The Future of UGC: Fueling Conversion, Innovation, and Agentic Shopping

Oct 8, 2025 12:00 PM1:00 PM EST

Request The Full Recording

Here's what we talked about

  • Why UGC has shifted from content to growth engine and why that matters now.
  • How to mine consumer voices for product ideas, problem areas, and competitive advantages.
  • How to amplify what shoppers love most to drive higher conversion across retail and DTC.
  • What “agentic shopping” means for your brand and how UGC will power it.
  • Practical steps to start building your own UGC flywheel today.

Event Partners

Yogi

Yogi is a product sentiment platform that enables brands to gain deeper visibility into customer feedback and voice-of-customer. We are the only tool that uses proprietary AI & NLP technology with reviews & ratings as the main data source. This enables faster and more granular analyses to uncover issues, opportunities, and trends. Brands like Tylenol, Colgate, and Nestlé use Yogi to increase conversion rates on PDPs, prioritize product improvements, and find opportunities for innovation.

Connect with Yogi

Guest Speakers

Aaron Conant LinkedIn

Co-Founder & Managing Director at BWG Connect

Aaron Conant is Co-Founder and Chief Digital Strategist at BWG Connect, a networking and knowledge sharing group of thousands of brands who collectively grow their digital knowledge base and collaborate on partner selection. Speaking 1x1 with over 1200 brands a year and hosting over 250 in-person and virtual events, he has a real time pulse on the newest trends, strategies and partners shaping growth in the digital space.

Gautam Kanumuru LinkedIn

CEO & Co-Founder at Yogi

Gautam Kanumuru is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yogi, the AI-powered consumer intelligence platform built to transform how brands understand and act on feedback at scale. A recognized innovator in the field, Gautam was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for his work in AI and enterprise technology.

After early roles at Microsoft and Clarke.AI, Gautam saw a gap in how global brands captured and understood the consumer voice. He founded Yogi to change that—building a platform that uses advanced natural language processing to turn product reviews, support tickets, and social content into insights that drive product innovation, marketing, and digital shelf performance. Today, he partners with brands like Nestlé USA, Unilever, Mars, and Microsoft to turn consumer voices into a strategic growth engine.

Mark Drosos LinkedIn

SVP of Global Channel & Ecosystem Alliances at BazaarVoice

Mark is the SVP of Global Channel & Ecosystem Alliances at Bazaarvoice, the enterprise platform that leverages User-Generated Content (UGC) to power e-commerce personalization, AI Shopping and analytics. As a strategic executive with deep expertise in AI, E-commerce and data partnerships, Mark architected the syndication of rich UGC content and data for retail syndication, LLM models and analytics tools. His experience building partner ecosystems with leading technology companies, and SI’s like AWS, Salesforce and Accenture make him an expert on turning UGC from a simple content source into a strategic ‘Flywheel’ for e-commerce growth.

When he’s not building partner ecosystems, you can find him in his roles as a horse show dad, a modern-day Oliver Wendell Douglas and burrito king in a tech bro vest.

Event Moderator

Aaron Conant LinkedIn

Co-Founder & Managing Director at BWG Connect

Aaron Conant is Co-Founder and Chief Digital Strategist at BWG Connect, a networking and knowledge sharing group of thousands of brands who collectively grow their digital knowledge base and collaborate on partner selection. Speaking 1x1 with over 1200 brands a year and hosting over 250 in-person and virtual events, he has a real time pulse on the newest trends, strategies and partners shaping growth in the digital space.

Gautam Kanumuru LinkedIn

CEO & Co-Founder at Yogi

Gautam Kanumuru is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yogi, the AI-powered consumer intelligence platform built to transform how brands understand and act on feedback at scale. A recognized innovator in the field, Gautam was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for his work in AI and enterprise technology.

After early roles at Microsoft and Clarke.AI, Gautam saw a gap in how global brands captured and understood the consumer voice. He founded Yogi to change that—building a platform that uses advanced natural language processing to turn product reviews, support tickets, and social content into insights that drive product innovation, marketing, and digital shelf performance. Today, he partners with brands like Nestlé USA, Unilever, Mars, and Microsoft to turn consumer voices into a strategic growth engine.

Mark Drosos LinkedIn

SVP of Global Channel & Ecosystem Alliances at BazaarVoice

Mark is the SVP of Global Channel & Ecosystem Alliances at Bazaarvoice, the enterprise platform that leverages User-Generated Content (UGC) to power e-commerce personalization, AI Shopping and analytics. As a strategic executive with deep expertise in AI, E-commerce and data partnerships, Mark architected the syndication of rich UGC content and data for retail syndication, LLM models and analytics tools. His experience building partner ecosystems with leading technology companies, and SI’s like AWS, Salesforce and Accenture make him an expert on turning UGC from a simple content source into a strategic ‘Flywheel’ for e-commerce growth.

When he’s not building partner ecosystems, you can find him in his roles as a horse show dad, a modern-day Oliver Wendell Douglas and burrito king in a tech bro vest.

Request the Full Recording

Please enter your information to request a copy of the post-event written summary or recording!

How can we help?

Hang tight! An event summary, key takeaways, & a full transcript will be posted shortly. In the meantime... How can we help?

What is BWG Connect?

BWG Connect provides executive strategy & networking sessions that help brands from any industry with their overall business planning and execution. BWG has built an exclusive network of 125,000+ senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events on an annual basis.
envelopephone-handsetcrossmenu linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram