[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":457},["Reactive",2],{"doc-/blog/recap-the-2026-support-driven-expo-in-chicago":3},{"_path":4,"_dir":5,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"title":8,"description":7,"date":9,"heading":10,"lead":11,"author":12,"tags":13,"navigation":6,"head":16,"body":56,"_type":452,"_id":453,"_source":454,"_file":455,"_extension":456},"/blog/recap-the-2026-support-driven-expo-in-chicago","blog",false,"","Recap The 2026 Support Driven Expo In Chicago","2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z","Recap: The 2026 Support Driven Expo in Chicago","Another great Support Driven Expo is in the books! See our recap of a great 3 days, including standout sessions on knowledge management, support operations, AI, and an early look at LaunchBrightly's MCP Server.","Josh Peacock, Dennis Mortensen",[14,15],"Events","Support Driven",{"title":17,"description":18,"link":19,"meta":23},"Recap: The 2026 Support Driven Expo in Chicago | LaunchBrightly","See our recap of a great 3 days at the Support Driven Expo in Chicago, and an early look at LaunchBrightly's MCP Server.",[20],{"rel":21,"href":22},"canonical","https://launchbrightly.com/blog/recap-the-2026-support-driven-expo-in-chicago",[24,27,30,33,35,37,39,42,45,48,50,52,54],{"name":25,"content":26},"keywords","Support Driven, Customer Support, Knowledge Management, AI, MCP Server",{"name":28,"content":29},"copyright","© 2026 LaunchBrightly, Inc.",{"property":31,"content":32},"og:type","article",{"property":34,"content":22},"og:url",{"property":36,"content":17},"og:title",{"property":38,"content":18},"og:description",{"property":40,"content":41},"og:image","https://launchbrightly.com/images/blog/recap-the-2026-support-driven-expo-in-chicago/launchbrightly-support-driven-expo-chicago.jpg",{"name":43,"content":44},"twitter:site","@launchbrightly",{"name":46,"content":47},"twitter:card","summary_large_image",{"name":49,"content":22},"twitter:url",{"name":51,"content":17},"twitter:title",{"name":53,"content":18},"twitter:description",{"name":55,"content":41},"twitter:image",{"type":57,"children":58,"toc":444},"root",[59,70,76,81,97,104,109,114,119,124,129,135,140,145,150,155,160,166,171,193,198,203,208,228,233,238,243,263,268,273,278,297,302,307,312,332,337,342,347,367,372,377,397,402,407,412,418,423,428,432],{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":62,"children":63},"element","p",{},[64],{"type":60,"tag":65,"props":66,"children":69},"img",{"alt":67,"src":68},"LaunchBrightly - Support Driven Expo In Chicago 2026","/images/blog/recap-the-2026-support-driven-expo-in-chicago/launchbrightly-support-driven-expo-chicago.jpg",[],{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":71,"children":72},{},[73],{"type":74,"value":75},"text","Three days in Chicago was enough to remind us why this community keeps showing up for each other. The Support Driven Expo brought together support leaders, knowledge managers, customer experience professionals, and practitioners from around the world—and once again, the sessions delivered practical insight from people actually doing the work.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":77,"children":78},{},[79],{"type":74,"value":80},"More than 50 sessions spanned seven tracks: AI, Career Development, Community, Knowledge Management, Management, Support Engineering, and Support Operations. But many of the most interesting conversations crossed those boundaries, reflecting just how multidisciplinary modern support has become.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":82,"children":83},{},[84,86,95],{"type":74,"value":85},"A huge thank you to ",{"type":60,"tag":87,"props":88,"children":92},"a",{"href":89,"rel":90},"https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-tran-188815a3/",[91],"nofollow",[93],{"type":74,"value":94},"Scott Tran",{"type":74,"value":96}," and the entire Support Driven team for bringing everyone together, and to all of the speakers who were so generous with their ideas and experiences.",{"type":60,"tag":98,"props":99,"children":101},"h3",{"id":100},"ai-was-everywhere-and-the-questions-are-getting-sharper",[102],{"type":74,"value":103},"AI was everywhere — and the questions are getting sharper",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":105,"children":106},{},[107],{"type":74,"value":108},"AI appeared in nearly every hallway conversation and in plenty of sessions outside its dedicated track. But the tone felt different from the earlier stages of AI adoption.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":110,"children":111},{},[112],{"type":74,"value":113},"Fewer people were asking whether support teams should use AI. More were asking how to make it genuinely useful and trustworthy: how to ground it in accurate product knowledge, introduce it responsibly, and prevent it from confidently repeating information that is incomplete or out of date.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":115,"children":116},{},[117],{"type":74,"value":118},"One theme came through particularly clearly: AI cannot compensate for weak support knowledge.