By Sumayya Mahin

After the internet, the next biggest thing to happen to mankind is probably Artificial Intelligence. The effect AI has on lives is immeasurable. It is nothing but a technology that behaves intelligently, thinking and behaving as individuals would. The world was literally taken over by AI, and the technology took over the world in all its aspects. AI has touched lives like never before, and whether you realize it or not, you might be using it on a day-to-day basis.

AI is making waves in the field of event management as well, by enabling the event managers to render a personal touch to their events. It can focus on devices, perceive the environment it is set in and use its skills to maximize the success of the event by acting as a game-changer. The smart use of AI can help your event in a number of ways. Let’s examine what they are:

1.Improving attendee engagement

AI can redefine attendee engagement by improving how they interact with the speakers during the event. For example, incorporating chatbot in mobile event apps can really hit it off with the attendees. And chatbot have become so sophisticated, that they behave like any intelligent human when an attendee interacts with them.

AI-enabled Chatbots have the capability to learn from previous conversations to know exactly what the customer wants so they can be served better.

2. Anticipatory computing through deep learning

Aligning AI with deep learning is still at its nascent stage in the event marketing industry, but it is growing and will continue to bloom in the next few years. Deep learning is actually a form of Artificial Learning that recognizes patterns and uses sensory input and a dash of reasoning to help form new actions. This would help event managers to know what their attendees want and deliver accordingly based on

3. Perfect as a language translator

If you are thinking of scaling to a new country, your event app, combined with AI is going to help you by acting as an intelligent translator. This way you can localize your content so you can relate to the native audience there. AI is becoming a whiz at language translation, image recognition and language processing, so it’s going to play a major role in the event management industry in the coming years. You can localize all your marketing materials; the mobile app itself will translate all the material to the attendees so they would get the content the way you planned it. This not only helps in delivering a personalized experience to the attendees, but the costs incurred will also be considerably lower because you don’t need a translator.

4. Intelligent floor plans

Floor plans are effective in helping the sponsors, speakers and attendees plan their schedule. While sponsors can make the best use of the floor to market their products, the speakers would be able to plan their sessions much more effectively. An interactive layout would be even more attractive, and it should be detailed when you develop it in the app because that would be both aesthetically pleasing and practical. Make this available in the mobile app, instead of your website alone, because attendees have become more tech-savvy. Actually, having an intelligent floor plans would make the event manager’s job easier because you can focus on other important aspects of the event planning.

5. Can help you find new attendees

AI-powered event apps are incredibly remarkable because they help you target new people and convert them into attendees. You don’t have to search for new attendees when you plan the next event because an AI-powered event app would automatically suggest target segments that even a marketing team might need a long time to identify. The technology is capable of measuring attendee sentiment.

6. Providing a personalized experience

Now how does an event provide a personalized experience to the attendees? By finding an individual approach, understanding what everybody likes and relates to. That seems like a tall order, especially when you have over 10,000 visitors.

But AI-enhanced apps can help with matchmaking too. It can make recommendations on specific networking activities, the events your attendees previously attended, the entertainment formats they relate to, the sessions they participated in the most and the comments they made on previous events. This would be a boon for the sponsors and exhibitors as well, because they can match the attendees’ expectations with what they have to display/exhibit.

7. Allows for customer-centric selling and advertising

Since AI is intelligent, it knows what people like and dislike. So the speakers do not have to bore them too with many offerings at once; just talk to them on what they can relate to, keeping their preferences in mind. Artificial Intelligence can predict emotional responses (by monitoring and analyzing their behavior on social media).

8. AI acts as a consultant to the event managers

Artificial Intelligence doesn’t just help the attendees and sponsors, it acts as a consultant when you are planning the event, making the entire process much easier. You can use AI to select the event venue and vendors based on the event location and requirements.

9. AI acts as a personal assistant

People are now used to Alexa, Siri and Google Home to play music, ask for directions, call people and so on. Now AI can become a major part of your mobile application to help you as a personal assistant. It can look at attendees’ social media profiles and analyze the data from different sources to know what the attendees like and enjoy. Based on your attendees’ interests, you can chart the sessions and make the event interesting and engaging.

Why you need both mobile event apps and AI in event planning

According to the research firm Markets and Markets, the AI market is predicted to grow to $4.05 billion by 2020. So, if you are using chatbot in your event app, it can mimic the human voice, use its intelligence to anticipate attendees’ needs like the famous Eliza, (the first chatbot ever that mimicked human voice), then it would bring in a huge spike in popularity and make your event a success.

Conclusion

The event industry is all set to delve into the maximum benefits of Artificial Intelligence to gain an edge over the competition. With attendees being introduced to AI and its advantages, they will be expected to have the experience.

It is important to identify what positive changes AI will do for your event. However, it is one of the best ways to improve attendee engagement and customize the events according to their expectations.

However, the complexity of AI systems often prompts companies to rely on professionals to develop mobile event apps that can incorporate the features of this growing technology. But it is most definitely worth it.