2024 Recap

The Lawn & Landscape Technology Conference offered 2.5 days of access to lessons learned by those industry-wide who are implementing new technologies.

Over the summer, Lawn & Landscape hosted its annual Technology Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, at the brand-new Hilton Signia hotel overlooking nearby Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The event included exhibitors showcasing the latest technology to hit the green industry; networking opportunities for landscapers looking to advance their businesses through tech; and 2.5 days of education opportunities that we covered for the magazine.

AI was a hot topic, but sessions also covered technology as a growth tool, a panel with software innovators, and more.

At this year’s Lawn & Landscape Technology Conference, Scott Klososky, founding partner of Future Point of View, gave the keynote address and warned attendees not to wait to embrace AI and technology.

“The technology is growing so quickly that we have a gap between the power it has and how fast people are learning about it,” Klososky says. “One of the things you should be focusing on is getting AI skills into your team members. Don’t be caught a year from now being flatfooted.”

Klososky’s presentation titled “Synthetic Intelligence: A Generational Opportunity with AI,” gave attendees a crash course in all things artificial intelligence — though Klososky points out he prefers another term — synthetic intelligence.

Klososky says synthetic intelligence is when it’s built into software or business operations and machine intelligence is when it’s built into a product — like an autonomous mower.

“We should get rid of the word artificial — it’s not fake intelligence, it’s just not human intelligence,” he says. “We are allowing machines to be able to think, learn and co-work with us in ways they never have in history — and it’s very important.”

We also heard from panelists who broke down the latest trends in autonomous mowing. Maurice Coley joined fellow panelists Marion Delano and Robyn Schmitz at the session called “All Things Autonomous,” which covered the reasons they invested in robotic mowing, the benefits and the things they wish were different. The labor shortage was just one of lots of reasons the trio bought into autonomous mowing, but it was an important one that’s opened up lots of opportunities to repurpose the employees on staff.

Schmitz, the owner and CEO at High Prairie Outdoors in Mission, Kansas, says her company hasn’t had hiring issues. Still, they also wanted to empower their staff to grow into more enriching ventures.

Mowing crews are entry-level positions, and Schmitz says she wants her employees to climb the company’s career ladder faster. Having robots handle this work empowers them to do so, she says, all while saving the company money.

“Our fine gardening team is still doing that fine gardening while those mowers are going without that extra person on those mowers. That is literally thousands of dollars a season of just extra revenue without that extra person attributed to that crew.”

And finally, the Lawn & Landscape Technology Conference capped off with a first-of-its-kind panel featuring six pioneers of green industry software. During the session, panelists discussed their motivations for building and implementing software into their landscaping companies, the current state of technology within the industry and the role AI is playing and where they see the industry heading in terms of technology use for the years ahead.

Panelists giving their past, present and future insights included: Mark Bradley, cofounder of LMN; Mike Cossins, founder/president of The Integra Group/ Boss Software; Joe Kucik, founder of Real Green Systems; Mike Rorie, former CEO of GIS Dynamics; Bill Seven, founder and CEO of Include Software; and Mark Tipton, Founder/CEO of Aspire Software.

Want more from the Lawn & Landscape Technology Conference, plus the latest industry news surrounding tech in landscaping? Check out our coverage of all things tech in the green industry.