Why event professionals should look beyond just automation and efficiency, and use AI to unlock the creativity of your audience and make better human connections
On a stage in Rome last year, I listened to event producer Colja Dams assert that currently, the industry is seeing too many “AI hammers” desperately hunting for nails. He’s right, but he didn’t go far enough.
As a keynote speaker on future trends I spend much of my time at events, yet I’m an industry outsider. This perspective helps me see the industry’s lack of ambition when it comes to AI at events. Streamlining event planning with AI agents, personalized agendas, smarter chatbots, instant session summaries, and basic matchmaking—these are all useful, but they barely scratch the surface of what’s possible.
AI’s real impact will be a complete transformation of the value events create, for both the organizations that convene them and the individuals who attend them. Instead of simply aspiring to do today’s jobs quicker and easier, what if your audiences could generate genuinely useful outputs during their next industry conference or company meeting? And what if AI could ensure every attendee left having met the most relevant people in the audience, a super connector par excellence?
The good news? These aren’t fantastical aspirations, there are tools and experiences out there that are making this today’s reality.
Events Reimagined: From Consumption to Co-Creation
Events have historically been one-way streets, with speakers on stage talking to largely passive audiences. But what if we could flip this model, using AI to create more interactive and collaborative sessions?
Imagine an event where attendees aren’t just sitting back and listening, but where AI is actively contextualizing the content on the stage to their own professional interests and expertise. How much better would Q&A segments be if everyone had a personalized AI research assistant in their pocket, cross-referencing what was being said against their organization’s recent news, strategies and goals? Instead of struggling to absorb information, attendees would be better equipped to ask insightful questions or suggest actionable ideas, right there in the session.
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We know one of AI’s superpowers is its ability to take huge amounts of data and make it meaningful. Google DeepMind trained a LLM called the “Habermas Machine” that could help groups find common ground even when discussing polarizing topics. Could your next moderator leverage similar tools to extract insights and ideas from even the most diverse of audiences?
But why stop there? AI is collapsing the gap between having an idea and bringing it to life. New AI tools like Adobe’s Project Concept accelerate the creative process, allowing users to explore hundreds if not thousands of novel combinations, in seconds. My very own VisuAIse Futures tool brings this to events by enabling hundreds of participants to quickly sketch their ideas, and then see them transformed into AI-generated visuals—as a live shared experience. Think Slido, but with rich images created by the audience themselves.
Think Slido, but with rich images created by the audience themselves. These interactive experiences will shift events from passive consumption towards dynamic co-creation. For organizations spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on bringing people together the potential to create and extract tangible value from participants during the event itself should be a deeply exciting one.
Beyond Serendipity: AI-Augmented, Authentic Connections
The chance encounter—chatting with a stranger in the lunch line who turns out to have exactly the expertise you need—has always been one of the most seductive elements of successful events. Yet it’s wildly random and inefficient.
Today’s AI matchmaking feels painfully superficial—typically based on job titles or location. True connections require deeper, contextual intelligence about someone’s goals. Boardy shows us what an AI “super connector” with this knowledge could look like. You message it on LinkedIn with your phone number, and then a few minutes later, you get a call. From an AI. After discussing what you’re working on and the types of people you’d like to connect with, the AI mines its database and suggests a connection via a double opt-in email introduction.
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While it’s not currently focused on specific events, it’s not hard to see how transformative this could be. Imagine making a five-minute phone call on your way to registration, and after pickup up your badge receiving a perfectly curated list of the 10 most relevant fellow attendees, each with relevant context. It would be like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist, but with people instead of songs.
If AI can successfully shrink the degrees of separation, a 5,000-person summit might feel like a tight-knit workshop because everyone you encounter seems relevant or familiar. That could fundamentally change the vibe of large conferences—less roaming a sea of strangers, more “these are my people” cohesion.
AI’s impact won’t stop at the end of an event. A non-obvious but powerful opportunity will be turning events into continuous communities. Historically, you go to an event, you meet great people, you learn, and then you all go home and the energy dissipates beyond a few LinkedIn connections. AI will be able to nurture communities year-round (suggesting discussions, facilitating one-on-one follow-ups, delivering fresh content). Done well, this could sustain the ‘event high’, and change professional culture by making attending a conference like joining an ongoing club or society.
Reimagining Event Success: Our New KPI Should Be Joy
Tahira Endean, IMEX’s Head of Programming, has written inspiringly that “Our KPI is Joy.” She’s right. Events aren’t merely logistical puzzles to solve, but a vehicle for moments that, when done well, spark connection, creativity, and ultimately, joy.
Even today, we can see glimpses of this. The Poem Booth sprinkles some AI magic on top of the traditional photo booth experience, with guests receiving personalized poems alongside their photos. It’s a novel and fun way to bring people together and create shareable memories.
In the future, the most successful events will be those that strike the right balance between automation and authenticity. I’m excited for the day I can attend a conference and feel like it was designed just for me, while still walking away with the sense that I’ve been part of something bigger than myself. AI will be the key to this personalization-at-scale, but it will be the human touches – a smile at registration, a shared joke in the coffee break, an inspiring speaker who pours their heart out—that ultimately make an event worth attending.
AI will transform events, but it won’t replace the magic that happens when people gather and connect. It will just enable more of that magic to happen, if we get it right.
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Henry Coutinho-Mason is a self-professed “reluctant futurist and provocative optimist’” who has given 150+ keynotes in 30+ countries on cross-industry trends and innovations, from the SXSW main stage to global boardrooms.
He is the author of “The Future Normal” and “Trend-Driven Innovation,” and most recently the creator of VisuAIse Futures, the interactive AI-powered creative experience mentioned above. Connect with him on LinkedIn or check out his speaking website here.
