From AI to field data: what’s driving conversation at Esri IMGIS 2025

Esri IMGIS 2025 centers on resilience, sustainability, and the growing role of AI in GIS to connect planning, operations, and field execution. Across sessions on digital twins, field mobility, and data integration, the message remains clear: real progress depends on accurate, timely field data. As an Esri partner, Fulcrum shares that focus, helping teams keep GIS systems current through connected, field-first workflows that complement ArcGIS Pro and the ArcGIS Utility Network.

Key insights

• Esri IMGIS 2025 brings together leaders across utilities, engineering, transportation, and public works to explore how GIS is transforming infrastructure management.
• The conference highlights the growing impact of AI in GIS, digital twins, and data integration in creating more resilient and sustainable systems.
• Field mobility remains the bridge between on-site work and enterprise GIS, ensuring that digital systems reflect real-world conditions in real time.
• Accurate, high-quality field data is the foundation for resilience, sustainability, and smarter infrastructure decisions.
• Across sessions and discussions, the consistent message is that progress in GIS begins with data captured by the people doing the work.

Every year, the Esri IMGIS conference gives leaders in utilities, public works, and engineering a chance to look beyond theory and solve real-world problems. Looking at the agenda for the Esri IMGIS 2025 plenary, Esri has made the central theme clear: building a more resilient and sustainable future.

For the people on the ground, that vision connects directly to the gap between expectations and reality. Demands from regulators and the public keep climbing, but the skilled labor pool is thinning. Workflows are overloaded and the tools feel old, a serious problem in industries where you can’t afford a mistake. Field teams are often asked to perform critical work with what feels like the digital equivalent of a clipboard and a prayer.

The conference will explore solutions to these issues, with key themes like AI in GIS, digital twins, and improved field mobility taking center stage. As a longtime Esri partner, we’re looking forward to being part of that conversation because high-quality field data is the essential starting point for all of it.

From AI in GIS to assistive AI in the field

At Esri IMGIS 2025, you’ll hear about AI in GIS and digital twins are transforming infrastructure management. Intelligent tools are reshaping how teams plan, operate, and maintain systems across utilities, transportation, and public works. For GIS professionals, the shift is exciting but also underscores a long-standing challenge: data must reflect field reality. Every advanced capability still depends on a reliable GIS system of record to drive planning, maintenance, and reporting. The importance of data integrity shows up clearly in ArcGIS Pro and the ArcGIS Utility Network. In both, accurate data underpins network modeling, tracing, and the quality of spatial analysis.

The most practical role for AI begins in the field, where it stops bad data right at the source. Assistive checks built into mobile workflows guide crews through each step, ensuring tasks are completed in the correct sequence. Those checks are context-aware and aligned with GIS requirements so users capture complete, structured data on the first pass. Accurate data entry from the start prevents rework and supports better decision-making downstream. At Fulcrum, we’re building toaward that outcome with assistive features that raise data quality without interrupting field operations. As a result, your geospatial solutions stay accurate and dependable from start to finish.

Field mobility as the engine for a living digital twin

One of the biggest headaches in infrastructure management has always been the disconnect between the field and the office, especially when updating assets in the ArcGIS Utility Network. A beautiful GIS map or detailed digital twin delivers value only when it operates on current, accurate information. The goal is a smooth, two-way street for data so everyone sees what’s happening with critical assets as work progresses.

That challenge is exactly what’s driving the conversation at Esri IMGIS 2025. Digital twins are a major focus this year, appearing across over a dozen technical workshops and user sessions. Those sessions explore how organizations build resilience, improve asset visibility, and connect systems for planning and operations. At the core of that effort, field mobility and data integration link real-world conditions to a dynamic digital model. Together, they bridge the gap between what’s happening on the ground and what leaders see in their systems.

Maintaining that link is what turns a digital twin from a static model into a living system. Every record, photo, and measurement captured in real time sustains the accuracy those tools rely on. When field data flows cleanly into GIS, organizations can plan, adapt, and respond with precision.

Data for good: driving sustainability and resilience

Beyond smoother operations, GIS anchors how organizations pursue sustainability and resilience goals. These efforts depend on understanding where systems are vulnerable and how daily work affects long-term performance. Field data provides that visibility, linking policy commitments to real-world conditions and progress.

The Esri IMGIS 2025 centers on data as the foundation for building resilient infrastructure and meeting sustainability goals at scale. Many sessions focus on how GIS and field systems work together to turn those commitments into measurable outcomes.

High-quality field data drives these initiatives. Accurate, verifiable data enables:

• Regulatory reporting. Demonstrate compliance with environmental standards while avoiding costly penalties.
  
• Climate resilience. Identify assets exposed to floods, fire, or heat stress and measure the effectiveness of mitigation work.
  
• Resource optimization. Reduce waste and improve material management through precise, consistent data collection.

Guided field workflows make these goals achievable at scale. Built-in checks ensure that crews document required details on every visit. In addition, photos and location data create a verifiable record that supports audits and long-term analysis. When sustainability requirements become part of standard fieldwork, progress stops being an initiative and starts being routine practice.

Bringing the field to the conversation

Across every track at Esri IMGIS 2025, industry experts and partners reinforce the same message: progress depends on connecting field reality to enterprise systems. AI in GIS, digital twins, and sustainability programs all start with the same foundation of accurate, timely data captured by people who know the work.

The technology to close that gap is already in play, gaining reach as organizations standardize workflows and improve data quality at the edge. Field mobility turns that progress into daily practice, making information from the ground an active part of planning, maintenance, and resilience strategies.

These are the conversations shaping Esri IMGIS 2025, and they’ll continue to define how infrastructure evolves in the years ahead.

Let’s connect at IMGIS

Everything at Esri IMGIS 2025 comes back to one idea: progress starts with the data captured in the field.

Stop by booth 220 to see how Fulcrum helps teams keep field data flowing cleanly into ArcGIS. Our team will be sharing short, focused demos that show how connected field workflows strengthen the accuracy and resilience goals shaping the conference..

If you’d like a deeper discussion, schedule a 1-on-1 meeting with us during the conference. Bring a workflow, a data challenge, or a project you’re tackling this year. We’ll walk through practical ways to tighten the connection between field operations and enterprise systems.

See you in Palm Springs!