How is AI Making an Impact on the Events Industry?

What is AI? 

AI stands for artificial intelligence. In its most basic form, artificial intelligence is designed to teach computers to ‘think’ like humans and develop human-like problem-solving capabilities. This has the potential to be useful for a range of industries because of the processing power that computers have, which allows them to take in and analyse large datasets efficiently and quickly before acting. 

Note: you may have also heard the term machine-learning. Where AI and machine-learning differ is primarily in their complexity (as you will see below). 

Glossary 

Before we get started, we’ve included a brief glossary of AI terms for you to refer back to if needed. 

Generative AI: this type of AI is designed to create content. This could be text, images, or audio, and is one of the more mainstream AIs used by the public. Examples include ChatGPT and Dall-E. 

Predictive AI: predictive AI uses existing data to identify various patterns and create predictions for the future. It is often used in financial models during future forecasting. 

Machine-learning: machine-learning models are a part of AI technology used for data analysis, and trained to imitate decision-making and predictive abilities. Machine-learning can then feed into more complex AI systems that are programmed to mimic human behaviour. 

 

Where can AI make an impact on the events industry?

The events and conferences industry is incredibly people-facing. From meetings with clients, to interacting with guests at your event, there are a lot of areas that simply have to have the human touch. 

But, this doesn’t exclude AI technologies from being useful in some areas, as you’ll see below… 

Planning 

Using AI during your planning stages may actually help to free up your time for tasks that require a direct human presence. 

For example, AI can be used for the automation of the more mundane (but still essential) tasks you’ll encounter in the planning stages. This could be everything from creating short, repeat emails and sending them to your mailing list, to calculating budgets and creating staffing schedules. Using AI technology in this way reduces the chances of miscalculations or other common human errors, which can improve your overall efficiency. Plus, by assigning these tasks to an AI tool, you can focus on more creative pursuits and meetings with vendors and clients – areas where you can make a bigger impact. 

Top tip: people can often tell when AI is being used, so you should consider avoiding using it when you’re in direct communication with other event management or service teams. 

Predictive AI technologies are incredibly useful to help you allocate resources where you need them. By inputting information about previous requirements, AI algorithms can help you understand how many staff are required within a venue or at an event, or calculate how many meals you need to cater for (and therefore how many drinks you’ll need to order in, and the amount of serving supplies you’ll need). 

But using predictive AI technologies for logistics management can be useful for more than just these obvious reasons. Aside from increasing your efficiency, using AI in event logistics can assist with your sustainability strategies – by reducing potential waste and helping to allocate your resources more accurately. You could also use this type of AI to find new ways to recycle/reuse materials after the event. 

Top tip: not only can using AI for more accurate resource allocation assist with sustainability, but by reducing any over-ordering you’ll likely find it easier to stick to your budget. 

Of course, when it comes to sustainability, you also need to work with your venue to find greener event solutions. At ACC Liverpool for example, we have an extensive Sustainability checklist, and plenty of experience for you to draw from.  

Accessibility 

A key aspect of planning an event, accessibility is another area in which AI can be used to find where you may need to make changes and improve your existing strategies. 

For example, AI can assist you in creating innovative and more accessible floor plan designs. As you’ll see when we discuss security below, predictive AIs can be taught using data from past events to identify patterns and problem areas. When it comes to accessibility, this can help you: 

• Adjust the positioning of help stands, or staffed areas, to make them easier for people to reach. 
• Identify which halls or zones are likely to receive more visitors and widen access routes to these areas for people with mobility aids, or wheelchair users. 
• Create more intuitive floor plans that work for people with additional needs. 

In more real-time applications, AI can help you with various assistive technologies – like generating video closed-captions, providing interpretation in multiple languages, providing live audio guides, and (perhaps most well known) maintaining a chatbot to provide answers for people who prefer a digital service. 

AI may also be able to make your production services more accessible by monitoring light and sound exposure during your event and making dynamic changes when needed throughout the day. 

For more information about accessibility and valuable resources, explore our incredible Inclusivity Toolkit here at ACC Liverpool. 

Personalisation 

One of the biggest trends in the events industry right now is personalisation. Whether this is within marketing communications, as part of their event schedules, or during the event itself, guests are expecting a more personalised service – and AI can help you give them one. 

