Warehouse Tech, AI, and Community Building: Recapping Manifest 2026 with Kevin Lawton · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:05
  All right, Dave Goulis, Beyond Fulfillment podcast here at Manifest with a special guest, Kevin Lawton from the new warehouse.
• 0:13
  Hey, Dave, it's good to see you.
• 0:14
  Thanks for having me.
• 0:15
  Yeah, thanks so much for being here.
• 0:17
  Always good to see you.
• 0:17
  Kevin, I seem to run into you at a lot of industry events, a lot of shows.
• 0:23
  I see you at all the Ship Hero events.
• 0:27
  So we're here at manifest 2026.
• 0:29
  What would you say is the vibe of the.
• 0:33
  The vibe of Manifest, I think is it's like a cool vibe, definitely.
• 0:39
  Right.
• 0:40
  But very, very heavy on the networking aspect.
• 0:43
  Right.
• 0:43
  I think everybody here see it was very open to connecting and having conversations about what's going on in the supply chain and certainly from a technology aspect too as well.
• 0:54
  And I think that's a huge component of Manifest, which makes it a good, good vibe, I will say, for sure, because people are willing to connect during the day on the show floor and during the sessions and things
• 1:05
  like that.
• 1:06
  But then also at night too.
• 1:07
  I mean, there's a lot of great events happening where people can get to know each other a little better, learn more about solutionship providers, more intimate setting, I guess.
• 1:18
  But yeah, good vibes all around, for sure.
• 1:20
  Yeah, good vibes.
• 1:22
  A lot of good food too.
• 1:23
  I can't stop eating all this amazing food that they're shoving in my face.
• 1:28
  I don't know about you, I'm a big dessert guy, so they got some good stuff going on.
• 1:33
  Yeah, for sure.
• 1:34
  All right, so, Kevin, I would say you have the number one industry podcast just in terms of your pulse on the industry, the level of guests you have.
• 1:44
  I mean, all the main players that are really doing things within logistics always seem to be on your show.
• 1:51
  So with your pulse on the industry like that, what do you see coming as trends for 2026?
• 1:59
  Sure.
• 1:59
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:00
  And appreciate that.
• 2:01
  Definitely that recognition.
• 2:02
  So I think one for sure is having more accessible technology for the warehouse.
• 2:12
  We're seeing more solution providers come out that are doing things either from a cost perspective that's more affordable to a wider spectrum of warehouse operations.
• 2:22
  Right.
• 2:22
  Thinking about, you know, the, the, the vast spectrum where, you know, some people have 300 warehouses, some have one 15,000 square foot warehouse.
• 2:32
  Right.
• 2:32
  But seeing technologies that can be applied to, to both sides of that spectrum and being not only affordable, but easy to deploy, easy to implement, I think that's one trend that I certainly love because I think that opens
• 2:45
  up kind of the, the opportunity for a lot more warehouse providers to, to get into that technology, be able to leverage it to optimize and better serve their customers at the end of the day and make, you know,
• 2:58
  hopefully your employees lives a little easier too with technology.
• 3:02
  That's one for sure.
• 3:03
  The other one I think is we're seeing a lot more around looking at how can we hold on to like a brownfield site and grow longer term.
• 3:14
  So an existing site, how can we do more with it?
• 3:17
  And we see technology providers catering to that.
• 3:20
  Right.
• 3:20
  Being able to instead of say, okay, well in order to use this automation or this robot, you got to go get a brand new building or you got to completely level out the floors to be able to utilize
• 3:32
  it.
• 3:33
  Certainly seeing more technologies come to market or existing solution providers coming up with new solutions that are more geared towards that brownfield environment, which I think is huge because our, you know, these rates are not going down.
• 3:46
  I'm sure, you know, you know, the cost of the real estate itself is just, there's no relief there.
• 3:54
  Right.
• 3:54
  So how do we, you know, take the building that we're in, do more with it, stay there longer and not have to go and get another building and figure out a whole new project?
• 4:03
  So those are kind of the two ones I would say are like top of mind for me.
• 4:07
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• 4:12
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• 4:15
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• 4:23
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• 4:31
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• 4:39
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• 4:45
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• 4:58
  It's all over the floor here.
• 5:01
  Seeing some interesting use cases, certainly, you know, one that stood out to me actually.
• 5:08
  You mentioned the Shapiro event we had with Graham from El Famoso, talked about how they were using just Google Gemini, right, to do better SOP compilations and putting SOPs together and access to the police as well.
• 5:23
  So I think that's an interesting use case for AI.
• 5:25
  And some of the agentic stuff is getting pretty interesting in terms of going like beyond chat bots, right.
• 5:32
  And actually seeing, you know, companies like we just interviewed Achilles hr, which was doing something pretty cool like where they're doing like basically AI phone screens for hiring Frontline, right?
• 5:45
  So instead of, you know, spending time calling applicants, not getting a hold of them because it's, you know, they already have a job in a warehouse somewhere else, they're just trying to find something new and not having to
• 5:57
  call them at 7 o' clock at night to work around those hours, set up the AI to do that initial phone screening, see if they even qualify in the first place, and then take it to the next level
• 6:06
  of the interview.
• 6:07
  So that kind of stuff I think is really interesting and that's kind of what I'm watching.
