How, if at all, has the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) technology affected your business—and what impact do you envision over the next year?

KAREN NORRIS
Director of strategy, programs and services for the Canadian Dermatology Association
MPI Ottawa Chapter

“I haven’t had an opportunity to really flex with AI, beyond ChatGPT, but I am excited about the opportunities for further alignment between AI and my industry. I think a healthy way to view AI is not an entity that will make our jobs obsolete. In reality, futurists believe that event management is at minimal risk for automation since it requires high emotional intelligence, relationship management, negotiations, creativity, etc. I think we can see AI as removing the most mundane portions of our jobs: writing short comms, creating critical paths, scheduling runs of shows, etc. This is what I have started to use ChatGPT for and it has provided me with more time in my schedule to intentionally design our events and not get caught up in time-sucking administrative tasks.”

HEATHER BROWN, CMP, DMCP
Regional vice president, Chicago and Southeast, PRA Business Events
MPI Chicago Area Chapter

“AI technology has impacted our business in various positive ways. For instance, we use Salesforce at PRA and its predictive tools, like opportunity scoring, help us to work smarter. Microsoft also has a number of recent enhancements powered by AI that give us better functionality and keeps our teams across the country well connected with each other.”

PAOLA BOWMAN, CMP, CMM
Destination services, Arlington CVB
MPI Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter

“Though AI hasn’t quite impacted our day-to-day business visibly, we do see the trends impacting the meeting and event industry. In the DMO space, it’s something we are turning to for research, and we are exploring ways to automate targeting convention attendees for attendance building, as well as customer service in-market.”

ROBBERT WEDDEPOHL
Group venue director, Stage Entertainment
MPI Netherlands Chapter

“While we have not yet implemented AI technology in a significant way at Stage Entertainment, I believe that there is great potential for AI to enhance the guest experience and streamline our operations in the future. I anticipate that we will continue to explore the possibilities of AI over the next year and beyond.”

RINDI CERELLI, CMP, DES
Meetings and events manager, Travel Portland
MPI Oregon Chapter

“While AI has yet to have a strong impact in our company, I see the ability to use prompts in ChatGPT as a huge benefit to planners, saving a lot of time on event communication in the future, and further pressing our creativity to use this new tool.”

SETH MACCHI
CEO, Live Events Media Group
MPI Carolinas Chapter

“I asked a question recently on LinkedIn about how people are using generative AI like ChatGPT in the event industry. Answers varied from ‘using it to reduce complex ideas down to laymen’s terms’ to ‘creating crew schedules or speaker bios.’ I haven’t tried any of this yet, but there’s no doubt that we will begin to see AI impacting events in many ways soon.”

CLAUDE FOUBERT
Director, Vert Com
MPI France-Switzerland Chapter

“There are good and bad things about AI-related technologies like ChatGPT. Scientific committees will be faced with having to identify communications that were not written by their authors but by the AI. Anti-plagiarism software already exists for competitions in [higher education]. We should draw inspiration from them to counter these false scientific communications. On the other hand, AI will make it possible to develop or solve certain online tools more quickly. We are already working on the creation of virtual exhibition stands with a larger-than-life avatar.

“In economic terms, we are not directly impacted by possible negative effects of AI. I find it hard to imagine conference organizers entrusting an AI entirely with designing their website and its content at a lower cost or writing the text of an email to communicate with their scientific community.”

TAMARA ADAMS
Founder, speaker manager and coach; TA Speakers Management
MPI Toronto Chapter

“Because I prefer to build relationships over transactions, I do not use any kind of sales software or outreach bots/software. While manual outreach are more time-intensive, I find focusing on relationships in sales and personalized outreach works better in the long term. Although, my entire business is online, I only use online services to run my business.”

MICHELLE MOORE
Senior director of sales and meeting sales & services, Experience Kissimmee
MPI Greater Orlando Chapter

“Thinking of AI in the basic sense, email spam filters affect business in positive and negative ways. We love it when our email is filtered for contacts we want to hear from, but not so much when it blocks contacts unintentionally. Another example is the Netflix recommendation-engine technology, which, from a marketing standpoint, helps our industry receive targeted content based on specific preferences. As a DMO, this type of technology is important to reach our target audiences. And, although not 100% accurate all of the time, Google Translate helps bridge the gap in language barriers when traveling for business or leisure. And most of us have had experience with a website chatbot to converse with customer service—this has helped provide FAQs in real time more quickly for brands, especially with recent staffing shortages.

“Recent AI development for the travel industry includes new research tools and platforms such as Arrivalist and Zartico, which help destinations identify visitor behaviors, need periods and other useful information to better understand our target audiences. The growth of AI will continue to solve many problems in our industry such as helping us sort and organize data and curate targeted content to intended clients. I believe with the increase in technology tools, there will be an increased need or desire for human connection through in-person meetings and events.”

TERRY J. ONUSTACK, CMP
Senior meeting manager, Event Source Professionals
MPI Washington State Chapter

“I’ve recently seen some demonstrations on how AI can help our industry with things like contract review. I certainly see it as something that can be an important tool going forward as it could help save time and money.”