From NZ to the US: Reflections on the Esri Dev Summit and My West Coast Road Trip

After recently returning from a six-week journey across the United States, a combination of personal travel and professional development, I have had time to reflect on both the experiences and insights gained along the way. A key highlight was attending and presenting to an international audience at the ESRI Developer Summit in Palm Springs, an event that has long been a goal of mine. 

From the chaos of the New York Subway to the smooth silence of self-driving taxis in San Francisco, this blog shares key learnings from the conference and offers a few snapshots from my travels, particularly those that relate to transport, something the US has a wide variety of. 

A Transport Enthusiast’s Journey 

The trip began in Auckland with a memorable sighting of an Airbus A380, a fitting start for a journey that would traverse the length of the West Coast of the United States, then across to Texas, up to Washington D.C. and New York, and finally down to Florida, before returning home. Flying from Auckland to North America even allowed me to arrive before I had left due to time zone shifts! 

Some standout transportation moments: 

• Taking a ride in a Waymo self-driving taxi in San Francisco. 

• Riding the Brightline train from Miami to Orlando, a surprisingly sleek intercity train experience. 

• Experiencing the New York Subway (yes, I got on the wrong train. Turns out GPS is not that useful underground!) 

• Cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge. 

• Visiting the Kennedy Space Centre and Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, seeing iconic artefacts from the space race including the Space Shuttle Atlantis, a real Saturn V rocket and the Apollo 11 command module Columbia.  

• Other famous aerial exhibits included the first Boeing 747 and the original Wright Flyer from 1907! 

One image that captures the extremes of American transport was seeing our compact Toyota Prius parked beside a massive pickup truck in Texas (below), a visual metaphor for the diversity of vehicle preferences across the country, and one that New Zealand is heading towards as well. 

Attending the ESRI Developer Summit 

Held annually in Palm Springs (with all Uber drivers asking if you are here for the tennis tournament or the GIS event), the ESRI Developer Summit is designed for developers and GIS professionals, with a particular focus on software development within the ArcGIS ecosystem. Compared to the broader ESRI User Conference, the Developer Summit is more technical, offering attendees direct insights into the latest tools, frameworks, and capabilities, as well as providing a space to talk directly with the ESRI developers themselves. This was a fantastic opportunity to talk directly with the people developing the software we use every day.  

I attended the summit both to learn and to present on behalf of Abley and the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi. My presentation was about two projects we have delivered for NZTA that relate to nationwide accessibility and travel modelling. Investigating peoples access to key destinations as well as the creation of journey time matrices between SA1’s. This analysis shows different levels of accessibility across the country as well as tracks changes year on year.  

Throughout the conference I had many excellent conversations with GIS professionals from across the United States and the world. The informal lunch tables offered a great opportunity to connect with fellow developers and share knowledge, challenges, and ideas. 

Key Takeaways from the Dev Summit 

Several sessions at the Developer Summit stood out, offering practical tips, emerging trends, and new tools that I look forward to exploring further. Although the TLDR would be the ability to apply spatial clauses to definition queries in ArcGIS Pro and Parquet/GeoParquet support, coming in 3.5 (I think).  

Some of the key insights included: 

AI & GeoAI 

ESRI’s investment in GeoAI across the ArcGIS stack was a major focus, with over ninety pre-trained models now available to support tasks such as image classification, feature extraction, and more. Notably, vision-language models are being integrated into ArcGIS Pro, enabling natural language inputs to enhance analysis. One demo used an OpenAI model inside ArcGIS Pro to assess fire-damaged homes via aerial imagery, a powerful example of machine learning in spatial analysis. In the past you would need to train your imagery to recognize fire burns, now you can ask an AI agent to find them. 

Enhancements to Arcade and Dashboards 

The Arcade scripting language continues to grow in capability. A beta AI assistant for Arcade is being developed (expected in June 2025), and dashboards will soon support cleaner user interfaces, including rounded corners and the ability to move a widgets caption into an information icon (it’s the little things, I know).  

Tools for Developers 

A few technical updates particularly relevant to developers include: 

• A debugging extension for Visual Studio Code, making it easier to troubleshoot ArcGIS Pro script tools (anticipated to be coming with ArcGIS Pro 3.5). 

• A new ArcPy cheat sheet to assist with common geoprocessing tasks. 

• Continued support for open-source libraries such as Leaflet, MapLibre, OpenLayers, and CesiumJS, each of which offers different strengths for building spatial web applications beyond the ArcGIS stack. 

Application State and AI Tools 

Presentations on managing application state in React provided useful strategies, ranging from native hooks like useState and useReducer to libraries such as Zustand (lightweight), Recoil (reactive), and Redux (structured for larger applications). 
There was also a helpful discussion around the use of AI assistants such as GitHub Copilot, including the importance of prompting clearly and watching out for “hallucinations”, moments where the AI invents syntax, methods, or libraries that don’t exist.

The ESRI Developer Summit reaffirmed the importance of continuous learning and engagement with the global GIS community. It was a privilege to share Abley’s work with international peers and to see firsthand how others are applying similar tools to tackle complex transport, environmental, and infrastructure challenges. 

My travels across the US further reminded me how diverse, and often unequal, transport experiences can be. From high-speed trains and autonomous vehicles to sprawling car-dominated cities with twelve lane highways, the contrasts were stark. They also served as powerful reminders of the importance of the work we do at Abley, making transport safer, more efficient, and more accessible for everyone.