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":120,"children":121},{},[122],{"type":74,"value":123},"An AI agent might be able to search hundreds of help articles in seconds, but it still depends on those articles being accurate, structured, and current. If a knowledge base contains conflicting instructions, duplicate content, or screenshots that no longer match the product, AI does not make that problem disappear. It can expose — and potentially amplify it.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":125,"children":126},{},[127],{"type":74,"value":128},"That shift from enthusiasm to scrutiny was exactly the conversation we came to Chicago to have.",{"type":60,"tag":98,"props":130,"children":132},{"id":131},"testing-our-mcp-server",[133],{"type":74,"value":134},"Testing our MCP Server",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":136,"children":137},{},[138],{"type":74,"value":139},"A good chunk of our time at the booth was spent doing something we don't usually get to do in person — putting our upcoming MCP Server directly into practitioners' hands.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":141,"children":142},{},[143],{"type":74,"value":144},"We walked folks through asking questions like which screenshots had changed in a recent audit, or which sections of a help center were currently out of sync, and watching an agent pull real answers from LaunchBrightly's visual knowledge graph instead of guessing.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":146,"children":147},{},[148],{"type":74,"value":149},"Behind those answers was context the image alone couldn’t provide: what the screenshot represented, where it appeared across the help center, whether it had recently changed, and how it connected to the surrounding documentation.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":151,"children":152},{},[153],{"type":74,"value":154},"The reaction we heard most often wasn't about the novelty of AI agents — it was real excitement. Knowledge managers have spent years being the last line of defense against outdated documentation, and the idea that an agent could finally see whether a screenshot still matched the product, rather than treating it as static and trustworthy by default, landed with almost everyone who stopped by.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":156,"children":157},{},[158],{"type":74,"value":159},"We're targeting a release later this fall, and conversations like these only sharpen where we're headed next.",{"type":60,"tag":98,"props":161,"children":163},{"id":162},"the-talks-that-stood-out",[164],{"type":74,"value":165},"The talks that stood out",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":167,"children":168},{},[169],{"type":74,"value":170},"We can’t thank the lineup of speakers enough for the candor and generosity they brought to the stage. There were far more sessions than we could possibly recap here, but a few in particular stuck with us.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":172,"children":173},{},[174,180,184,191],{"type":60,"tag":175,"props":176,"children":177},"strong",{},[178],{"type":74,"value":179},"One Knowledge Base, Three Masters",{"type":60,"tag":181,"props":182,"children":183},"br",{},[],{"type":60,"tag":87,"props":185,"children":188},{"href":186,"rel":187},"https://www.linkedin.com/in/rizwansherif/",[91],[189],{"type":74,"value":190},"Riz Sherif",{"type":74,"value":192}," | Director of Customer Experience at Credit Repair Cloud",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":194,"children":195},{},[196],{"type":74,"value":197},"Riz's session captured one of the defining knowledge management challenges emerging from AI adoption: a knowledge base now has to work for three readers at once — customers self-serving, agents resolving tickets, and AI systems generating responses — and most teams are still writing for just one of them.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":199,"children":200},{},[201],{"type":74,"value":202},"Each audience consumes information differently. Customers need clear answers they can follow independently. Support agents need context for handling exceptions and diagnosing more complicated issues. AI systems need consistent, structured source material from which they can generate trustworthy responses.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":204,"children":205},{},[206],{"type":74,"value":207},"The talk offered a practical framework for auditing and restructuring content so it holds up across all three.