Trade show exhibitors now have an AI-powered solution to help them solve the common challenge of forgetting or losing vital lead information gathered during trade shows, conferences, and other business events. Enter Backtrack, a retroactive audio recording mobile app created specifically for exhibitor booths by parent company Yac, developer of an asynchronous voice messaging platform for remote teams. 

Designed to transform the way exhibiting professionals capture and recall crucial business interactions, the new app helps users accurately summarize and pull-out action items from conversations had in their booth, after which AI-generated summaries and transcriptions are automatically sent to their CRM. Besides ensuring that critical details are reliably captured and documented, Backtrack also enables users to snap a photo of a business card, scan a QR code on LinkedIn, or input an email address.

 “Exhibitors spend over $10,000 to go to events, just to forget 90% of the conversations within a week,” explained Hunter McKinley, Backtrack co-founder and CEO. “Time and time again we hear from exhibitors that legacy lead capture systems aren’t helpful in that they don’t give the actual context of what they talked about with their leads. What makes [Backtrack] magical is it records backwards like a car dash cam, giving [exhibitors] the optionality to choose what they want to save, and not leaving them with massive 8-hour recordings.”

Backstory: After failing to impress investors in Silicon Valley and wishing they had captured and recorded the experience, Yac’s founders ––McKinley and Jordan Walker––began building the first version of Backtrack in 2018. However, the project was soon put on the shelf for the parent company’s flagship product, Yac, once it quickly raised venture capital funding of more than $10 Million with investors including GGV Capital and Slack (now Salesforce). When the Yac team found out that people were using Backtrack to remember trade show booth conversations, they transformed the app into an ROI tool for exhibitors in late 2023, officially launching the app at CES 2024. 

Backtrack’s key features include:

• Instant retroactive audio history capture: Backtrack records and saves 5-20 minutes of previous conversations on-demand.
• Auto-deletes non-important conversations: Continuously running in the background, the app will not save any retroactive conversations until directed to save for privacy’s sake.
• Locally stored: All audio history is stored locally and securely on-device until a user decides to upload or share. Recordings are never live streamed to the Internet.
• AI-powered transcripts/summaries: Provides near-instant summaries and transcriptions, removing the need for anyone to take notes.
• AI-powered scanning: Allows business cards and LinkedIn QR codes to be scanned and analyzed, no typing required.
• CRM integration: Backtrack seamlessly uploads information to the exhibitor’s CRM, automating the follow-up processes and manual data entry.

The $21 billion events industry faces a significant gap that presents a massive opportunity to create a new category of technology: conversation capture, said McKinley.

“Traditional lead capture apps often fail to deliver ROI, leading to inconsistent exhibitor experiences and dissatisfaction,” he continued. “Attendees frequently provide false information, struggle with user experience, and circumvent these apps by using LinkedIn or business cards. Backtrack helps [exhibitors] maximize ROI in ways never before possible with AI.” 

Since Backtrack’s debut, thousands of business teams from companies like Paramount, NBC, and Amazon have signed up to use the app, according to Yac officials. 

“Backtrack has transformed how I manage my trade show interactions,” said Backtrack customer Sarah Evans with Tech Innovators. “No more lost leads or forgotten details.” 

The app is available for download on iOS and Mac platforms, with an Android edition coming soon.

Have some event technology news to share? Reach out to lisa.savas@informa.com and danica.tormohlen@informa.com.

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