A revolutionary year of product development enhancements powered a busy, high energy 2026 Procede Software Conference (PSC) last month in San Diego.
Each year, the Procede Software Conference seeks to provide customers updates on newly launched and in-progress innovations, with key takeaways for how the company is integrating valuable tools into its Excede dealer management system.
On that front, Chairman and CEO Larry Kettler says this year’s event was another resounding success. But he also notes maybe never has the PSC been as action packed as it was in September. With the company also celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2026 and touting its ongoing implementation of AI to transform its development and operational capabilities, Kettler says this year’s conference left attendees amazed.
“I think customers were blown away by everything,” he tells TPS. “We’ve come so far as a business, as a collective with our customers … this is a real special moment. We have an opportunity with technology to really change customers’ businesses and that’s what we focused on.”
Enhancements across Excede and the Procede ecosystem were highlighted during the event, including a new Customer Portal, Communication Plus tool, Procede Payments and more.
But the once again sold-out PSC also featured tons of other news.
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Kettler, Executive Vice President of Product Eric Fortin and new Chief Product Technology Officer Dan Cunningham say the AI solutions Procede has been integrating into its operations over the last 12 months have dramatically increased the speed and capabilities of its development teams.
Meaning this year’s event wasn’t just about updating users on promises made at PSC 2025. The company’s product teams also announced innovations customers didn’t know were ready, or didn’t realize were in production at all.
“A lot of times at [user] conferences you talk about forward-looking things. Last week we announced stuff customers maybe didn’t even know were going on,” says Cunningham, who joined Procede earlier this year. “We are already moving to our new modern platforms, and we are able to develop so much faster because of that.”
Fortin agrees. He says last year the company teased many innovations they successfully released this year. He says the team is proud those goals were met, but also notes the company is already iterating on some of those enhancements, preparing to launch second versions and updates to further drive the company’s capabilities forward.
Attendees chat during the opening general session at the Procede Software Conference last month in San Diego.Procede Software
“We had several prospective customers at PSC and they were pleasantly surprised to see how we tied [programming] back to last year’s PSC,” adds Deanna Cocco, chief customer officer. “It was a full circle life cycle they were seeing and they could tell that’s how we operate.”
Overall, Cunningham says Procede intends to comprehensively modernize and evolve its platforms over the next 18 months, bringing new solutions that will drive major efficiencies into dealer operations. He says the process has already begun, and if dealers haven’t noticed — or have only clocked new tools when they appear — that’s by design.
“Our dealers don’t have to lift a finger,” he says. “Everything is happening behind the scenes, automatically. They don’t have to do anything and will experience seamless transitions” to new resources.
Another huge development showcased at PSC was the company’s AI Connect portal, which will enable users to leverage model context protocol (MCP) to integrate their preferred AI agent (Chat CPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, etc.) into their Excede operations in a safe and secure manner.
Lindsay Kramer, vice president of AI transformation, says the MCP is huge step forward for Procede and customers alike because customers are testing and investing in AI too. With Connect, those efforts are pulled into the Excede ecosystem, so instead of users being forced to use the DMS and an AI agent separately, the systems are intertwined within a single environment.
As Cunningham puts it, users “can bring their tools to the platform.”
The company’s pace and scope of innovation also is attracting users to be more vocal about what they’d like to see next. The Procede Insider program, which brings customers into the company’s innovation process to share feedback on development and the functionality of new solutions, added 55 participants during the PSC, Kramer says.
Fortin says that continued engagement is essential because Procede’s development teams “tie everything back to the Insiders,” he says. “We don’t just come up with wild ideas and say, ‘Here you go.’ We go to our customers and hear from them and then design with them.”
That collaborative workflow has long been a feature of Procede’s development process — and a point of pride for Kettler.
“It’s very humbling,” he says, “to know the trust [customers] put in us and our people.”
It’s also something he doesn’t take for granted as the company continues to expand. “It’s critical that we don’t lose the DNA of what got us to where we’re at,” he says. “I believe we’ve changed the industry. I know we have. Now we want more customers who want to change it with us.”
Customers gather at the Procede booth during the company's recent user conference to see new tools integrated into its Excede DMS.Procede Software