As we’ve mentioned above (and will continue to touch upon throughout this article), AI technologies can do incredible things with data sets. When it comes to personalisation, information, from zero and first-party sources especially, is what feeds any strategies you build. So, you may be able to leverage AI to curate the event experience for your guests. To help you out, we’ve broken down some of the main elements that can be improved with personalisation below, and how AI could impact how successfully you can deliver on them. 

Engagement 

Guest engagement is all about interaction and communication, and is an important metric to help you gauge the success of your conference. So, anything you can do to improve how people engage with your content will help you in the future.  

Where personalisation and engagement meet is through providing people with resources that interest them, and that they will find valuable. For example, personalised schedules direct guests to talks or zones that match with their preferences, which encourages them to engage with the event in a meaningful way.  

But while creating individual schedules for each visitor by hand would be an exercise in frustration – and not an effective way of using your time – with the help of AI, you could draw upon preference data from your guests and create bespoke schedules or signposts to guide their event experience and increase positive engagement. 

Networking 

Networking is a huge part of running (or attending) an event. But, considering that meeting new people and forging professional or personal connections is 100% human interaction, where does AI fit in? 

The answer again relates to attendee data. Similarly to your personalisation efforts, AI can match people according to their stated preferences, job titles, or career goals and interests. Using this, you can generate networking groups and partnerships, and streamline the networking process. 

Note: this may also be a way to make networking less daunting, especially for those with additional or neurodiverse needs.  

Marketing 

Marketing is one of the areas where AI seems to make the most sense, and there are plenty of opportunities to use machine-learning and AI technology during your event marketing strategy. 

Targeted marketing campaigns can use AI to match people to talks, booths, events, and more depending on their preferences, location, or career. Generative AI in particular can create personalised adverts that can attract potential attendees to your event. These allow event marketers to focus their attention on other areas that require their expertise.  

AI can also be useful to generate ideas for marketing content like author bios, social posts, and emails – which can then be made exceptional by your marketing team. However, you should be careful how you use AI in creating and designing your marketing content, as it doesn’t always work how you want it to.  

Top tip: make sure your marketing team approves any AI generated content – nothing can beat their expertise. 

Security 

Event security is constantly evolving to keep up with technology and the demands of our modern world. Fortunately, many of these technical advances can also help you improve how you approach the Security of your event and venue. 

One example is through using predictive AI. By feeding previous event data into this AI technology, it can help you to identify risk factors, including: 

• Areas where additional crowd control is required. 
• Areas that have previously been security blindspots, which you can change for future events. 
• High-traffic zones, and where you can place security for the best coverage. 

Crowd control is essential at large scale events to make sure everyone stays safe during the event. Identifying potential bottlenecks and high-traffic areas with AI can help you to create better strategies during the risk assessment stage, which can increase responsiveness by security staff and emergency services personnel in the worst case scenarios. 

Depending on the security needs of your event, AI can also be used for real-time crowd monitoring. This can involve facial recognition software, and other monitoring technologies to protect attendees from dangerous situations. 

Outside of these more direct security measures, some AI technologies have the potential to improve your cybersecurity before and during your event. For example, AI could be used to increase password protection by monitoring specific behaviours and finding patterns in how passwords are used – which can identify outliers and reduce the risks of hacking. 

Challenges with AI in events 

As we’ve explored throughout this article, AI technologies can assist event planners throughout your job – especially when it comes to providing data-driven analyses. But, as with any new technology, there are still some challenges that you’ll need to bear in mind. 

The first is that some artificial intelligence technologies can feel invasive, and there are contentions around data privacy that may limit how you use them in events.  

For example, you could use AI monitoring in real-time with tracked bracelets. These allow you to directly analyse guest movements and behaviour during an event in real-time, which will provide you with important (and more accurate) engagement and attendee participation data. But, some people could find this as an invasion of their privacy and may prefer not to participate. 

Another challenge when it comes to AI is around misinformation. AI isn’t perfect, and you shouldn’t expect it to be. So, make sure you always double check any results to reduce any issues around spreading incorrect information during your event. 

Planning your event with ACC Liverpool 

Organising an event, and want a venue that can work with you? At ACC Liverpool, our incredible Venue is adaptable to meet the needs of your event, and our Services teams are always on hand to provide you with the expertise you need to be a success. 

 
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