Those of you who attended Empower26 in Houston, don't need me to tell you how it brought together builders, admins, innovators, and operational leaders for a packed first day of learning, networking, and product exploration. For those of you who were not there I'd like to go over some of the highlights you missed, especially from the opening keynote, where Quickbase leaders, customers, and partners shared a clear message about where operational innovation is headed next.
The Power of the Quickbase Community
Click image to enlargeKim Eaton, Quickbase CEO, opened the keynote by highlighting what has always made Quickbase special: the people who build with it.
The Quickbase Community continues to grow, share, teach, and support one another in ways that go far beyond product usage. Kim emphasized how builders enable and uplift each other, whether they are solving complex operational problems, sharing app-building best practices, or helping newer members find their way.
One message captured the spirit of her opening:
"You bring the will. We bring the way."
Empower26 was not just about new features or product announcements. It has always focused on the builders, admins, and operational leaders who understand how their businesses actually run — and who are best positioned to lead the next era of transformation.
Kim also shared powerful signs of community momentum, including 700 new Qrew members and 81 former builders returning to the platform. And in a particularly memorable example of long-term value, Aetna CVS Health has now been using Quickbase for 25 years.
Quickbase in Action: Life-Saving Logistics
One of the most powerful moments of the keynote came from Anitha Gunasekaran and Mark Corradi of Bristol Myers Squibb, who shared how their team uses Quickbase to manage the deeply complex logistics behind personalized CAR T-cell therapies.
CAR T-cell therapy is not a standard treatment workflow. It is a highly personalized, multi-step process that involves collecting a patient’s own T cells, genetically engineering them to target illness, and then infusing those modified cells back into the patient.
The process requires exact timing, careful coordination, and countless moving parts. Cells must be collected, shipped, engineered, multiplied, returned, and infused within narrow windows of time. The right materials, tools, experts, and resources must all be in the right place at the right moment.
At BMS, a small team of five people uses Quickbase to help manage all this extraordinary operational complexity.
Click image to enlargeMark also shared the personal story of a patient with blood cancer whose scan showed that 85% of her body was dark, indicating cancer was present. After six weeks of CAR T-cell therapy, her next scan was completely clear.
It was an incredible outcome for the patient, her two children, and her broader family. It was also a powerful reminder that behind every workflow, every field, every notification, and every operational process, there may be a human being waiting on the other side.
As Mark put it, "patients are waiting".
That story made the keynote’s larger message feel immediate and human: operational speed and simplicity are not abstract goals. In the right hands, they can help teams deliver life-changing outcomes.
Why Sympo Bet on Quickbase
Emi Gwin, CEO of Sympo, brought another perspective to the stage.
As Emi put it, "Sympo did not start out as a Quickbase shop". However, the team quickly recognized the potential of the platform. She explained that Quickbase became Sympo’s core platform because nothing else matched what it delivers — or where it is headed.
That stood out because it was not a message of loyalty for loyalty’s sake. It was conviction backed by evidence.
For Sympo, Quickbase represents a platform that can keep up with change, support innovation, and continue evolving alongside the teams building on it.
The Next Era: Orchestrating Smarter
Marcus Torres, Quickbase Chief Product Officer, then took the stage to outline the next era of the Quickbase platform.
His message was clear: the future is not about automating faster. It is about orchestrating smarter.
Speed alone is not the differentiator. The true differentiator is understanding your operations end to end — and using that knowledge to build systems that are more connected, more intelligent, and more adaptable.
Marcus emphasized that the people in the strongest position to lead this next era are builders themselves. Why? Because our builders understand how their businesses run. They know where the friction is. They know what needs to change. And they have the judgment and expertise to shape better ways of working.
That idea connected directly to one of the keynote’s most memorable quotes:
"AI without knowledge is optimization on speed and not quality. Human judgement and expertise is critical to the value of AI."
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It was a grounding reminder that AI is not valuable simply because it is fast. It becomes valuable when it is guided by the people who understand the business context, the process, and the desired outcome.
AI That Helps Builders Innovate Safely
Marcus outlined several improvements across the Quickbase platform, with a particular focus on how AI can help builders innovate faster without compromising security, governance, or usability.
Click image to enlargeHe walked us through all of the improvements and flexibility added by Grid Reoprts. The ideas of which came directly from hands-on Quickbase users submitting feature requests.
The new AI Agent will allow users to have a conversation about outcomes and statuses rather than manually building reports, searching tables, and cross-referencing data themselves.
AI Actions will help teams process unstructured data, such as incoming invoice emails, through pipeline steps that extract the right information, map it to the appropriate fields, and take action based on what is collected.
Click image to enlargeThe AI Control Center addresses one of the most important topics for organizations adopting AI: security and risk mitigation. It gives teams control over how AI is deployed and implemented, from the global level down to the user level.
Several FastField innovations were also highlighted. Asset & Team Tracker creates layered maps and visualizations so teams can understand who and what is where. AI Photo Insights can add notes while still allowing users to insert and act on their own knowledge. AI Label Scanner automatically maps data to the appropriate fields. And AI Form Builder, coming soon, will be able to take a prompt — such as an inspection — and create a form based on the provided context and knowledge for either desktop or mobile use.
"Together, these updates point toward a platform where AI does not replace builder expertise. It amplifies it."
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Pave: Lowering the Barrier to Change
Click image to enlargeAnother major theme from the keynote was Pave, which was described as a way to lower the barrier to change.
Pave is not just a UI layer, a prototype app, or a visualization. It creates real apps that are immediately capable of collecting real data from the word “go.”
With Pave, builders can create dashboards and visualizations with a prompt to the agent, manage relationships and create connections, generate notifications and other app infrastructure, build checklists, and manage users, access, fields, and governance.
And importantly, all of this happens using the platform our builders already know and trust: Quickbase.
The message was simple:
"Orchestrate smarter: Pave it."
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The Future Is in the Hands of Builders
Across the keynote, one idea came through again and again: the future of operational transformation belongs to the people closest to the work.
Quickbase is continuing to invest in AI, governance, automation, mobile capabilities, and app-building experiences that help teams support every layer of their business. But the value of those tools depends on the judgment, creativity, and operational expertise of the builders using them.
Click image to enlargeDay 1 of Empower26 made that future feel both ambitious and practical.
It showed how a strong community can uplift each other, how customers like Bristol Myers Squibb are using Quickbase to manage work with life-changing stakes, how partners like Sympo are betting on the platform’s direction, and how new AI capabilities can help builders move faster while staying grounded in security, usability, and real business knowledge.
For those of us in Houston, the opening keynote set the tone for the rest of the conference. For those who could not be there, the biggest takeaway is this: Quickbase builders are not just adapting to change. They are helping define what comes next.