How Event Tech is Embracing AI

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is continually expanding, with new tools being launched on a regular basis. The growing list of tools – many available for free – continues growing rapidly.

Launched in November, ChatGPT gained its first million users in just five days and has more than 100 million users as of January. It remains ahead of the pack.

The importance of generative AI in event marketing is undeniable and highly recommended by tech-savvy event professionals. How to effectively employ may be controversial.

The AI Event Tech Landscape

While ChatGPT has made the benefits of AI tangible for anyone willing to try it, several event technology companies have been incorporating AI into their products in different ways. The way this works varies across platforms, but event tech providers are keen to showcase the benefits.

The 2023 edition of the Skift Meetings Event Technology Made Simple report features a section dedicated to AI, including a full list of the platforms that offer it and many other features in detail.

Almost two-thirds of vendors (61 percent) offer at least one AI-powered feature. The most common use is for matchmaking. Almost 40 percent of vendors use AI to provide personalized connection suggestions to attendees. One-third use it to power content suggestions, which are mainly focused on suggesting education sessions. Just under 15 percent of vendors offer AI-powered chatbots.

Matchmaking

The technology can save users time by automating the discovery process. It’s also a strong selling point for sponsors and exhibitors keen to match up with the most appropriate buyers.

Companies such as Brella, Grip, and MeetMatch pioneered AI-powered matchmaking, can connecting people using technology remains their core focus. Brella even says it can quadruple audience retention with AI matchmaking. Grip’s latest report suggests event organizers could make up to 1 million dollars in added revenue by offering pre-scheduled meetings. MeetMatch claims that AI matchmaking leads to follow-up meetings more than 50 percent of the time, compared to 5 percent when random matching is used.

AI-powered matchmaking is growing in popularity, with several event technology suppliers now actively promoting it, including Cvent, Stova, Accelevents, Bizzabo, Communique Conferencing, Eventbase, Eventtia, ExpoPlatform, Gevme, Jublia, JUNO, Let’s Get Digital, Notified, Sarcon, Swapcard, VenuIQ, and Zuddl.

Content

Event Technology providers take differing approaches in using AI to aid with content. For example, Kaltura is investing in recommendation engines to make content easily searchable. Swapcard offers personalized session suggestions and product recommendations in addition to matchmaking.

InEvent recently announced an integration with ChatGPT, which is available natively, directly in the platform’s text editor. The integration focuses on using ChaptGPT to create promotional copy for emails and landing pages. vFairs also features similar functionality.

Chatbots

42Chat, previously knowns as Sciencio, made a splash six years ago when it released AI-powered chatbots that were adopted across the industry. The technology was less popular during the virtual-event-only Covid pandemic period. Despite challenges, it has remained a standalone offering.

Across the event technology vendor spectrum, only a few companies actively promote AI-powered chatbots. Among these are Stova and Eventbase.

Translation

Looking into other event-related technology, language translation is an obvious use for AI. While no company disputes the value of human interpretation, AI-powered interpretation has vastly improved in quality and has undeniable cost and ease-of-use advantages.

Since its inception in 2019, Wordly is leading the pack for artificial intelligence-powered translation. It recently announced the launch of Wordly 3.0, which includes enhanced audio capabilities that add natural-sounding audio powered by neural voices.

In the past remote simultaneous interpretation (RSI) companies have made the case that human interpreters – even if remote – are essential for live events. This appears to have changed radically in recent times. Switzerland-based Interprefy announced its AI event translation tool in April. Interprefy Aivia is touted as the world’s first advanced automated speech translation service for online and live events. KUDO followed suit earlier this month, releasing its AI-powered Speech Translator KUDO AI.

Other Uses of AI

Zenus is a behavioral analytics company focused on using AI for facial analysis. It boasts the best attendee tracking tools that can not only track dwell time and create heat maps but also measure attendee engagement and further-refined sentiment analysis. The company refers to its proprietary technology as ethical AI, choosing to distance itself from facial recognition that involves capturing sensitive, personally identifiable information.