ELEVATE Expo isn’t your typical trade show floor. It is designed to be your one-stop shop for solutions when it comes to managing labor, boosting productivity and protecting profit margins. Attendees are able to have meaningful conversations with exhibitors and discover which products make sense for their operations.
“I always tell people there’s nothing that replaces shaking somebody’s hand and meeting them face-to-face,” says Eli Zevin, general manager of Aspire. “That’s why I come to ELEVATE myself personally as the leader of the Aspire business. Come meet us face-to-face in person and get to interact with us that way.”
The Expo is part of ELEVATE, presented by NALP and powered by Caterpillar, and boasts 215 exhibitors. This year’s event will be held Nov. 8-11, 2026, in Tampa, Florida.
Autonomous Mowers Help Landscape Companies Maximize Labor
One problem that manufacturers are tackling is companies’ need to make the most of their existing workforce.
Toro is answering this challenge with their 60” PROLINE AMI, which is powered by the 26.5-horsepower Kohler Command PRO EFI engine so it can cut through thick turf. The autonomous mowing intelligence allows the mower to navigate, steer, and execute precise cutting patterns independently once a property map is programmed.
“Rather than using physical boundary wires, the mower achieves centimeter-level positioning accuracy by leveraging high-precision GNSS+RTK satellite guidance to process real-time positional data,” says Jackson Gray, associate marketing manager at Toro. “Additionally, it features an integrated, ISO-compliant radar obstacle detection system that continuously scans its surroundings, allowing the onboard software to detect unmapped hazards and stop the machine safely.”
Operators can easily switch between autonomous and manual functions on the mower. Contractors can also monitor their fleet of autonomous mowers from anywhere with its dedicated mobile app.
“Autonomous mowers like our PROLINE AMI allow operators to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, maximizing job-site productivity,” Gray says. “By letting autonomous technology handle large, open-area mowing, landscape contractors can deploy their crew members toward higher-value, detailed labor, effectively helping offset labor shortages while maintaining quality results.”
Meanwhile Kress is expanding their autonomous mower lineup with the KR804, their 60” model of the Voyager that can mow 19 acres on one charge and the KR238, a 24” unit that can mow 20 acres in 48 hours.
Todd Zimmerman, senior vice president of Kress NA sales and commercial operations, says one of the notable features of their autonomous mowers is how they have a visual database of millions of 3D images collected over the past three years that trains their units.
“With our platform, when one of our units sees something that it doesn’t know, then that imagery allows it to be fed across all of our robots for all of our robots to learn together,” Zimmerman says. “That’s really what AI helps us with. It is the learning aspect to be able to learn the environment much faster, to be more efficient, to be more productive.”
Zimmerman says when landscape companies utilize robotic mowers, it allows them to repurpose their labor and take one of the least profitable services and make it more profitable.
Battery-Powered Landscape Equipment Improves Efficiency
Kress is also introducing new battery technology during ELEVATE, including 4Ah, 11Ah, 17Ah and 25Ah batteries.
“The technology will continue to follow where we are with the CyberSystem, with our CyberPacks being able to charge fast, increase life cycles, and allow the power that’s needed from the product,” Zimmerman says.
In response to feedback from landscape professionals, Kress is also launching two new backpack blowers. The KC520.9 is designed to compete with the BR600 from a newton air-force standpoint, and the KC501 produces 41 newtons. Both blowers feature a turbo button that will only stay on for 30 seconds at a time.
“We’re just trying to extend that period of the length of time it runs to shorten the number of times you have to go get another battery,” Zimmerman says.
Zimmerman adds that when batteries are put on the CyberTank to charge, users can see, by crew and by product, the efficiency and productivity they had at each property.
AI-Powered Software Turns Landscape Business Data Into Insights
Better data visibility is another key demand that brands are responding to. For instance, Aspire will highlight several new tools during the Expo, including Command Center, revenue retention and smart estimating. Command Center is a business intelligence tool that creates custom dashboards and reports for businesses while layering in AI functionality.
Users can also access a conversational AI tool called Atlas to ask questions about their data and get analysis about how their business is performing and what they can do to improve.
Meanwhile, revenue retention is a new area of Aspire that looks at all the interactions and characteristics of a company’s recurring contracts and the customers they work with regularly, using a 40-plus-point statistical model to analyze which customers are most or least likely to cancel their services. Zevin says this allows account managers to have more visibility and a more objective view into how healthy their contracts and relationships with customers are.
Available early next spring is Aspire’s smart estimating, which uses data from all the previous estimates and won proposals to provide guidance while creating a new estimate.
“It will proactively notify you of those things and continue to give your estimator the ability to accept or decline those changes, but at least to give them that information that they can utilize to help get to a place where your bid is much more accurate,” Zevin says.
Zevin says all of these solutions incorporate AI and enable landscape professionals to utilize their data to make better business decisions.
“When we set out to include and really utilize AI at Aspire, we did it in a way that focused on tangible outcomes in a business, not just putting AI for the sake of having it,” Zevin says.
Zevin adds that these new tools will help companies retain clients and protect margins when selling enhancement work.
John Deere will spotlight their Operation Center, which allows contractors to access information such as machine location, hours, utilization, maintenance alerts and service needs, all without a subscription fee once a machine is connected.
“Operations Center is evolving beyond fleet management into job documentation, giving contractors greater visibility into the work performed by individual machines at specific properties,” says Luke Gribble, go-to-market manager for John Deere. “This can help turn a machine record into a business record that supports job costing, crew accountability, accurate billing and proof of service.”
Gribble says this evolution is in response to contractor requests for more property-level information so they can understand how jobs are being completed and make more informed decisions about job costing.
“Contractors want tools that organize information, surface useful insights and make it easier to act without requiring them to analyze everything themselves,” Gribble says. “Our goal is to make machine data easier to understand and use so contractors can improve fleet utilization, make more informed business decisions and ultimately strengthen their bottom line.”
New Lawn Care Products Aim to Reduce Callbacks
As for lawn care operators, Envu is debuting Durentis Surface in response to their desire for season-long grub control and reduced callbacks.
Durentis Surface is the latest iteration of the Durentis family, and this product is designed specifically for the lawn care market. Kyle Richards, senior product manager, insecticides – North America for Envu, explains that this product has a new mode of action and combines two active ingredients.
“We still have the chlorantraniliprole that is in the present Durentis, but we also have an added pyrethroid that we’re bringing in, so the active ingredient is bifenthrin,” Richards says. “It’s the same active ingredient that has been used in Talstar for many years. This is a premix, which also provides that fast knockdown that the bifenthrin brings, so it will be really amenable to surface feeding insects, while that residuality will still be present for season-long grub control with chlorantraniliprole.”
Richards adds this product gives LCOs one product that they can put in their tank and provides not only agronomic flexibility but also control of above- and below-ground pests. On the regulatory side, Durentis Surface can be sprayed in any jurisdiction because it does not contain any neonics.
Additionally, Durentis Surface is backed by the Durentis Grub Assurance Program, which, in the event of a breakthrough, an Envu Area Sales Manager will determine the appropriate rescue treatment, giving LCOs increased peace of mind.
No matter what issues you’re facing, ELEVATE Expo offers the opportunity to see the available solutions firsthand, ask questions and discover what could make a difference for your business.
Want to meet with these brands in person? Register for ELEVATE, and we’ll see you in Tampa, Florida, Nov. 8-11!
