B2B NEXT AI Launches as the Global AI Leadership Community for Manufacturing and Distribution

The B2B eCommerce Association (B2BEA) has officially launched B2B NEXT AI, a global AI leadership community and annual summit designed exclusively for senior executives in manufacturing and distribution. The inaugural event, held at Northeastern University's Roux Institute in Portland, Maine, brought together 200 of the most influential practitioners in B2B commerce for a day of candid conversation, hands-on collaboration, and peer exchange that organisers say signals a turning point for the industry.

The launch marks the founding of the B2B AI Leaders Network, a new AI Hub for B2B at the Roux Institute, and a strategic partnership between industry and academia that its founders believe will accelerate AI leadership across manufacturing and distribution for years to come.

A Community Built From the Inside Out

The vision behind B2B NEXT AI began not in a boardroom, but in a series of conversations between practitioners frustrated by the lack of a genuine peer forum for AI in B2B.

Phane Mane, Global AI Lead at Boston Scientific and Chair of the B2BEA AI Council, was the driving force behind the initiative. For Mane, the gap in the market was clear.

"The people doing the most important AI work in manufacturing and distribution had no real place to find each other," said Mane. "Not a vendor event. Not a conference circuit. A genuine peer community built around shared challenges and honest conversation about what actually works. That is what B2B NEXT AI was created to be."

The response to the inaugural event, Mane said, confirmed what he had long believed. "The demand is real. The community is ready. And what we launched at the Roux Institute was just the beginning."

Why This. Why Now.

For Justin King, Chief AI Officer at the B2B eCommerce Association, the timing of B2B NEXT AI could not be more critical. AI is no longer a future consideration for manufacturers and distributors, it is on their desks, in their pipelines, and in the hands of their customers. And yet, King argues, most of the AI content and events available to this audience were never built with them in mind.

"Generic AI content is built for generic audiences," said Justin King. "Industrial operations have specific workflows, data problems, customer expectations, and legacy system constraints that none of that content addresses. The context gap is the whole problem and B2B NEXT AI exists to close it."

King points to the fragmentation he sees across the industry as one of the most pressing challenges facing B2B leaders today. "We keep seeing the same pattern. Isolated experiments. No shared vocabulary. One department doing something, leadership not bought in, no governance, no measurement. The people who are figuring it out need a place to connect with each other and that place now exists."

A Partnership Built for Real-World Impact

Central to the B2B NEXT AI model is its founding partnership with Northeastern University's Roux Institute, an innovation campus focused on applied research and industry collaboration. For the B2BEA, the partnership is not a sponsorship arrangement. It is a structural commitment to ensuring that the community's programming is grounded in both academic rigour and real-world relevance.

The inaugural event featured IdeaJAM, a two-hour working session co-designed with the Roux Institute that took senior leaders from identifying a real AI challenge in their business to leaving with a prioritised use case and a delivery-ready plan. The session was designed, as Mane describes it, for practitioners "who want to be the person in their organisation who actually figures this out, rather than waiting for someone else to."

What Comes Next

With the inaugural event complete, attention turns to B2B NEXT AI 2027, a three-day summit scheduled for March 1–2 at Mountain Shadows Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. The 2027 event will bring together 200 senior leaders for an expanded program of keynotes, practitioner case studies, panels, and working sessions, with the B2BEA Exchange Meeting Program giving attendees structured access to leading AI solution providers.

Between events, the B2B AI Leaders Network will serve as the permanent online home for the community, a space where practitioners can connect, share, and keep the momentum of the connections they make at B2B NEXT AI alive throughout the year.

For Justin, the ambition is clear. "The people who understand AI in the context of their specific industry will make better decisions, move faster, and be more valuable to their organisations. Our job is to make sure that the manufacturing and distribution community has the peer network, the programming, and the knowledge base to lead."

Phane is equally direct about what he hopes B2B NEXT AI becomes. "This is not a conference. It is a community. And communities are built by the people in them. Every person who showed up in Portland was not just attending an event. They were founding something."

Tickets for B2B NEXT AI 2027 are open now at b2bnext.ai