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- Convene Podcast Transcript Convene Series: Unlocking AI’s Potential for Events - Insights from the State of AI in Business Events 2025 Report *Note: the transcript is AI generated, excuse typos and inaccuracies [00:04] Veemal Gungadin: But to me that's what stood out. It's like, yes, everybody's saying we are using AI, but once you start drilling down, it's a different picture altogether. [00:16] Magdalina Atanassova: Welcome to Season six of the Convene Podcast brought to you by Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. AI is rapidly transforming the business events industry—but how far have we really come? In this episode, we welcome Chantal Sturk-Nadeau and Veemal Gungadin to break down key insights from the State of AI in Business Events 2025 report and explore what’s next for AI in events. Chantal is the Vice President of Spark, DestinAItor & PCMA Insights, leading AI-driven innovations that empower event professionals. With over 25 years of experience in tourism leadership roles, she has pioneered new approaches to marketing destinations and harnessing emerging technologies to drive industry-wide transformation. Now Chantal helps event professionals navigate the shift from efficiency-focused AI use to true strategic value creation. Veemal is the CEO of Gevme - a modern omnichannel event platform powering thousands of events globally. A visionary in digital innovation, he also serves on the PCMA Board of Directors & Trustees and as VP of Digital & Innovation at the Singapore Association of Convention & Exhibition Organisers & Suppliers, where he drives national-level initiatives in Singapore to help businesses and professionals transform digitally. His expertise in AI and event tech has led to innovations like Spark, a personal AI event concierge designed to enhance event professionals' productivity. Together, Chantal and Veemal discuss the realities behind AI adoption in the business events industry, the “efficiency trap,” and how planners can shift from cost-cutting to real value creation. Tune in for a forward-thinking discussion on AI’s future in events and how you can stay ahead in an AI-driven industry. We start now. [02:35] Magdalina Atanassova: Welcome to the Convene podcast, Chantal and Veemal. It's a great pleasure to have you both on. So thank you for making the time. What was the one thing that stood out to each of you when you looked at the survey data that informed the state of the AI report which gave me and PCMA just released? Veemal, let's start with you. [02:49] Veemal Gungadin: Hey, thanks for having us on the on the podcast. Look, once the main thing that stood out for me is that nobody feels that AI is something too far out there. So much so that 91% of organizations that we've surveyed already saying that they are already adopting AI in some shape and form. But then again like that's at the surface level because once we started then drilling down in fact a different picture altogether, that's where then we started seeing that in fact there's only 15%, a low percentage of 15% of organizing organizations that we're calling the leaders. And these are the organizations that are really doing transformational work around AI and then 20% of what we're calling the laggards. And then these are companies that have just, you know, used ChatGPT once in a while, tried it out, and then that's why they, they responded. Yes, we've tried some AI, but by far the, the majority itself is within the 65% where they are using AI in some teams, some departments, not necessarily in a transformational way, but more in terms of productivity gains at this point in time. But to me, that's what stood out. It's like, yes, everybody's saying we are using AI, but once you start drilling down, it's a different picture altogether. [04:24] Chantal Sturk-Nadeau: I'm aligned with Veemal. As you know, we hadn't kind of discussed this, so this is actually good that we're kind of aligned on what we're seeing. But for me, it was the 65% of that middle majority. You know, we all know that when, you know, computers came out, you know, you had early adopters. So I wasn't as surprised the, the, you know, those that are the transforming, because you always have those early adopters in technology that are always going to kind of be skyrocketing right away. Let's get into it. Let's try and figure out how we can move it even further. But a year ago, when I would say AI was out there, I would say that that 65% in our industry as an example of majority. We're not, I'm saying we're lucky if a year ago 25% were in that middle majority. And so I think that's where we're going to see you talk about exponential growth in AI. I think that major majority in a year of 65 continues to get even bigger. But then we're going to start seeing it flow, I think, into those that are the advanced and those that are transforming. But it is going to take that time. It's like those that are still kind of doing some manual work and then using computers, and this is some people that are still doing things the same way. So it's those that really have a hard time. But it's like I've said on a couple of my meetings in the last couple of weeks, it's here. And those that kind of say, no, we don't want to use computers. Where are they now? I mean, at the end of the day, that major majority is going to continue to grow, but get better at what that growth is in terms of moving it up to the advance. So I'm just surprised that it's 65% right now in the major majority, because a year ago I don't even think it was half of that. So kudos to our industry for kind of coming on board right now, even though that they're trying it. Very staggered. They're getting there. [06:21] Veemal Gungadin: Yeah, that's very true. In fact, when we refer to the