Gartman user conference to leverage AI tools

Gartman LLC, provider of a comprehensive suite of technology products and distribution management solutions for the wholesale floor covering community, plans to hold its 2026 User Conference April 28–29 in Little Rock, Ark. Scores of Gartman clients are expected to attend.

“The goal of the user conference—which is held every 18 months—is to introduce new features across our apps,” said Chris Gartman, vice president. “We have ERP, e-commerce and CRM systems for sales. We also have electronic proof of delivery systems for logistics and warehouse systems for barcoding. It’s a full suite of products designed to go together.”

Next month’s event will showcase the company’s latest innovations and updates to all these systems, including new advanced AI-based tools for distributors. “We have a product called DMS Connect, which is built to connect all these various AI models to the Gartman ERP system,” Gartman explained. “We also have many first-party AI agents for Salesforce, customer service and e-commerce—agents designed to help those various users answer questions about their orders, quotes, invoices, items and pricing.”

According to Gartman, roughly half the conference programming will be dedicated to introducing new offerings, including exciting new AI features. The other half of the conference programming, he noted, will be more collaborative in scope. “We will have roundtables that our members can participate in,” he said. “Once we introduce our new features, we’ll spend the remainder of the conference discussing the features and if we need to tweak them in any way. We also expect to find out—based on conversations from all the attendees—what they want to see next and how we can improve what we presented.”

Embracing change

Gartman LLC, which recently celebrated 45 years in business, has witnessed a gradual evolution of the floor covering distribution business over that long time span. To its credit, the company has made improvements and updates to its suite of systems to not only keep pace with changes in customer needs and demands but also to guide its clients into the future. While the flooring distribution segment has a reputation for slowly adopting new technologies, Gartman sees encouraging signs. “We’ve had a lot of adoption in our CRM technologies and our business analytics technologies, but when it comes to other things—like logistics, for example—people don’t seem to adopt as quickly,” Gartman explained. “It depends on the technology. We probably have 20 different modules, and I would say about 80% of those have high adoption rates. We’ve seen low adoption on some of the more advanced accounting modules, but everything that we’re rolling out that’s AI related or analytics related—everyone seems to be adopting those as soon as they can.”

For Gartman, it’s all about timing. While discussions around AI and learning-based technologies have been on the company’s radar for some time now, it didn’t want to launch prematurely. “We’ve had our eye on AI for years, but we kind of held our ground on releasing some features because we wanted the technology to mature and catch up to the adoption rates,” he explained. “If people try to use new tools, but those tools are not living up to the promise that was given to them, then they will abandon them—and then it’s hard to get them to come back.”

Based on the alpha testing Gartman conducted with some of its clients, the company is confident users will embrace the benefits in short order. Attendees at the upcoming User Conference will get a closer look at the latest iteration, DMS 22, as well as updates across its suite of products, including analytics.

Registration is open until April 1.

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