Like most industries, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the ways corporate meeting planners do business.

From offering tools to streamline tasks, to improving and personalizing the overall corporate event experience, to analyzing data for insights on attendee engagement, AI offers a wealth of streamlined efficiencies that keep corporate meeting planners coming back for more.

So what are some of the newest tools and ways in which today’s corporate meeting planners are using AI to enhance the events and meetings they are planning?

“I’m seeing AI play a growing role in the early stages of event planning, particularly in sourcing,” says Heather Pilcher, CSEP, CMP, CEO and executive producer at Blue Spark Event Design. “Planners can now quickly gather data on hotels and venues such as meeting space capacity, guestroom counts, proximity to airports and amenities across destinations worldwide. While the accuracy isn’t perfect, AI provides a valuable starting point to narrow down sourcing targets.”

However, just because you can pull the data doesn’t mean a planner may fully understand its implications. As Pilcher points out, at this stage in AI’s development, you still need a skilled meeting producer to interpret the information, apply industry expertise and draw logical conclusions that align with the event’s goals and requirements. And then there is the accuracy issue.

“AI pulls from the web, and if the source information is wrong, your data will be wrong too.

Beyond raw research, AI’s ability to reformat information into user-friendly layouts like bulleted lists, tables or side-by-side comparisons saves time and makes decision-making faster,” Pilcher says. “Even though human verification is still essential, this initial lift from AI shortens the research phase and helps planners focus on strategic choices earlier in the process.”

Marcia White, senior event manager, strategic events, meetings and incentives at MCI USA , says AI has been used to make things easier and quicker.

“I believe it helps speed up some tasks that may have taken more time in the past. That just helps free up some time for other items that may need more attention to detail that AI cannot help with. And that’s ok. Events still need the human touch,” White says. “That’s what makes them successful.”

AI can automate tasks like scheduling and email follow-ups. White has used AI to help her find a time for everyone to be available for a meeting or even creating a calendar reminder to send out an email or calendar invite.

“I’ve also used AI to help me craft emails. Sometimes, you can’t find the right word to convey your thoughts to a co-worker, vendor, etc. so AI has helped me craft emails and help with tone or even make it more concise,” White says.

Another way White uses AI in her meeting planning process is in her sourcing process. She sourced venues for an event for 2028 and had multiple options. “I needed to put together a presentation for the Board and AI helped with suggestions on how to make different types of slides and layouts of slides,” White says. “Its’ suggestions helped me create a better presentation than I may have done myself.”

Catie Henderson, director of product management at GlobalMeet, is also seeing AI become a game-changer for event planning. Planners are using it to make faster, smarter decisions, from shaping agendas and optimizing session timing to identifying the topics and formats that historically engage attendees most.

“By analyzing past event data, registration patterns and attendee interests, AI can flag sessions likely to draw high engagement or suggest ways to tailor experiences for different groups,” Henderson says.

For Henderson, her biggest benefit is regaining time and focus. AI can handle repetitive tasks like scheduling, attendee segmentation and post-event reporting, so planners can focus more on strategy and creativity.

“It also helps make events more engaging, from personalized session recommendations to smarter networking suggestions,” Henderson says. “On the post-event side, AI allows teams to quickly extract meaningful insights from event data, enabling smarter decisions for future planning.”

An area which AI can benefit planners, in addition to the time factor, seems to be efficiency. “The speeds at which many of these tools operate provide a huge advantage over the previous ways of doing business,” says Lenny Talarico, chief experiential architect at Lenny Talarico Events. “This can allow for increased efficiency in all areas of planning.”

Personally, Talarico has been using AI for event design concepts when creating proposals. It’s still a bit of trial and error as he’s learning that the more detailed and specific the prompts given are, the better the outcome of the delivered product.

“In addition, I see how AI can create a better way of interfacing with clients using chatbots to answer online attendee questions or assist in providing detailed data or references when conducting research,” Talarico says.

AI can be used to tailor experiences to different groups to increase interest and engagement.

Key AI Tools

Right now, AI shines at speeding up repetitive, time-consuming tasks. It can help summarize long documents, generate checklists, draft initial communications and handle basic data sorting. As Pilcher explains, while it’s far from being a comprehensive event planning solution, it’s evolving, and as more industry-specific AI tools emerge, planners will be able to spend less time on admin work and more time on creative, high-impact event elements that drive attendee engagement.

At the moment, ChatGPT remains the most widely used AI tool in in the event and meeting planning industry. Pilcher also sees planners experimenting with alternatives like Google’s Gemini and other large language models.

“Outside of rewriting your emails for grammar, there are AI-powered tools emerging for design mockups, language translation and even predictive analytics for attendee behavior, but many are still in the experimental or beta stages,” Pilcher says.

At Blue Spark, Pilcher and her team have tested AI for sorting and pre-qualifying venue and vendor lists based on very specific criteria. While the results were helpful in narrowing the field, they were not perfect.

“We still needed one of our skilled planners to ensure accuracy. We’ve also experimented with using AI to combine data from multiple sources into complex event calculation models,” Pilcher says. “For example, merging cost projections from one source with logistical requirements from another to simulate a seasoned planner’s decision-making process. The outcome was mixed at best. It’s helpful for brainstorming, but not at a level where it could replace expert judgment.”