business events industry, so traditionally it's been known as industry that is slow to adopt technology. Right. If you still recall the whole thing around big data, that has been something that has been spoken about for more than a decade, but people not really doing things transformationally at an organization level. But now with AI, you're right, Chantal, it's like we are seeing that adoption. So it's true that right now it's like 65% are just doing a few things, especially around productivity with AI, but we're going to see these numbers really moving in terms of use cases very, very soon. Yeah, agreed. [07:05] Magdalina Atanassova: I noticed something that you mentioned in the report that was very interesting to me and I want you to give an example if you have one. So how can event professionals shift their AI strategies from cost cutting to value creation and. And escape the efficiency trap? And maybe if you can also elaborate on what the report defines as efficiency trap. [07:27] Veemal Gungadin: Yeah. So when we look at AI and you know, we built a whole tool called spark, the first value proposition couple of years ago that we put for Spark is we say this is a productivity tool. Right. And that's how we've positioned it. And I would say, generally speaking, most of the people, when they go get on board that AI journey, the very first thing is how can we get more productive in terms of creating content, in terms of vetting content and what we are already seeing. And look, it's not been too long since this whole revolution with generative AI, around two years or so. And we're already looking to the need to move beyond that. And that's what we define as the efficiency trap. The efficiency trap is basically when you are looking at the technology in this case AI, generative AI, to just boost productivity. Yes. You can use it to boost productivity in some cases. There are some companies that are doing some of their works, let's say run transcription videos, for example. As simple as that. Right. With 80% operational efficiency. That's what they're reporting because it takes them 80% less time to get these things done, to generate summaries of meetings, which we are all doing these days. But I think we need to start looking beyond that, beyond the efficiency trap itself. And that's where some companies are Looking at how to leverage on AI to value, create. And then some of the examples that we've seen is now finally leveraging on AI in a very easy way to do predictive analytics. Right, where you can use your registration data, for example, using that, putting that for example on Spark and then getting insights in terms of what you can do, who you can attract for your next, for your next event, doing personalized attendee experiences where now the technology is already here, whether you have hundred attendees or thousands of attendees, we can build personalized agendas for each and every one of people and then to do data driven decision making again, which are things that we've been speaking about, but analyzing for example, survey responses at scale, really extracting the insights as what a data scientist would do, like getting these done now, pretty easy. And that's where we're seeing organizations doing these kind of things and in some cases even changing their business models, like creating reports that were partly generated by AI and then selling that to their members. That's what associations are doing or getting those reports sponsored because what they're selling is really the insights. [10:26] Chantal Sturk-Nadeau: And I just would add to that is the analytical side. So when we're talking about product, this is a tool for productivity and efficiency. Absolutely. And those will see that clearly. Where I see the aha moments when I'm talking to clients and VPs of events and I talk about that data going in and the transformative story that kind of comes out, whether it's in a marketing component or it's the analytics side. And when we talk really the, the analytics of whether it's your attendees on matching it with attendees with sponsors, whether it's finding new attendees, like Veemal's saying, that could be coming, but it's now what are you doing with that data and how do you really take it to that next step? And when you think about the strength of that, to be able to help the organization strategically in decision making on how they're even going to do their conference next year, who they should be inviting, how to engage them more, this is all coming from the data and leveraging that AI to be able to get to that next step. So there's so much strength and power with leveraging AI in the events side. It's now just kind of helping, I would say, those that are using it to better understand how to get there. And that's where I think there's a little bit of a gap because it's people think automatically you're using AI. Well, you know, it's using the human. It's taking away the human. No, you have to put that in. But as a human, you have to understand what to do with it when it's coming out. And that's where that then helps you build stronger models operationally, marketing wise, how to engage with your audience, how to increase revenue. All of that can come out of the information that you have, but it's leveraging AI to be able to help you build it for that decision making. So that's where I think that transformation from being more strategic really comes. And it's in. I say the gold is really in the analytics side of Spark because it's what you put in and then it's asking the right things to understand what's going to come out and what to do with it. [12:30] Magdalina Atanassova: After a word from our sponsor. [12:34] Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau Ad: Philadelphia is a city of innovation. From 1776 to today, Philly leads in