Reimaging events with AI

From the planning process to post-event content creation, AI is enhancing events without replacing the human connection.

Financial services organisations are evolving faster than ever. With volatile markets, shifting regulations, changing client expectations and the rapid rise of technology, particularly AI, firms must rethink how they connect, communicate and deliver value.

Cvent’s 2026 FinServ trends eBook highlights that in this environment, events are taking on a more strategic role. When planned with purpose, they remain one of the most effective ways to build trust, deepen engagement and foster lasting client relationships.

But events themselves are changing too. While some see AI and in-person experiences as opposing forces, they actually complement each other. Technology can enhance the human element, making interactions richer, more personalised and more meaningful. Even in a digital-first world, people still crave genuine human connection and AI helps deliver it.

The report found that exclusivity and trust are becoming central to events. This is because smaller, invitation-only formats like executive roundtables, client dinners and portfolio reviews allow firms to deliver personalised guidance, meaningful conversations and direct access to experts. These high-touch experiences help build trust while standing out in a crowded market.

Meanwhile, cost and measurable outcomes are also rising in importance. Teams face pressure to show clear ROI, from client engagement to pipeline impact. With procurement more involved, there’s a focus on predictable pricing, tighter contracts and formats that control spend. This is driving more regional gatherings, hybrid events and careful vetting of third-party options.

Above all, AI is set to redefine the way events are planned, executed and leveraged afterwards.

David Morgan, Enterprise Marketing, Europe at Cvent [pictured], notes that it will be transformative across every stage of the event lifecycle, offering significant benefits for both planners and attendees. In particular, she highlights five key areas where AI is making an impact:

· Efficiency

· Collaboration

· Personalisation

· Insights

· Content creation

Efficiency is inevitably what most people associate with AI, and Morgan notes that its impact spans every stage of event planning, benefiting both planners and marketers, who often juggle countless tasks.

For example, Cvent has been developing a knowledge base that allows customers to input event details that aren’t typically live in the platform, such as travel information. AI chatbots can then surface this data, sparing planners from repeatedly answering the same questions.

“It saves a lot of time on planners having to answer the same question over and over again,” he says. “Attendees can ask a chatbot and it will know the answer from Cvent information and from any information that you input in it.”

Looking further ahead, Cvent is exploring how AI can streamline the event-building process itself. One approach is using AI writing assistants trained in a company’s brand voice, enabling the generation of content that is on-brand in both tone and style.

Fisher highlights that AI now allows marketers to personalise experiences at scale, reaching every attendee touchpoint, including exhibitor interactions.

Yet, she stresses that this level of personalisation doesn’t compromise governance or compliance, as Cvent builds its capabilities with compliance embedded into the product.

By leveraging large language models (LLMs) rather than building its own, Cvent ensures customer data safety is central.

“We have agreements with them in terms of how our customers data gets used, and if it gets trained to not feeding them personally identifiable information (PII) data,” he says.

“Really making sure that our customers data safety is top of mind when we partner with our LLMs, that’s the biggest part from our end.”

Cvent also keeps its systems constantly updated to reflect changes in regulations such as GDPR, EU rules, and cookie requirements.

“We know that EU is stricter, so we take EU laws and make them applicable globally so it’s not just to the specific country. We are making sure that we have the compliance capabilities across the entire platform for anyone who wants to use that,” he says.

Transparency is also key. Therefore, whenever generative AI is used, attendees and planners are informed and must acknowledge it, with the option to opt in to AI features or the use of PII data, particularly for networking.

AI is also transforming how planners and marketers understand and act on event data. Fisher notes that one of its key benefits is surfacing insights that simply weren’t available before.

“What insights can we give planners to help them do their jobs better, predict future events, see how their event went and give them more real time access?” Morgan asks.

Cvent is embedding these insights into its platform in multiple ways. The first, launched a few months ago, is feedback summarisation where survey responses are automatically condensed and categorised, making it easy for planners to see what worked and what didn’t.

“Feedback is automatically categorised. For example, when analysing your sessions, it shows what attendees liked and what didn’t work, such as certain speakers or elements, making it much easier to digest,” he explains.

The predictive capabilities take it a step further. By analysing past data and customer averages, planners can forecast event performance in real time.

“If your registration numbers are below last year, you can see it ahead of time and adjust your marketing strategy in real time to hit your goals,” Morgan says.

These insights also make measuring ROI easier as planners can calculate time saved or track engagement improvements.

Attendees also benefit because they can receive daily event summaries in the app, detailing which exhibitors they met, networking sessions attended and topics discussed. This visibility enables them to demonstrate the value of attending the event, strengthening loyalty and making the case for returning year after year.

AI isn’t just helping planners run events, it’s also solving a common challenge for both planners and marketers that once an event or webinar is over, they are tasked with turning it into engaging content that can be shared across channels.

Fisher notes that with AI-powered platforms like Goldcast, which Cvent recently acquired, that problem is now solved. Once a webinar concludes, AI can automatically generate a digital media kit, ready to distribute across social channels or other marketing platforms.

This capability transforms webinars into cascading waterfalls of content. What used to be a time-consuming task, involving chopping up sessions, extracting key points and repurposing them, is now handled automatically, allowing marketers to get the most value from every event with far less effort.

AI isn’t replacing the human touch at events. Instead, it’s enhancing it. Fisher explains that by automating routine tasks, AI frees planners and marketers to focus on creating meaningful human connections.

For participants, AI can enhance the human experience by making networking more approachable as features like warm introductions match delegates with shared interests and suggest conversation starters, helping attendees connect confidently and meaningfully.

With a focus on the human element, events themselves are evolving into strategic opportunities. Smaller, high-touch formats foster exclusivity and open dialogue, while careful attention to cost and measurable outcomes ensures every event delivers tangible value.

AI enhances these experiences at every stage – from planning and content creation to personalisation and real-time insights – without replacing the in-person interactions that make events memorable.