Currently, White is using copilot and they’ve adopted that as a company. White has found that it’s been a great tool to use for internal and external information. “It enables me to ask a question and search the internet or I can choose to just search internally to find documents we have to answer my question,” White says. “It is a great tool to use because you can use it to focus the area of search — make it broad or make it more specific to your company and/or client.”

Henderson points to AI chatbots and matchmaking systems as the key AI tools being used in the corporate meeting and events industry. Chatbots now act as personal concierges. As she explains, they can guide attendees through schedules, answer questions and surface tailored content recommendations.

“AI matchmaking tools also take the awkward guesswork out of networking by pairing you with people who share your documented goals and interests,” Henderson says. “These tools reduce administrative loads for event organizers and tailor event experiences to attendees.”

As technology changes, planners need to adapt. What is new today will be used by everyone tomorrow.

Biggest Obstacles

Not surprising, there are some big obstacles to AI adoption in the meetings and events industry. Perhaps the biggest hurdle is accuracy. Large language models can “hallucinate” or generate incorrect information, which can cause costly mistakes if not caught.

“In many ways, this is reminiscent of the early days of Wikipedia when incorrect inputs led to unreliable outputs. Additionally, the technology is still in its infancy for our industry. Without a robust dataset tailored to meetings and events, AI tools lack the specialized knowledge needed to consistently deliver precise, context-aware results,” says Pilcher. “The effectiveness of AI also hinges on prompt quality and poorly phrased prompts lead to poor outputs.”

Finally, there’s an impatience factor. In the fast-paced world of the events industry, planners expect instant, accurate results. Pilcher points out that without rigorous fact-checking, this rush can lead to the spread of misinformation and flawed decisions.

“As type-A professionals, we thrive on the possibility of quick and accurate answers, and regrettably, that is not where we are at with AI,” Pilcher says.

Pilcher has also encountered data privacy issues, high implementation costs and trust concerns when using AI. For example, AI-generated images on vendor websites can be a red flag. If all imagery is AI-created, it raises questions about the authenticity of the service or product.

“Planners rely on genuine photography to assess real-world quality, which builds trust and sets realistic expectations for clients,” Pilcher says. AI can produce visually striking renderings, but those concepts aren’t always structurally sound or logistically practical in the real world. Factors like physics, engineering and attendee experience often fail to carry over from an AI-generated vision. What works in two dimensions doesn’t always translate to three. Without transparency and realistic representation, risk management quickly becomes a concern.”

White stresses that one obstacle to AI is that although it can streamline things or simplify tasks, there still has to be that human review.

“People just need to understand that even if it’s being used, it still needs to be reviewed and refined. I also think people worry AI will take over jobs and I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” White says. “AI is used more to refine and organize. Meetings and events still need that human touch to make them work and be exactly what the client wants.”

Trust and complexity are the biggest hurdles that Henderson sees to AI implementation. As she explains, confidentiality and data privacy are major concerns for planners, especially in regulated industries, and many teams aren’t sure how to best integrate AI into existing workflows.

“Plus, some tools still struggle to comprehend industry-specific terminology,” Henderson says. “These challenges have slowed adoption, but with the right safeguards and training, AI can deliver huge value without compromising privacy or performance.”

Talarico says that everyone is still testing the waters on how and what to use, and there remains concerns centered around privacy along with accuracy of information received.

“In addition, it raises questions related to quality and reliability of the output as generative AI continues to evolve,” Talarico says.

Full Speed Ahead

Once the meetings and events industry sees some more sophisticated AI agents built specifically for meetings and events, adoption will accelerate. These tools could handle tasks like rewriting event communications for different audiences, drafting creative concepts or running quick feasibility analyses.

As Talarico explains, AI it is already being adopted and will continue to be used to offset many of the time-consuming tasks corporate meeting and event planners face. Companies like Cvent have already incorporated this into event registration, EventBrite offers AI driven recommendations for promotions and ticketing solutions, and many planners continue to incorporate ChatGPT into their daily routines to assist with various slow tasks.

White also feels that AI will enable events to be tailored more toward individuals. It will help customize agendas and be able to review and organize feedback forms quickly.

“I think for event planning purposes, it can help with vendor selections or really any type of information that needs to be reviewed and made decisions about,” White says. “AI has the ability to organize information and then read your information to be able to create a document or summary, making it easier and quicker for event managers to pick vendors or other decisions quicker because we won’t have to look through as much information as AI may be able to sort through.”

Pilcher also believes AI will eventually become a trusted co-pilot for planners — supporting, but not replacing, human expertise. “Until then, it’s a supplementary tool, not a central one,” she says. “We’re watching closely for innovations that can genuinely streamline processes, allowing planners to focus on what matters most: creating impactful, memorable experiences for attendees.”

AI will move beyond just assisting planners to shape how events are experienced in real time, Henderson adds. She believes the industry will see tools that can automatically adjust session recommendations, virtual room layouts and content delivery methods based on live attendee engagement. This will help planners make on-the-fly improvements and deliver highly personalized experiences for attendees.

“As more advanced AI technology is developed, the best events will still blend AI-driven insights with human expertise and creativity,” Henderson says. “AI-powered events will be most successful when smart tools and smart people work together, using data to enhance, not replace, the authentic human touch that builds real connections and trust.” C&IT