Day 1: 2026 Digital Shelf Summit (DSS) | Salsify

The 2026 Digital Shelf Summit (DSS) began on Monday, May 4, 2026, with actionable Salsify trainings, the Digital Transformer Awards, and meaningful keynote sessions.

The first day of the Summit recognized the importance of keeping up with the digital, physical, and agentic shelves.

Attendees gained applicable, hands-on Salsify training, celebrated peers’ wins, and heard from ecommerce experts about the future of AI. They also celebrated May 4 in style — with Darth Vader roaming the welcome reception, lightsaber in hand.

Salsify Academy Day

“Where is the gap between AI usage as a consumer and as a business?” asks Ryan Barker, Salsify solutions consultant, during the Academy session titled “Collaborative Learning: Data Strategy in the Agentic Commerce Era.”

Salsify experts led the session, guiding attendees on how to structure content for AI agents and build a scalable strategy for long-term success. 

Attendees also had the opportunity to learn how to streamline syndication, harness the power of GDSN, unlock powerful Intelligence Suite workflows, dive deeper into Angie’s capabilities, and more.

Digital Shelf Transformer Award Winners

The Transformer Awards recognize the extraordinary accomplishments and digital shelf achievements of leading companies across industries.

This year’s winners are:

• Wells Lamont: With Salsify’s help, Wells Lamont went from inaccurate product data, retailer confusion, costly chargebacks, and siloed systems to a centralized source of truth with 100% accuracy and completeness for all acquired attributes.
• Kids2: With Salsify’s help, Kids2 went from manual, time-intensive audits and reactive “firefighting” to an 80% reduction in manual labor and 96% Content Completeness score.
• Kerry Group: With Salsify’s help, Kerry Group went from aging assets, persistent Amazon AI overwrites, and uneven page grades to a 113% increase in product detail page (PDP) traffic (13.7 million views), and a 38% sales growth fueled by clean data and ad efficiency.
• Ultimate Products: With Salsify’s help, Ultimate Products went from having no source of truth, dealing with time-intensive administrative tasks, and fragmented ownership to 9,000 working hours saved annually, a £2.2 million increase in Amazon Sales, and rapid expansion to E.U. markets without increasing headcount.

Ending the Day on a High Note

Salsify CEO Piyush Chaudhari and Co-Founder and Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Rob Gonzalez opened the keynote sessions with an overview of the digital and agentic shelves and how to balance short-term priorities and long-term foundations.

“You have to master all three shelves, or you cede to the competition,” Gonzalez says.

We also received a powerful look at Salsify’s product vision (keep your eyes peeled for more info soon), where Julie Marobella, chief product officer at Salsify, and Todd Buffum, VP of product management, AI, and growth investments at Salsify, explored how to master the agentic shelf without losing essential human control.

“The agentic era is here, and the impact is massive,” Marobella says.

Image Source: Salsify 2026

Julie Marobella, chief product officer at Salsify, on stage during her keynote speech.

The big takeaway? We’ve moved beyond the traditional digital shelf. As AI agents begin to handle more of the discovery and buying process, the way brands manage their data has to change. Success now means being ready for the AI bots that are doing the shopping.