With gratitude to the iSchool for its generous financial support, I attended the Henry Stewart Digital Asset Management (DAM) LA 2026 conference in Downtown Los Angeles on March 18 and 19, 2026. In this post, I share practical insights I gained at the conference that may be valuable to iSchool students. The conference covered many topics, but across the sessions I attended, three major themes stood out: leadership, technology, and professional networking. 

Leadership

The event began with an introductory talk by host Michelle Huynh of FOX Entertainment Studios. In her remarks, she shared several thoughtful points about leadership, product development, and workflows. As a helpful way to promote team productivity, Huynh introduced the concept of “70/30,” urging teams to move a product forward when it is about 70% ready, while also recognizing that certain elements within the remaining 30% must still be fully addressed, particularly in areas such as security and governance.

A later session, “Uncovering Hidden Systems that Break DAM – Quantum Business Archaeology,” featuring Christina Aguilera of Synthis and Bastien Minniti of Amazon MGM Studios, explored how organizations can identify hidden systems to improve processes and technologies. These hidden systems may include decentralized file storage systems and shadow databases, both of which can hinder productivity, retrieval workflows, and system stability. Minniti emphasized the importance of identifying where disconnects occur and the importance of addressing their root causes. He also noted that in a large enterprise environment such as Amazon MGM, this work becomes especially complex because of scale and the global distribution of teams.

Technology

Throughout the conference, there was significant discussion of agentic AI, APIs, taxonomy design, metadata security, and governance. Liana Cárdenas Cave of Dell Technologies described Dell’s large-scale systems and data migration effort and noted the impressive speed with which schema design was completed. Especially relevant for library and information science professionals, Cárdenas noted the importance of fast, flexible taxonomy design for asset conversion and tagging while also accounting for scalability and future agentic AI integration in systems. 

In multiple discussions, speakers also emphasized the need for interoperability between systems through APIs and agentic AI. A recurring idea was that agentic AI systems become more effective when they can draw on structured context across connected platforms. Jarrod Gringras, Managing Director and Principal Analyst of Real Story Group described this through a framework of DAM maturity ranging from 1.0 to 4.0. In this model, 1.0 represents disconnected file systems with minimal DAM functionality, while 4.0 represents highly scaled, deeply integrated, and automated environments. Gringas noted that many organizations currently operate somewhere between 1.0 and 2.0, where a DAM may exist but are not yet fully integrated with other systems. 

It was encouraging to see the iSchool community represented at Henry Stewart DAM LA 2026. DAM industry leader and iSchool faculty, John Horodyski, facilitated several panel discussions. His session on metadata, trust, and authenticity in relation to AI and digital asset management was especially engaging. The discussion highlighted the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), along with broader governance developments at the state, federal, and international levels. Professor Horodyski was also a featured panelist in the closing discussion, addressing the state of Digital Asset Management, offering insights about metadata governance and standards. 

Networking

There were many opportunities for conversation with speakers, attendees, and iSchool students and alumni. I especially valued discussions with professionals from Orange Logic, People Inc., ImageKit.io, and Steg.ai. Hearing their perspectives on how the DAM field is evolving, and how LIS professionals can contribute through asset organization, workflow development, and taxonomy design, was both encouraging and informative. 

Being in conversation with experienced industry leaders and hearing about practical challenges and solutions across organizations gave me the opportunity to think more deeply about the value of LIS preparation. The conference reinforced how library and information science professionals add value across a variety of libraries and information environments by offering their skills in communication, technology, and information organization. Experiences like this also reflect how the SJSU iSchool well-prepares students to engage with current industry topics as metadata, APIs, AI, and digital systems strategy.