Navigating the AI Wave in the Events Industry Through 'Social Listening'

For the event production industry, 2023 has been a year of unexpected developments that contradicted initial trend predictions: there’s a less intense focus on virtual events as in-person engagement has seen a “resurrection,” and large virtual event costs have contributed to minimized client budgets, to name a few.

Arguably cemented at the top of this list is the functionality of Artificial Intelligence tools – not necessarily the rise of AI’s prominence itself, as we already understood it to be a near-future possibility, but how fast the technology is advancing and continues to be refined for various uses. As the implementation of AI tools rapidly grows, industry experts are eager to understand how to best utilize the technology for the sake of improving the overall creative process.

That was a primary focus of DEVLINHAIR Production & Learning and ImageThink 's on-site sponsorship experience at Event Marketer’s Agency Forum, held at City Winery in New York, N.Y., on November 2. Attended by C-suite executives and analysts, this second-annual gathering centered on current insights and identifying solutions for urgent business challenges within the events industry. As co-sponsors of the early-morning welcome registration and breakfast block of programming, DH and ImageThink collaborated on an interactive 'Social Listening' experience to engage participants as they arrived for the day.

Organic engagement is still as effective as ever in delivering results; as DH distributed free, branded compression travel bags as attendee gifts, this allowed for opportunities to get the conversation started and present the “prompt” at the core of the Social Listening mural: “How Will AI Amplify the Creative Process in 2024?” Responses began to pour in around AI insights and its potential use in the coming year, such as using it to kickstart a brainstorm session, analyzing large data sets to summarize the big picture, and generative AI for creating visual art concepts.

The captivating, thought-provoking activation gradually translated into a visual storytelling piece as Nora Herting, ImageThink Co-Founder and visual artist, illustrated key talking points across the Social Listening mural in real-time throughout the morning. The finalized piece ultimately served as an all-encompassing representation of the audience’s thoughts and predictions on the future of AI.

Coincidentally, the relevance of our topic was an effective precursor to the first panel discussion of the morning, which was titled “The Impact of AI on the Event Agency Model.” Many deliberations from the session echoed topics on the mural illustration – especially in acknowledging the incredible speed of AI and how it feeds into clients’ increasing desire for efficiency in the creative process – while emphasizing there is a “people-centric” aspect to the AI evolution and the importance of understanding we’re still in an exploratory phase of this technology. At this point in time, industry experts are suggesting we should view the automation potential of AI through a positive lens, while recognizing it not as a “replacement” for creative output.

Taking these ideas into consideration, the conversation around the technology’s application within the events industry doesn’t stop here. In addition to being a fully-engaging way for DH to temperature-check our fellow colleagues in attendance, the gathered insights allow us to reassess our internal outlook on AI and better align with the audience consensus; in other words, if we’re going to continue exploring this technology for useful automation purposes moving forward, which of its functions make the most sense for us to implement? And how will client audiences react to this approach?

As the AI evolution maintains its status as a hot topic heading into the coming year, we look ahead to the positives of what this technology can elevate in our business operations and appreciating, more than ever, the diversity of creative ideas.