AI could change the way event profs do business
Another IMEX America means more event technology that’ll make the art of event planning more streamlined than the year before. There was much technology being showcased on the IMEX floor, and, as you might imagine, lots of talk about AI.
AI Use Cases with Maritz
“Where are we now, and where are we going? We are in it. We are committed to AI,” said Amy Kramer, innovation leader at Maritz. Kramer presented real-world use cases for event professionals using AI.
Enterprise vs. Free Tools
Most AI chatbots have a paid and free version. The free versions and their paid counterparts both have their place in AI, but, ultimately, it’s a balance of weighing the pros and cons of either route. A good example of a paid AI tool is Microsoft’s Copilot, which also has a free version. “Enterprise solutions are very scalable. They’re allowed to integrate multiple functions,” Kramer said. “With Copilot, you’re able to connect to Teams, connect to Outlook and connect to SharePoint in the same place. The value of that is being able to ask a question and go into all of those different sources to provide you with that information.”
This is in contrast to ChatGPT free version, for example, which provides answers based on what it scans across the internet, not based on information uniquely relevant to you or your company. Free tools also have another potential issue that, while Kramer admitted hasn’t happened, could happen. “The amount of users that are going into these free tools, those tools have a risk of collapsing or not being available, versus an enterprise solution that can accommodate large numbers of users.”
Kramer said one con of enterprise tools is their high cost. And while Microsoft or Google have free versions that are safe and secure, “you can do more with some of these enterprise models that are going to give you even more value.”
AI in Event Management
Kramer shared AI tools that Maritz is using. “The reason why we are sharing this with you is because one of the things that we’ve realized very early on is that AI is a differentiator for companies that are using it, but it’s very similar to some of these larger initiatives, like sustainability,” she said. “We’re better together when we share what we’re doing as a group.”
Read More: The Unusual Irony of AI
Kramer said Maritz is not just looking at AI’s day-to-day use with their teams, but how it can help event management teams collaborate better, simplify the way in which information is shared and leverage those learnings and best practices. She adds that AI tools that can connect right into our company’s knowledge bases that she and her team can later tap into can save time and effort on everyone’s part.
Contact Center
AI has also been used to make Maritz’s contact center more efficient. Kramer said its contact center fields calls of all types, whether it be the redemption of an item or booking airline travel. “We have been able to leverage AI prototypes to take nine-minute calls down to two-minute calls and…[we’re] able to use AI to pull up…information based on that attendee or that participant calling in. This helps with the bigger limit rates and helps us be more effective, and ultimately creates a better guest experience.”
Finance and Event Accounting
Kramer said this one’s her favorite. “You all know and are aware of how long it takes to invoice and reconcile hotels and the amount of pages and formats that those invoices may come in,” she lamented. With the use of AI, Maritz is able to use “document ingestion,” the process of taking all finance and accounting information and scanning it for discrepancies and similarities, shortening processing time from 60 days to 10 days.
“This gets our hotel partners [in agreement] faster, gets our clients able to reconcile faster and ultimately provides a better experience with us as an organization,” she said.
Resource Management and Predictive Modeling
“[Resource management] is an important thing for us, given our size and scope and the amount of events we produce,” Kramer said. “We have clients that—as you know—want to book their events in advance, and they ask us questions like, ‘How many travel directors do I need? How many on-site staff do I need?’”
With predictive modeling using AI, clients are now able to look at past events and be able to save time and money by not having to onboard those last-minute site staff they didn’t know they needed. “If we don’t have those people, we have to onboard them and train them. Now we can look at it in advance and be able to predict that and measure it, and then have more successful resource management at the end.”
DPR Group’s AI Concierge and Mood Detection Tech
Nick Fagan, head of innovation at media relations and content development company DPR Group (DPRG), beamed in from London and began his presentation on AI with a jarring statistic, first predicted by Nina Shick, author, advisor and expert in generative AI: By 2025, 90% of online content will be generated by AI.
Fagan was the star of the show—or rather, his AI avatar was. Fagan’s AI avatar was created after three minutes of looking and speaking into a camera. DRPG’s AI avatar can use your likeness and voice to talk and answer questions in a more personalized way for attendees. It can also seamlessly talk in popular languages—speak to it in Japanese and it will respond in Japanese. In addition to demonstrating an understanding of your event’s offerings and providing detailed information, the AI concierge can also detect mood, so speaking to it in a somber or excited mood will return the respective attitude.
This avatar can be used for a multitude of reasons, such as customer support, training and onboarding, event engagement, and more.
During the presentation, Fagan was able to detect the mood of the audience using cameras placed around the booth. No one’s identity is on display, as indicated by the blurry view of the camera. Fagan says the AI isn’t interested in individuals, just the raw numbers, as well as the mood of attendees—moods like focus, excitement, joy, confusion, doubt and more. As an example, Fagan showed an illustration of a car show that displayed areas of excitement (indicated by shades of green) and confusion (indicated by shades of pink), in addition to total guests and average duration spent in an exhibit.
This article appears in the November 2024 issue. You can subscribe to the magazine here.