life sciences with world-renowned research and cutting-edge facilities. Host your next convention in a city where breakthroughs happen. A world of discovery is waiting. Visit discoverPHL.com to start planning your next life sciences meeting. Now back to the program. [13:08] Veemal Gungadin: Yeah. And I'll give you one specific example that stood out for me in terms of how associations, how events are generating more revenue, for example, and that's to do with sponsorship, the sponsorship enhancement. So that's where lots of organizations, what they are already doing is to use AI to do predictive analytics for sponsor matching. So which are the right sponsors where they should be spending effort on? So that's the first step. Then the next thing is basically tailoring sponsorship opportunities with each and every sponsor being able to graph personalized offer for them. Right. And these organizations that are doing these kind of stuff, right, they are reporting like 40% higher sponsor retention. And that's pretty cool, right? [13:57] Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah, that definitely was a wow moment for me. When I saw that stat, I was like, well now that's, that's something to kind of, yes, you know, dive deeper, but that also kind of goes into the other side. The data security was cited as one of the highest or top AI concerns by almost 60% of the respondents. And you, Chantal, for example, said, you know, you focus on the data we can analyze now and be strategic by, you know, using AI for all these data. So how can event planners make sure that they use AI in this case ethically and not, you know, especially when it comes to protecting attendee data? [14:44] Chantal Sturk-Nadeau: Well, maybe I'll just start a little bit and then I'll let Veemal kind of get more on the technical side. I Think part of, you know, using AI and understanding the data is, you know, we've got Spark as the tool for our business events industry. The free signups you have to understand when you go on a free, this is continuously open in terms of your data. When you start to get into any AI platform and you're getting into subscriptions, you're ensuring your security of your data a lot more. Right? So I would always say, when people are asking me, I'd say this is, it's at your risk and what you're comfortable with in terms of what you want to share. Anything. When you're diving into registrations, attendees, sponsors, donors. I had a really good call with a foundation and a society that has donors. They're asking about the security to this information. When you start to say, well, you are investing in a security, you want your house protected, you're going to pay for it. You can't just think that this is going to be. Security is very important, but it's an investment in ensuring that the data that you're using is secure. And I always say if you want to use the tool to its full extent to be able to help you, whether it's the productivity and the efficiency, efficiency side as well as the more strategic and data driven decision making, more predictive for analysis, you want to be able to upload all your information so that it is actually giving you the best output to be able to analyze. So that is the investment. People have said, okay, well you know, from the security standpoint, if I am going into that security, what really is secure and how is that security? And I'm going to let Veemal answer that because, you know, I would say it's just like when people used to start putting their credit card online when we were purchasing, everyone was reticent to wanting to put it in and then they started to understand, well, as long as it's secure, I can do it. So I think it's just kind of always, it's these hurdles of change that people kind of have a harder time with. But I think that we're continuing to learn from it and the tech companies are continuing to get better on ensuring security biases and things like that. So Veemal, maybe you can add a little bit more flavor to that tech. [17:01] Veemal Gungadin: Sign look from a data security perspective. And by the way, that's by far the biggest concern. So you already mentioned that like 60% of organizations say that's the number one concern. But the thing is, in so much that we're dealing with lots of new technologies New AI tools and all that, the fundamentals are still the same in terms of data protection. What should you do with your data? What should you do to to remain in compliance with privacy laws like GDPR? All of these still apply. The new thing that we're dealing with right now are really the slew of tools. So I think the very first thing that organizations ought to be doing, and which is, by the way, already happening, is to define what's the organization's AI policy and then to define what are the tools that are allowed for anybody to use within the organization. Like DeepSeek has just been one of the tools that has been getting so much limelight recently. But now there are concerns in terms of ways the data going. So if you're using that as a tool that is performing probably one of the best, giving one of the best results right now in the world. But then the number one concern should be where is your data going and are you okay to put in? What kind of data are you able to put in there? Are you going to put your customer data in there without having an assurance in terms of data privacy? I don't think so. Right. So these are the kind of things that we ought to be looking at in terms of tools. So really looking at like, for example, the privacy policies, the security guarantees that you're getting with whatever tool that you are, that you are adopting. And today the truth is, like, for example, with ChatGPT, there's an enterprise version of ChatGPT, there's the free version of ChatGPT where it's very clear