The Events Industry and AI: Insights from Our Director of Business Systems, Emily Brown

For the last year or more, AI platforms such as ChatGPT, OpenArt, and others like them have been all over the media. AI has had an incredible impact on just about every business sector, and the events industry is no exception. While the rapid advancement of AI technology can be intimidating and even a bit scary for some, it's not all bad news. Just like any emerging technology, AI is a tool that can be used to make life easier for event planners.

‍With that in mind, let's first take a look at three of the most pervasive challenges that event planners face. These include (but are certainly not limited to): endless repetitive tasks, juggling complicated schedules, and coping with tight, unforgiving deadlines. Anyone who has been involved with planning a meeting knows these pain points all too well. Fortunately, AI can be used to mitigate, or even eliminate, all three of them. Let's take a look at the whys and hows of it all.  

40% more time

Ask yourself this question: What could you do with 40% more time? Or, more to the point, what if certain tasks could be automated to the point where overall operations take 40% less time? In a recent Forbes magazine article, that's precisely the case that it lays out with the use of generative AI.  

Of course, not every task can be tackled by AI now, though that may not be an issue with future iterations of AI yet to come. Critically, though, generative AI could be used to free up resources and bandwidth so that decision-makers spend more time on the choices that really matter. Really, what that 40% equates to is a significant boost to your productivity, allowing you to tackle tasks and reach goals that might otherwise be out of scope.  

AI event/meeting tools

Okay, so a superhuman boost to productivity is all well and good in theory, but what exactly does that mean? What specific things can you do with AI that will save you time and effort? Well, as it turns out there are practical uses for AI that you can start using immediately. Here are three examples:

• Summarizing: The platform, ReadAI, has the ability to both record and transcribe your meetings, then give highlights and generate summaries without having to do it all manually. This is an extremely useful tool in case you happen to miss a meeting and need to follow up on action items without delay. It's also a time-saver to supply your own video content with additional information and context without the tedium of creating it yourself.  

• Event management software: This type of AI power is an incredible advantage for event managers. Cvent allows you to automate tasks such as attendee management, generate session and attendee recommendations, parse through venue and sourcing data, as well as real-time event analytics. For anything new that you need to create, it also features an on-demand, AI writing assistant to help you out with virtually anything else.    

• Large language models (LLMs): These are the AI platforms that you've likely heard about: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others. With them, you can greatly simplify and execute things like event emails, website profiles, and event surveys. LLMs can also help you sort through all the data to identify potential speakers that might prove a great fit for your event. Perhaps most importantly, these types of AI allow you to really optimize your event agenda by quickly sifting through past event data and attendee information to identify emerging trends, preferences, and create an ideal schedule for your event.  

Don’t get left behind

The reality is that AI isn't going anywhere. Not only is it here to stay, but it will only continue to expand its capabilities and operational parameters. One of the biggest reasons to go ahead and learn about what AI can do for you and embrace the possibilities now is simple: If you don't use it, your competition will. Event organizers and managers who ignore the potential of leveraging AI are at risk of being left behind as the industry marches on without them.  

To stay current is to stay informed, keeping apprised of new innovations as they develop. With some critical thinking skills, as well as no small amount of imagination, you should be able to waste no time in putting AI to work for you, because that's the name of the game — wasting no time.  

Ethical concerns

Of course, no discourse on the topic of AI would be complete without addressing the elephant in the room — the ethics of using AI. This is no small topic, and no single blog post could possibly address them all. Instead, let's take a look at some of the aspects that you need to consider when using AI to gain definite benefits without causing harm:

• Fairness and bias: AI operates without regard to morals, so it is up to the user to ensure that it is being utilized in as fair and non-biased way as possible.  

• Transparency: Use of AI should be disclosed openly rather than concealed. Passing off AI's work as your own is really where the morality of using it becomes questionable.  

• Privacy and safety: Understand how and why the information being used is applied to the situation. Do your utmost to make sure user data is protected and secure.

• Explainability: Also called "interpretability," this is simply the decision-making process and how that relates to a human audience. After all, the results must be understood by the end-user.  

• Oversight: It falls to you to govern what it is used for and what it is not. So, give some thought to your attendees. If you wouldn't want AI used on you in certain ways, neither will they.  

• Trustworthiness: This goes back to privacy and safety, but the trustworthiness of the platform is a big concern you need to think about, especially how the AI's developer might misuse the data.  

• Human-oriented: Ultimately, AI is there to serve human beings, so it's up to you to make sure the design, the usability, and the utility of what you create with AI serves its intended purpose.  

Do the research and the mental legwork before embarking on a project with AI. If you can find a way to use AI responsibly, go for it. And if you can't, find another way.  

Final thoughts

When I think of AI, I think of it as one more step forward in business innovation in a long line of them. Think of the paradigm-shift that happened with smartphones and tablets. Before that, it was the internet and personal computers. And before that, the electric typewriter, and so on, and so on. AI is that next step forward, but (like all of its predecessors), it's simply a tool for us to use to save time, increase our productivity, and maximize our potential efficiency.  

If that kind of business mindset is one that appeals to you, I have some good news: Infinix Global is already ahead of the curve. As a company, we were quick to see the potential upsides and became early adopters of this kind of technology.  

So, if you are in the planning stages of an event or meeting and need the dual know-how of a human planner with the power of AI at their fingertips, you need look no further. Contact us today, and let's see what our AI-empowered strength can do for you.    

All the best,  

—Emily

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