How to incorporate AI into your event strategy in 2024

With 2024 in full swing, you’re no doubt deep in planning your event strategy for the rest of the year. Finding the right balance of in-person, virtual, and hybrid events to achieve your goals might be top of mind. Plus, we can’t forget about generative AI (mostly because it’s taking over all our news feeds!). But what’s all the hype about, and how does it impact your event strategy? At Zoom, we know a thing or two about bringing people together using the latest technology and how important it is to deliver a flawless event experience, regardless of the format. 

As events continue to evolve, so do attendee expectations. They want events that are: 

• Engaging and interactive, regardless of format 
• User-friendly and intuitive
• Secure and private

The good news is, AI can help you keep up with these increasing demands, and choosing the right events partner is the first step. With the right partner — one that is using AI in practical, valuable ways — you can scale your event, enhance the quality of content, and save time.

Independent Industry Analyst firms like IDC and Omdia recognize companies that go above and beyond to set their customers up for success. We’re excited to share that IDC’s recently published Marketscape for Virtual Event Technologies positions Zoom as a leader in the industry, noting that “customers are excited about the speed of evolution in Zoom Events to the point that the product is disruptive to the market.”  

IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5-year timeframe. Vendor market share is represented by the size of the icons. Source: IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Virtual Events Applications 2023–2024 Vendor Assessment, IDC #US50010323, Nov 2023

Similarly, Omdia’s new ‘On-The-Radar’ report entitled, ‘The Compelling Value Proposition of Zoom Events, 4 Dec 2023,’ highlights “Zoom’s key advantage is its ability to go beyond virtual events and facilitate large-scale hybrid events.” 

We’re taking a practical approach to AI and focusing on three important principles for event organizers — scale, content quality, and reducing time spent on event-related tasks. We’re incorporating these principles into Zoom Events in three key stages: before, during, and after the event.

1. Scale your event

If you’re putting on a large-scale hybrid event, there are many moving parts. We learned this first-hand when we hosted our largest hybrid event to date, Zoomtopia 2023, on Zoom Events. 

One way Zoom Events can help scale a hybrid event is with Zoom AI Companion, our generative AI assistant. AI Companion is a lifesaver when planning many components of an event. Meeting summaries, for example, help members of your team stay informed when they can’t attend the many planning meetings leading up to the event. And if your team uses Zoom Team Chat, AI Companion helps you catch up on missed chats and compose thoughtful messages quickly with just a few prompts. This assistance in simplifying communications when juggling multiple event workstreams can help give you peace of mind.

Within the Zoom Events platform, the lobby chat and event email compose features make it easy to update large groups of in-person and remote attendees using generative AI. Attendees can also use AI to connect with chat in the lobby and one-on-one attendee chats making group networking a breeze. 

2. Engage your audience with quality event marketing content 

Planning compelling event marketing content can feel overwhelming, often requiring dedicated web development and marketing materials. AI event content compose, powered by AI Companion, can help you develop thoughtful event and session descriptions and speaker bio copy, freeing up valuable time you can spend planning the event itself.

AI Companion can also generate images based on user prompts, that you can leverage across your email mastheads, registration pages, and virtual event backgrounds. 

These additions and features, like Zoom Events’ built-in production studio, will create a stellar event experience no matter where your audience is tuning in from.

3. Save valuable time and money

Building AI into your event strategy can save you significant time. With AI Companion for Zoom Events, you’ll take the heavy lift out of writing and designing event emails and registration pages. You only need to provide a couple of prompts, and AI Companion will do the rest. 

Saving time often translates to significant cost savings. Implementing AI and the additional tools that an events partner like Zoom Events brings to the table can remove the need for additional contractors and third-party suppliers. This leaves money in your pocket for more virtual events. A regular cadence of smaller virtual events helps you build brand engagement and reach more leads for a fraction of the cost of a couple of large-scale in-person events.

In fact, virtual or hybrid events are no longer nice to have; attendees expect to have the option. The IDC Marketscape Report found that almost half (47%) of U.S. workers will attend six or more virtual events in a calendar year. Meanwhile, 64% of workers would attend one to five in-person events in the same period.  

Above all, flexibility reigns supreme. Rajul Shah, Zoom Events head of sales, hears daily from customers who need technology providers that complement their event strategy: “Our customers don’t necessarily go into the year knowing if they will have all virtual, all in-person, or a mix. We recommend a healthy portion of virtual events in your strategy to help reduce costs, increase volume, and continue the drumbeat of storytelling for your organization. But when you know you want to meet in person, whether it’s an intimate VIP gathering or a large-scale hybrid event, having a platform that can handle a spectrum of event types is key.”

As the world of events evolves from in-person to virtual and hybrid, so do attendee expectations. Embracing generative AI in a practical way, especially through platforms like Zoom Events, helps companies keep up with demands and knock their goals out of the park. The recognition of industry analysts IDC and Omida has reinforced our position as a guiding light in this space and highlighted the need to adapt to the changing event landscape. By incorporating AI to help simplify event management, enhance content quality, and save significant time, it will be a game changer for your event strategy moving forward. 

Learn more about Zoom Events and how we can help you future-proof your events strategy moving forward.

Take a deeper dive into the IDC Marketscape report.