that your data will be used for AI training purposes, but there's an enterprise version where your data will not be used and then you can safeguard that. And what we do with Spark is exactly the same thing. So we adopt the enterprise route where we give the relevant guarantee, we have the relevant security certifications to say that we safeguard those data. So this is no less different. Like, for example, during the days when we were moving the CRM from Excel on a laptop to the cloud. Right. And then ensuring the data protection of customers on the cloud. So the same thing is happening now. [19:33] Magdalina Atanassova: I feel we have a lot more to dive into in terms of the report. But I just want to ask you, looking ahead to 2025, 2026 and beyond, what emerging AI trends do you think will impact the industry? And also, how would you address that? I'm alluding here to, are there any future research reports that we can expect coming from Gevme, Spark AI, PCMA? So what's Ahead, what's the future holding for us? Chantal? [20:08] Chantal Sturk-Nadeau: this is the first report we've put out, so really gauging the pulse of our industry with AI. And I think that is important because eight months ago, 12 months ago, we were talking about AI in general, so how it was impacting industries and globalization, different economies differently, and I think taking a more deliberate approach to really understanding how it can work for our industry. That's where I think that the security and understanding that PCMA and the Gevme team working together to really enrich our community of users of event professionals. Understanding the obstacles that we're kind of faced right now and continuing to have focus groups, connecting with one on one with organizations and individuals is key. We're not creating this product and then stepping back and just hoping people kind of connect with it. This is an engagement as well on our part to engage with the community consistently so that we can continue to evolve and look at ways that we can improve to be able to get them more strategic in not being the middle majority, but getting them into transforming the future of work in the business events industry. And I think that is key for us. This year we're going to be doing a lot more focus groups and labs to get hands on experiences with new users or more advanced users depending on the global area that we are. And it's going to be interesting to see also from a global aspect where some markets are ahead. So not just taking this data as its totality, but now if we start to drill down even more, and that's really what we're asking other people to do, is take that data, drill it down and then personalize it. So how are we going to tweak that information to be able to teach this industry or in Europe or in Asia Pacific or North America? So it's understanding the personalization where people are at continuing to do feedback with the groups and improving the tool and then knowing that the tool is not as stagnant. So knowing that the give Me team is continuously working on productivity strategic things to add to create more impact for the industry through evolution of the tasks themselves or what we're asking from it. So it's learning, we're learning and that is a kind of a together kind of component, but that we're looking at now gauging this about three times just this year. So this is the first of three reports that we're going to put out this year and that continuously we're going to be getting that information and bringing it back to the industry and sharing it so our hope is that we can see that everyone embrace this in the right way. But we have a lot of work to do to make sure that the training is there and that people start using it and asking people to embrace it in that way as well and be curious with it. [23:03] Veemal Gungadin: Yeah. And with the first report, that's really the baseline that we have set. Right. So we are looking forward to tracking the progress that's happening within the industry and then really sharing that. Then back to your question in terms of what's ahead. So 2025 and many people already saying that it's really poised to be like the year of AI agents where we're leveraging on agents to get work done and which is why from a spark perspective as well. So we've recently launched our AI agent studio and I think it's not futuristic anymore to say that very soon we're going to be dealing with leagues which are AI agents, like an event marketer that you're dealing with. Why not on Teams, Zoom or whatever tool slack that you're using. And then that's an AI event marketer, even professional. Right. I don't think that's science fiction anymore. That's just poised to happen and we want to track that. And, and very soon I think we're going to be dealing with that now. [24:14] Magdalina Atanassova: I think that's the perfect end note to our conversation and I think that would put a lot of questions into event planners heads. [24:24] Veemal Gungadin: I know. [24:25] Magdalina Atanassova: But we're going to have a follow up interviews and conversations with both of you so we can track the progress of everything that's happening in our industry in terms of AI. So thank you both so much for the time and being on the podcast. [24:41] Chantal Sturk-Nadeau: Thank you very much for having us. [24:42] Veemal Gungadin: Thank you. [24:46] Magdalina Atanassova: Remember to subscribe to the Convene Podcast on your favorite listening platform to stay updated with our latest episodes. We want to thank our sponsor, Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. Visit discoverPHL.com to start planning your next life sciences meeting. For further industry insights from the Convene team, head over to PCMA.org/convene. My name is Maggie. Stay inspired. Keep inspiring. And until next time.