The Rise of AI in Business Events: A Boon or a Bane?
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In a rapidly-evolving digital landscape, Artificial Intelligence is transforming the landscape of business events, offering businesses a powerful toolset to enhance efficiency and drive engagement with their brand. But it also raises questions over security, accuracy, and reliability.
Hire Space, a tech-driven venue marketplace, which supports businesses planning corporate events, has been monitoring the impact of AI on business events through industry surveys and research into its usages. Here, the company shares some of the practical applications of AI to shed light on how it might affect business events.
AI’s Practical Applications in Business Event Planning
Corporate events, with their myriad of components and stakeholders, require meticulous planning and execution. AI is revolutionising the way many events are conceptualised, organised, and managed to save money for businesses in the following areas, among others:
AI in Supplier Sourcing: Procurement is a serious time drain for businesses planning events, with stretched teams and long response times to book venues, catering, and more. Venue selection, in particular, has become more efficient with machine learning algorithms that quickly connect event organisers with suitable venues, while aligning with specific requirements. Hire Space’s venue sourcing platform uses machine learning to connect businesses with the best venues for their events, and to make it easier to send event briefs to multiple relevant venues at once.
Budget Optimisation: AI can analyse past event data to provide accurate budget forecasts. It can also suggest cost-saving measures and allocate funds more efficiently. It can also analyse the scale and nature of the event to recommend the ideal number of staff required, minimising wastage.
Event Analysis: By analysing data from previous events, AI can predict potential challenges or bottlenecks which allows planners to create contingency plans. With wearable event tech and facial expression recognition becoming more popular at events, AI can analyse patterns of attendee engagement post-event to shape future strategies for event planning.
Networking Opportunities: AI can analyse attendee profiles to suggest potential networking matches, facilitating meaningful connections and enhancing the overall event value for participants. It can also provide conversation prompts based on connections between attendees who are wearing wearable technology, and suggest the best table layouts for corporate dinners and meetings.
Sustainability and Waste Management: AI can predict resource requirements more accurately, which may lead to reductions of waste. From predicting how much food will be eaten based on previous events, to analysing the return on investment for purchasing durable, reusable materials, it can help to suggest sustainable practices and vendors, aligning with the growing emphasis on eco-friendly events, and aiding companies to align with their CSR targets.
Concerns around AI in Events
While AI’s promise for business is undeniable, concerns about its reliability, precision, and data protection linger. According to Hire Space’s survey results, a significant portion of industry professionals remain sceptical about the accuracy of AI’s predictions in event planning and voice concerns over data security.
Despite the fact that three quarters of event organisers are actively using AI to streamline operations in corporate event planning and beyond, with two thirds expressing that they feel “very positive” about the adoption of AI in events, a third of event planners also voiced concerns over unfamiliarity with AI tools, which could lead to inaccuracies and errors when planning corporate events.
When dealing with personal or company data and sensitive information, this poses a real risk, and it’s clear that learning and development has a long way to go before AI can confidently be applied to planning business events.
The Road Ahead: Navigating Challenges and Opportunities
We may be at the beginning of the journey, but AI is set to play an increasingly prominent role in all areas of business. It’s critical that businesses are prepared to implement AI effectively, and safeguard employees and event attendees against errors caused by lack of knowledge of the tools.
To aid corporate event organisers in understanding how to use AI for future event planning, Hire Space has curated a comprehensive guide to using AI for events, offering insights into harnessing AI effectively to enhance business events.
Critically, AI’s role isn’t to replace but to complement human expertise. As Kerrin MacPhie of the MIA, aptly puts it, “The future of AI in the sector is about how we use it, not about how it decides to be used!” The key lies in harmonising this creativity with AI-driven tools to streamline processes, boost efficiency, and elevate the event planning experience.