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":209,"children":210},{},[211,216,219,226],{"type":60,"tag":175,"props":212,"children":213},{},[214],{"type":74,"value":215},"Designing Learner-Centered Documentation",{"type":60,"tag":181,"props":217,"children":218},{},[],{"type":60,"tag":87,"props":220,"children":223},{"href":221,"rel":222},"https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosepajaroja-villanueva/",[91],[224],{"type":74,"value":225},"Rose Pajaroja-Villanueva",{"type":74,"value":227}," | Happiness Engineer at Automattic",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":229,"children":230},{},[231],{"type":74,"value":232},"Documentation is often organized around how a company thinks about its product: by feature, setting, or internal terminology. Customers usually arrive from a very different starting point, with a goal they are trying to accomplish and varying levels of existing knowledge.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":234,"children":235},{},[236],{"type":74,"value":237},"Rose made the case for designing documentation around how people actually learn. That means thinking beyond a technically correct list of steps and considering the context readers need to understand what they are doing, why they are doing it, and what should happen next.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":239,"children":240},{},[241],{"type":74,"value":242},"Whether an article is read by a customer or used as source material by an AI agent, its usefulness still starts with a clear understanding of the person it is intended to help.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":244,"children":245},{},[246,251,254,261],{"type":60,"tag":175,"props":247,"children":248},{},[249],{"type":74,"value":250},"Using AI to Clean Up Your Messy Knowledge Base",{"type":60,"tag":181,"props":252,"children":253},{},[],{"type":60,"tag":87,"props":255,"children":258},{"href":256,"rel":257},"https://www.linkedin.com/in/cora-vl/",[91],[259],{"type":74,"value":260},"Cora Van Leeuwen",{"type":74,"value":262}," | Technical Support Specialist at Attio",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":264,"children":265},{},[266],{"type":74,"value":267},"Every established knowledge base accumulates some form of content debt. Articles overlap, terminology changes, ownership becomes unclear, and instructions remain live long after the corresponding product workflow has changed.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":269,"children":270},{},[271],{"type":74,"value":272},"Cora explored how AI can accelerate the work of identifying duplication, inconsistencies, gaps, and outdated content without requiring teams to set aside months for a completely manual overhaul.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":274,"children":275},{},[276],{"type":74,"value":277},"It was a practical example of AI strengthening the underlying knowledge system rather than simply adding another customer-facing bot on top of it.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":279,"children":280},{},[281,286,289,296],{"type":60,"tag":175,"props":282,"children":283},{},[284],{"type":74,"value":285},"AI Chatbots Are Useless Without Docs",{"type":60,"tag":181,"props":287,"children":288},{},[],{"type":60,"tag":87,"props":290,"children":293},{"href":291,"rel":292},"https://www.linkedin.com/in/psrpinto/",[91],[294],{"type":74,"value":295},"Paulo Sérgio Teixeira Pinto",{"type":74,"value":227},{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":298,"children":299},{},[300],{"type":74,"value":301},"Paulo’s session went directly to the foundation of effective AI support: the quality of the documentation beneath it.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":303,"children":304},{},[305],{"type":74,"value":306},"A chatbot can only generate dependable answers when it has dependable source material. If the underlying articles are incomplete, inconsistent, or out of date, the system will struggle regardless of how capable the model might be.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":308,"children":309},{},[310],{"type":74,"value":311},"It was a blunt but valuable reminder that AI implementation and knowledge management cannot be treated as separate initiatives. Better AI support starts with better documentation.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":313,"children":314},{},[315,320,323,330],{"type":60,"tag":175,"props":316,"children":317},{},[318],{"type":74,"value":319},"The Support Playbook for Fast-Moving Products",{"type":60,"tag":181,"props":321,"children":322},{},[],{"type":60,"tag":87,"props":324,"children":327},{"href":325,"rel":326},"https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettrush/",[91],[328],{"type":74,"value":329},"Brett Rush",{"type":74,"value":331}," | Founder of Rush to Resolution",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":333,"children":334},{},[335],{"type":74,"value":336},"Fast-moving products create a familiar problem for support teams: the product changes faster than the systems designed to explain and support it.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":338,"children":339},{},[340],{"type":74,"value":341},"Brett focused on how teams can identify gaps in their support playbooks and create a dependable process for keeping documentation current as the product evolves. The important shift is from treating documentation updates as an occasional cleanup project to making them part of the ongoing product release process.