• 6:12
  Okay, And I'm glad you brought up AI, but let me just ask you too, because it's like you said, it's everywhere and I, what I'm seeing too is like it's all about how you interact with it and how
• 6:24
  you're using it.
• 6:25
  And it's never going to replace humans, right?
• 6:27
  If anything, if the whole goal is to make it, to make everyone more productive, more efficient, what would you say as people are getting wrong with AI within, within logistics?
• 6:38
  Yeah, what they're getting wrong with it, I think, I mean, I think you're point right there, right?
• 6:43
  I mean that I think, you know, people are kind of leaning on it in some ways to figure out like, okay, well can it take over this type of job or this type of role.
• 6:53
  But I think in logistics specifically, you know, there's still very much a human touch element to it where we need that.
• 7:01
  So it's more about figuring out how do we leverage it as a, as a tool versus like kind of a replacement in that sense.
• 7:09
  And I think the other thing too is that, you know, people need to just get started with it, right?
• 7:13
  I think people are holding back a little bit.
• 7:16
  And you know, I'm seeing some that are embracing AI and that's really like pushing them ahead of others, right?
• 7:25
  So that's one thing I think, you know, to not be so scared about it, I guess in a sense, or feel like it's such a risk to just get started.
• 7:34
  Because the one thing about AI that I think is really cool and fascinating, right, Is that like anybody can just get started using AI, right?
• 7:43
  It could be as simple as like jumping on chat GPT or Gemini just trying it out.
• 7:49
  Right.
• 7:50
  And as you talk to the AI too as well from a generative AI perspective, LLMs, I mean, it'll tell you like what it can do for you.
• 7:59
  Basically when I first tried out Gemini, like that's what I like I was asking it like can you do this?
• 8:06
  It's like, yes, I can do this.
• 8:07
  Here, this is what you need to tell me.
• 8:08
  Right?
• 8:08
  So, so it can actually like help you do that.
• 8:10
  So very easy to get started.
• 8:12
  So I would say like, don't be, you know, scared to try and just, just experiment because it's very easy, very accessible.
• 8:21
  And I think that's probably the one thing I see where people are like being cautious, a little too cautious maybe and holding on and missing some potential unlocks and efficiency gains.
• 8:31
  Okay, all right.
• 8:33
  And Kevin, you are ever the entrepreneur in terms of what you've been able to do with your podcast and the growth and all the opportunities you've used that to create.
• 8:41
  And now you are actually launching a new platform which is a community within logistics.
• 8:46
  Why don't you tell us about that?
• 8:48
  Sure.
• 8:48
  It's called the Warehouse Innovators community.
• 8:51
  And the idea behind it is it's a private intelligence community specifically for warehouse operators, no vendors allowed.
• 8:57
  So if any vendors are watching, sorry to my vendor friends that are on the floor there as well.
• 9:02
  But they cannot get in the door to the community.
• 9:05
  It's an online platform, so we have spaces in there where people can talk about different technologies, innovations within the warehouse, peer to peer and understand things.
• 9:16
  Things like, oh, have you looked at this software before?
• 9:18
  Is anybody using this software?
• 9:20
  Is it good experience, bad experience?
• 9:23
  And really feel comfortable and safe talking about that in that forum.
• 9:28
  And then me personally, you know, all of the kind of intelligence that I'm collecting in the various conversations I have and the multiple conferences I'm attending, I'm bringing that into the community as well.
• 9:39
  So kind of like to say that you don't have to sit through the demos because I'll sit through them for you basically and disseminate that down into the community for people to learn from and understand.
• 9:51
  And then we'll also have monthly calls and meetings to learn more about specific topics that the community's interested in.
• 9:58
  And then eventually we'll evolve it into in person events as well.
• 10:02
  We can get together, see some sites as well, see some innovations together, and just get to know each other better level and really make it a community aspect.
• 10:12
  And that's.
• 10:13
  That's pretty much it.
• 10:14
  And we have a great founding council of people from companies like dhl, Jodis, kenco, TCL Logistics, Bergen Logistics.
• 10:24
  So we just started, I don't know when you're gonna put this out, but as a manifest, we just kind of started opening it last week and it's just open turning up this week during manifest so inviting some people
• 10:37
  like Dave we invited today and yeah we hope to see you in there.
• 10:41
  It's called the warehouse Innovators community.
• 10:43
  Okay.
• 10:44
  All right.
• 10:44
  And what is there a site they can go to to access that?
• 10:48
  There is but I'll give you the link.
• 10:50
  Okay.
• 10:51
  We'll we'll put the link in the show notes made it easy yet the link still building so but yes, yeah we'll give you the link.
• 10:59
  Okay.
• 11:00
  All right.
• 11:00
  Well Kevin, thanks so much for being here.
• 11:02
  Any final thoughts?
• 11:04
  Yeah, I mean love what you're doing Dave too on the podcast front.
• 11:07
  Great to see the growth there and you know final thoughts I think you know make sure that you're going the proper way around discovery of technology within the warehouse operations and hopefully we can help you through that community
• 11:20
  as well.
• 11:21
  Okay.
• 11:22
  All right.
• 11:22
  Thanks so much Kevin.
• 11:23
  Have a great show that.