Intro at Beyond 26 from Sanjit Biswas, CEO of Samsara

Sanjit Biswas opened Samsara's fifth annual customer conference, Beyond, in Las Vegas, welcoming over 4,000 in-person attendees. He thanked long-standing customers like DHL, Mohawk, and Gordon Food Service, and highlighted the company's culture of on-site visits, noting they conducted a couple of thousand in the past year. Biswas identified 2026's biggest theme as rising fuel costs, up 30-40% due to the Middle East war, with some customers' fuel budgets in the tens or hundreds of millions. He also noted rising equipment and maintenance costs, with maintenance consuming about 10% of some operating budgets. He showcased a Dallas-Fort Worth construction customer's GPS traces showing a thousand tractors and trailers operating in a single day. Biswas introduced the 'age of intelligence,' arguing AI can automate task work, adjust vehicle settings for weather, monitor equipment usage, and provide drivers with site-specific heads-ups, reducing risk and increasing efficiency.

Key takeaways

1. Fuel prices rose 30-40% in 2026 due to the Middle East war, hitting customers with fuel budgets in the tens or hundreds of millions.
2. Maintenance costs consume about 10% of some customers' operating budgets.
3. Samsara conducted a couple of thousand on-site visits in the past year, a cultural practice for the company.

Numbers and commitments

Chapters

1. 0:00Welcome and appreciation
2. 0:47Community and customer thanks
3. 1:55On-site visits and learning
4. 4:022026 themes: fuel and equipment costs
5. 4:50Operations busyness and GPS traces
6. 5:37Frontline workers appreciation
7. 7:00Age of intelligence and AI
8. 8:42AI use cases: weather, equipment, drivers
9. 10:43Closing and demo preview