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":343,"children":344},{},[345],{"type":74,"value":346},"A help center cannot remain accurate through periodic heroic efforts. It needs a repeatable system that identifies changes, assigns responsibility, and makes updating customer-facing knowledge part of the normal operational rhythm.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":348,"children":349},{},[350,355,358,365],{"type":60,"tag":175,"props":351,"children":352},{},[353],{"type":74,"value":354},"AI Needs Instructions. You’re It.",{"type":60,"tag":181,"props":356,"children":357},{},[],{"type":60,"tag":87,"props":359,"children":362},{"href":360,"rel":361},"https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannah-barnes/",[91],[363],{"type":74,"value":364},"Susannah Barnes",{"type":74,"value":366}," | Sr. Manager, Digital Customer Experience at Alation",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":368,"children":369},{},[370],{"type":74,"value":371},"Susannah explored the human work required to make AI useful and trustworthy at scale. AI needs more than access to a pile of documents — it needs clear instructions, organizational context, and knowledge created by people who understand both the customer and the business. The teams that get the most from AI won't be the ones adopting the most tools; they'll be the ones with the clearest systems for capturing and maintaining what those tools need to know.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":373,"children":374},{},[375],{"type":74,"value":376},"Her session framed humans as the architects of the knowledge systems AI relies upon. It was an important reminder that AI adoption is not solely a tooling decision. It is also a knowledge management and operating-model decision.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":378,"children":379},{},[380,385,388,395],{"type":60,"tag":175,"props":381,"children":382},{},[383],{"type":74,"value":384},"The 40% Problem: Building an AI Strategy for the Tickets That Will Never Be Deflected",{"type":60,"tag":181,"props":386,"children":387},{},[],{"type":60,"tag":87,"props":389,"children":392},{"href":390,"rel":391},"https://www.linkedin.com/in/nirajranjan/",[91],[393],{"type":74,"value":394},"Niraj Ranjan Rout",{"type":74,"value":396}," | Founder and CEO of Hiver",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":398,"children":399},{},[400],{"type":74,"value":401},"Not every support conversation should — or realistically can — be automated.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":403,"children":404},{},[405],{"type":74,"value":406},"Niraj focused on the portion of the support queue that will continue to require human judgment, empathy, and expertise even as AI handles more repetitive requests. Instead of treating complete deflection as the goal, teams can use AI to create greater capacity for the complex conversations where people provide the most value.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":408,"children":409},{},[410],{"type":74,"value":411},"Success shouldn't be measured only by how many tickets disappear — it should also be measured by whether support professionals have more time and capacity for the conversations that genuinely need them.",{"type":60,"tag":98,"props":413,"children":415},{"id":414},"thank-you-chicago",[416],{"type":74,"value":417},"Thank you, Chicago",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":419,"children":420},{},[421],{"type":74,"value":422},"Thank you to the entire Support Driven team for putting on another excellent event, and to every speaker who was generous enough to share real lessons from the work they do every day. And thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth to test the MCP Server, ask hard questions, and tell us what would actually be useful in your own help center.",{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":424,"children":425},{},[426],{"type":74,"value":427},"If we didn’t get a chance to connect in Chicago — or you would like a closer look at how LaunchBrightly automatically creates, updates, and maintains product screenshots across your help center and documentation — we would be happy to show you around.",{"type":60,"tag":429,"props":430,"children":431},"hr",{},[],{"type":60,"tag":433,"props":434,"children":438},"link-button",{"align":435,"event":436,"link":437},"center","book_demo","https://calendly.com/launchbrightly/zoom",[439],{"type":60,"tag":61,"props":440,"children":441},{},[442],{"type":74,"value":443},"Grab some time to chat 🗓️",{"title":7,"searchDepth":445,"depth":445,"links":446},2,[447,449,450,451],{"id":100,"depth":448,"text":103},3,{"id":131,"depth":448,"text":134},{"id":162,"depth":448,"text":165},{"id":414,"depth":448,"text":417},"markdown","content:blog:recap-the-2026-support-driven-expo-in-chicago.md","content","blog/recap-the-2026-support-driven-expo-in-chicago.md","md",1787941226689]