2027 AMA Summer Academic Conference

Ready to Deliver: What Matters in Marketing When Answers Are Ambient

Bridging Academia, Practice, and Policy

Build momentum for the year ahead. The Summer Academic Conference helps academics start the academic year with early research feedback, expert-led skill building, and meaningful mentorship and networking, supporting real career movement through opportunities for job placement and recognition. In a field where answers are increasingly abundant, the ability to ask better questions, evaluate what matters, and turn ideas into meaningful impact has never been more important.

Answers used to be hard to come by. Today, the analysis, content, and recommendations that once required specialists are available to almost anyone, on demand and at little cost. Artificial intelligence is the most visible force behind this shift, but it is not the only one. Trade disruptions, climate pressures, geopolitical conflict, and tighter budgets are also reshaping what organizations, students, and society expect from marketing.

When answers are everywhere, having one is no longer enough. What matters is asking the right questions, knowing which answers to trust, and turning them into results: creating value for customers and firms, earning public confidence, and demonstrating impact that holds up to scrutiny.

The 2027 AMA Summer Academic Conference invites scholars, educators, practitioners, and policymakers to examine what remains distinctive, valuable, and accountable in marketing. Which capabilities become scarce when answers are abundant? How can research produce credible evidence for consequential decisions? How should we prepare students for roles that are still being defined? And how can marketing’s contribution to firms, consumers, and society be measured and communicated?

Meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC, the conference offers a natural setting to connect research, the classroom, business, and public policy. We welcome work across all of marketing’s domains and methods, along with special sessions and workshops that move ideas into practice and build the research and personal connections that help scholarship thrive.