While mobile apps are still the top event tech tool for most meeting planners, a recent study found that AI wasn’t far behind. Here are more results, including the most popular AI event tech tools planners are using today.

Event Tech Forecast 2024, a study recently released by event management platform provider ExpoPlatform, provides a snapshot of how planners are using event technology in 2024. While the results examine a wide range of event tech, “The most disruptive new technology that will change the way we work on a daily basis is generative AI,” said ExpoPlatform CEO and co-founder Tanya Pinchuk in the e-book that explores the research results.

Meeting and event professionals would seem to agree, though not as strongly as they did when the company last asked planners about where event tech can be grasped as an opportunity. Last summer, the “AI-powered features” option was at the top of planners’ lists, where the latest data puts it in 5^th place with 40% of respondents choosing an AI-powered features, after personalization of experiences (64%), proving exhibitor ROI (60%), better event analytics (56%) and community nurturing (44%).

However, AI matchmaking was one of the key event tech features planners said they valued, with more than half picking that option, just behind event mobile apps at 60%. Then again, you need a mobile event app to do some of the other tech features the research asked about, such as lead retrieval, badge scanning and interactive floor plans. Still, planners appear to be excited about being able to use AI-powered matchmaking, including recommending relevant products, sessions and other attendees they may want to meet, as well as scheduling appointments with exhibitors.

To find out more about the AI-enabled tools planners are using, the research included a new section to get a fuller picture. The AI-enabled features that came out on top were people recommendations, marketing/messaging automation and data analysis, a three-way tie at 56%. Product recommendations, chatbots, content creation and curation, schedule curation and event project management also were on the respondents’ radar screen.

This is a good move, Events Intelligence Director Mark Parsons said in the report. Sales and marketing departments may love using generative AI to create copy and images, “the real benefits will come when it’s used to augment strategy decisions and change business processes,” he said.

“The real value will come when we start to redefine and reshape business processes to take into account the fact that we now have access to an infinite number of electronic ‘interns.’ We’re just at the start of this transformation,” he added.

Does that mean that we need to put some regulatory guardrails around the use of AI for events? While 68% of respondents said they either agreed or strongly agreed, Parsons believes that particular genie has already escaped the bottle, especially around text and image creation.

Download the full e-book here.