The Role of AI in Conference Management
The event industry has quickly jumped on the digital transformation bandwagon, adopting technological advances like virtual reality and facial recognition, whose use has skyrocketed since 2020. In 2023, exponential artificial intelligence or AI improvements are placing new demands on event planners.
In this article, we explore the role of this technology in conference management and discuss some ways in which meeting planners can leverage artificial intelligence to streamline and enhance conference planning and execution.
Key uses of AI in events
AI today has several practical applications in the conference management and event planning industry. The role of this technology is two-fold. First, it can streamline or save time in the planning and execution stages. Integrating AI into event management software is especially effective with data entry, scheduling, and creating guest lists.
Moreover, AI algorithms can determine whether there is enough demand for a conference topic or destination. Without AI automation, all these tasks would require multiple meetings with the planning team and a substantial amount of time.
Secondly, AI can vastly enhance the attendee experience. Event technology increasingly features AI, given its capacity to support different aspects of the event experience, from providing virtual assistants to rendering speech into text or facilitating matchmaking in networking.
In summary, in the meetings industry, AI mainly automates tasks, facilitates problem-solving and decision-making, and provides rewarding experiences.
A closer look at the role of AI in conference management
AI underpins the latest event technology trends, whose unfolding can substantially impact conference management. Let’s take a closer look at how AI is used in managing conferences:
AI-powered live translation
Many conferences do not have the budget to hire translators, especially if they want to offer translation to less commonly used languages. Automatic live translation helps reach a wider audience by removing language barriers. It can also make the speaker line-up more inclusive by facilitating the participation of speakers whose first language is not English. In short, AI-powered live translation is a step forward regarding accessibility and inclusive event experiences, where everyone has access to the entire event experience without language or ability barriers.
RELATED: The Event Planning Guide to Inclusive and Accessible Conferences
AI-generated copy
Recently, there has been a boom in the number of AI algorithms and machine learning applications that can generate copy. Using AI to overview sales and marketing copy and to optimise marketing and communications is useful when English is not the first language of the planning team. This AI application can bring consistency and reduce potential miscommunications by limiting the chances of language-related human error.
AI-generated copy is also effective in event email marketing and social media campaigns. It can offer good results in creating pre- and post-event surveys – all with additional human curation!
Holographic displays
AI can generate holographic displays in advance or in real time, which is especially useful for product or procedure demos at medical conferences.
Due to its cost savings, visual appeal, and immersive nature, the combination of 3D projections and AI technology makes holographic content one of the most promising applications of AI in events, especially considering that this technology is expected to run on mobile phones soon.
QR codes and AI
AI can improve health and safety standards at in-person conferences through extended QR code use. These codes support contactless event experiences, which have recently become the norm, as they can be used for event contact-free check-in and registration, badge printing, booking additional workshops or experiences, or arranging meetings with sponsors, keynote speakers and other attendees.
In addition, AI technology can now generate personalised QR codes and direct receivers to unique landing pages or pieces of content. This application has already been tested in advertising, but it should take only a short time until we see it used in conference marketing and registration or within event apps.
AI chatbots
Every event planner knows how vital it is to provide ongoing support to attendees. AI chatbots and virtual assistants are among the fastest-growing event technologies, which is understandable given how quickly they are improving their conversational skills.
When built into event apps, AI chatbots can provide instant answers to attendee questions, generate on-demand information, guide them through the venue, suggest networking or agenda recommendations, and, more importantly, do this in a personalised manner. With this technology, it is possible to provide this level of one-to-one assistance and consistent service levels 24/7.
Additionally, AI chatbots can collect vast amounts of data that would otherwise be very hard to obtain, which takes us to our last section.
Advanced data analytics
Chatbots and other AI-powered applications can collect real-time insights on attendee data during in-person and virtual events, gathering metrics ranging from sponsor ROI to best-attended sessions or social media mentions. This vastly reduces the workload of the event planning team and gives access to curated data sets that would take days to put together.
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With this level of insight, your team can have a more granular and accurate understanding of the target audience and constantly improve the event planning process.
Conclusion
AI is a tool that can facilitate conference management and increase efficiencies by saving time and effort, delivering a personalised event attendee experience, and providing insights to inform decision-making. If you want to know how to get started with AI-powered conference planning, ask the Congrex team for a consultation.
